Iron MacGyver 3

It that time of year folks! I can smell the popcorn, see the special effects and hear the groans of disgruntled fans. Yes sir, it is summer movie season and I couldn't be more excited. What we have in May is three consecutive weeks of some of the summers most anticipated movie. The follow-up to the record smashing performance of The Avengers, Iron Man 3. The ever delayed classic, The Great Gatsby. And the ever elusive, long awaited sequel, Star Trek Into Darkness. The first three weeks of May could be pure heaven or  pure disappointment, and we are not starting off so hot. This years summer reviews is kicked off with Iron Man 3. Here we go.

WARNING SPOILERS BELOW THIS LINE

Let me start out saying that there is no way that this movie can get a FULLY objective view from me. I read comic books, I analyze the comic book genre to a maybe extreme extent, and worst of all, I got spoiled. Reading some articles online, I accidentally read a MAJOR, MAJOR plot point of the movie, but we'll get to that later. So I recognize now that I cannot give this movie a completely fair shake. But on with the show!

Like 90's RDJ snap

This movie gave us the best picture of Tony Stark that we have ever gotten. Every aspect of his personality is showcased in this film and that is where the strongest moments of the film bud from. In the movie, Iron Man is under pressure by a new terrorist threat in the form of The Mandarin. A shady figure who is bombing people left and right, and challenging people to stop him. He is a mastermind, he hijacks America's broadcasting networks to show his bone chilling "lessons" in real time. Colonel James Rhodes, AKA War Machine AKA Iron Patriot is just awaiting orders to go after him. Meanwhile, Tony Stark is competing for the attention of Pepper Potts from the charming, handsome Aldrich Killian, played to perfection by Guy Pearce. Tony is obsessed with perfecting the Iron Man armor and is already up to the Mark 42  On top of all that, Tony is having anxiety attacks from his experiences in New York during the events of The Avengers. All this is weighing down heavily on him and it only takes a little bit for him to snap.

Eventually the Chinese Theatre is bombed by The Mandarin, and Happy Hogan, Tony's ex-bodyguard is caught in the blast. After this Tony personally challenges The Mandarin and even gives him his home address.  Stark goes home and starts to unravel the details behind The Mandarin bombings. He figures out that there are no bombs being used but he isn't sure how the explosions are being caused. Enter Maya Hansen, the brilliant inventor of the Extremis Virus, and one of Tony's old flames. When she arrives, so do the Mandarin's men. Tony's house is attacked and he only has the prototype Mark 42 to save him. Maya and Pepper barely escape and Tony is presumed dead. 

In reality, Tony's armor saved him and Jarvis, the best character of the whole movie sends hom on a flight pattern to a bomb sight that matched the one of the Chinese Theater. Then Tony walks around with the armor. We get some cool snow shots and he eventually finds a cabin. In looks all well and good but there's one catch. There is a child actor in it!

These always work out well!

Extremis Victim #1

So, Tony sets up shop in there so he can try and repair his heavily damaged Mark 42. While he's trying to repair it, he's also investigating the bomb sight. He soon gets a file from one of the victims mom or something. This part of the movie goes by pretty fast, because there's no explosions or anything so the director wouldn't want us to get bored. This is when the movie starts to get great. Tony figures out that the "victim" of the bombing was actually the bomb and Extremis, the virus developed by Maya Hansen, is being weaponized and used to make killing machine who glow ORANGE! 

Tony of course gets attacked by the Orange Man Group. But oh no! He doesn't have his armor! Whatever is he to do? You know what he does, he man's up, show the audience that the man makes the suit and not the other way around by taking out the Orange Assassins with nothing but some dog tags and some kitchen appliances. This started the best part of the whole film, which was Tony Stark being a genius and not relying on his suit. He tracks the Mandarins broadcast signal with Rhodey's help and sets out to take him down,  suitless. Tony goes to a hardware store and pretty much just acts like the bad-a he his and makes weapons out of household items. He storms the Mandarin's villa and takes out all these guards with nothing but a nail gun, a taser, and like a hot iron on a glove or something... I don't know but it was awesome. Then IT happens. 

Tony has taken out the guards, the suspense music starts, he rounds a corner and sees an empty bed. He raises a gun and pulls the sheets back and who is it? Thats right! It's hookers... Wait? What? Then THE line happens, and the snowball effect takes hold of this movie and virtually slaps Iron Man's arch-nemesis in the face. A toilet flushes, The Mandarin appears and says "I wouldn't go in there for at least 15 minutes." 

Yep. Let me say that again. The Mandarin emerges, the villain that has been teased since Iron Man 1, Iron Man's most intimidating foe, steps out of a bathroom and makes a fart joke.

Your team mates are ashamed of your movie, Tony.

Sigh...The Mandarin is actually an actor named Trevor, who is British, and addicted to drugs, and is pretty much used for 12 year old potty humor. And he was hired by ALDRICH KILLIAN! Oh, everyone? Okay.  I couldn't tell you much about this scene because I left during it. Watching The Mandarin be made a mockery like that was too cringe worthy for me and I couldn't stand it. 

Listen people, this is Iron Man's greatest adversary, and he is sitting in front of Iron Man talking to him like a bro. Some people say "He wasn't The Mandarin!" No, he was. He had 10 rings, he dressed like The Mandarin and he was opposing Iron Man. 

Like a mirror, right?

"Here's my agent's card."

Some people tell me, "Aldrich Killian is the REAL Mandarin." No he didn't act like THe Mandarin, dress like The Mandarin, or do anything Mandarin-esque. He was a cop-out plain and simple. Imagine this: One hour into The Dark Knight, The Joker takes his make-up off and says, "Sorry about that rank fart I just laid Batman, also Falcone hired me to trick the other mob bosses" Then at the end Robert Falcone fights Batman and exclaims, "I AM THE JOKER!" Does that make Falcone the Joker? He pulled the strings but he didn't have the make-up or the gag weapons? Its the same concept. The Mandarin WAS The Mandarin because he acted like the Mandarin. Its simple. That ruined the film for me, I no longer saw the film as a comic book movie. It was a generic action movie using Marvel characters that Shane Black can do what he wants with. I hope Shane Black stay far away from the Marvel Cinematic Universe and the rest of the heroes rouges galleries are kept in tact.

"Come at me Shane."

The rest of the movie is pretty much just a blur to me, I was too caught up in The Mandarin twist to really see stuff happen. I know Pepper, Rhodey, and the President are captured by The Mandarin but Tony's armor flies across the country and latches onto him. (I thought it was broken? Whatever.)  Then there's the cool Air Force One save, and then the throwdown between all the Orange Glowstick Gang and Killian happens on a boat. And a bunch of Iron Man suits fight an Extremis induced Killian. 

I kind of snapped back into movie watching mode when Pepper came  back into the film, Paltrow has a way with owning scenes. Pepper is hanging on a ledge and she has to trust Tony to catch her, with no suit, It was a really touching moment. Then, she falls 200 feet into flames to her death only to make an easily foreseeable comeback later. Moment. Wasted. 

Tony fights Killian, some more bad comedy happens and Tony pushes him off a building or something, I don't really know. In the final confrontation Tony seems to be beaten and Killian approaches him and says "You want The Mandarin? I AM the Mandarin." Pepper emerges from the flames! She was infected with Extremis and her body healed she gets a Iron Man suit on and kills the main villain of the movie. Yep. The main villain of the last Iron Man solo movie is killed by Iron Man's girlfriend. So there you go.

After that, Tony somehow cures Extremis. He gets his arc reactor removed and a bunch of story lines are dropped. Like Tony's anxiety? He fights a battle surrounded by a ton of explosions JUST like in The Avengers and that triggers nothing? It is never resolved in the film and Tony simply states what we all knew, the even though he is a changed man, he is "Still Iron Man."

SPOILERS ARE NOW OVER! READ FOR WRAP UP AND RATING!

Iron Man 3 makes me realized a fear of mine. That the more popular comic book movies get, the more that they will deviate from their source material and that really bums me out. I really expected more respect of their source than Marvel gave us and that's just sad. 

Overall, this movie had some really good elements. We got to see a very vulnerable Tony Stark. His ingenuity and, MacGyver inventions were greatly entertaining. All the performances were great, save one that seemed a bit wasted. The first hour of this film was the beginning to a perfect Iron Man film, but then we hit that point of no return and its all downhill from there. It really stopped being an Iron Man movie and became just another action movie.

The comedy was hit and miss for me. Tony's usual snark was spot on. His interactions with the kid were perfect. The Mandarin scene was disgusting and obviously written for people who are going to see Hangover Part III this summer. A lot of it seemed ill timed, where the movie should have been tense or suspenseful there was a joke. The score seemed almost non-existent, I don;t remember a single note of it.

In the end, the good of this movie is overshadowed by it blatant disrespect of the Iron Man comic books and the rushed ending. 

As an action movie, it was really good. I'll give it a 8/10.

As a comic book movie, it was meh. I'll give it a 6/10.

As an Iron Man movie, it was disrespectful to the fans. 4/10

I know that I'm in the minority that did not enjoy this movie but that's fine, I am not new to being called out on my movie tastes. (Transformers fans.)

Next Week The Great Gatsby! 

The Thanksgiving Weekend Rundown

This Thanksgiving break I felt like a real, professional movie reviewer. I say that because I have seen four movies in the last seven days and it has been a blast. 2012, what I thought was going to be just an okay movie year is shaping up to be incredible. The last four movies I saw, though not all major Oscar contenders, have all been great movies.Although, I do expect to see a lot of them at the Academy Awards this year. So, instead of writing four lengthy reviews I'm going to do a Thanksgiving break rundown with a small review and a rating of each movie I saw, in the order I saw them. Most of these movies are new to theatres, save Wreck-It-Ralph, so you'll have time to go catch them.

First up the 23rd addition to one of the longest film franchises in history (50 years). That's correct its Daniel Craig returning as James Blonde Bond, in SKYFALL.

I won't lie, I'm a little biased towards the Bond franchise because I've been watching it since I was a small child. I don't know if that makes me judge it easier or harsher, so you let me know. As far as Skyfall is concerned, I loved it. It was one of those action films that didn't rely on action sequences to make it  a good film. I'm convinced that it could be a good film even if you left out every action sequence. Its the first Bond film in the Craig era (Casino Royale, Quantum of Solace, and Skyfall) to heavily rely on the acting and the story to keep the movie going. The other two films seemed to be action sequences with story to connect them all, where Skyfall is a story that has acion sequences connected to it. With this one marking the 50th anniversary of cinematic Bond, there were some great homages to the old films, but not so many that its overwhelming. The best part of this movie is the relationships formed between characters. We finally get to see how Bond relates with other people and how they relate to him , its the most realistic Bond movie in that sense. The best performance of the movie was Javier Bardem. He was absolutely phenomenal. Every time he was on screen I was nervous for everyone else, he had such a demanding presence on the screen. He was constantly doing little mannerisms that made his scenes completely unsettling for the viewer, he may be the best Bond villain of all time. Overall Sykfall gets a 8.5/10. I would give it a perfect but it was far from the perfect film and it sometimes relies to heavily on the "Bond" checklist to be a exceptional film.

The second movie I saw this week was The Life of Pi, once again I'm biased since I read the book, but I was definitely going into this movie very critical, some might say overly critical (Transformers fans.)

The Life of Pi has a fairly simple plot, a boy fights for survival on the Pacific ocean while in the company of a Bengal Tiger. This movie was gorgeous. The CGI on the animals was full proof, the way the ocean and the sky would reflect perfectly, the trippy vision thing, that crazy whale scene, they were all so beautiful. I cannot compliment the creators enough they made one of the prettiest films I have ever seen. It was such a visual film I was overwhelmed at some points. The acting was also superb, Irrfan Khan who plays older Pi, the main character, was genius. He was so emotionally involved in his own story that it forced the audience to be emotionally involved. And newcomer Suraj Sharma, who played Pi through out most the film was, incredible. I believed the helplessness in his eyes, anything he did onscreen I understood why her doing that action. Look out for this kid in the coming years. Overall I'll give Life of Pi a 8/10 there were parts of it that lost my attention and also the filmmakers could have handled some situations better, that I can't tell you about because spoilers.

Hold on, we're halfway there. Get ready to hear me gush, because I saw one of the greatest films ever crafted by human beings this week and I'm about to tell you about it.

10/10 I'm just going to say that now. Lincoln was the perfect film, there was not one thing that Steven Spielberg or anyone else could have done to make it better. The cast is the greatest ensemble of actors I have ever seen assembled, headed by the phenomenal Daniel Day-Lewis who is the one of the greatest actors to ever do be a part of film making. Everyone gave a perfect performance, I have no criticism for any of the acting in that movie, it drove the entire film. The best part of the movie is that it didn't rely on any gimmicks or "smoke and mirrors" as my brother would say. It relied on two things and two things only, the story and the people telling it. I'm telling you, they all did such a fantastic job that I was worried about the 13th amendment getting passed. I know full well that slavery is illegal but this movie and those actors did such a great job that I was so enveloped in the story, that things that I knew were going to happen became suspenseful. So, a perfect 10 for Steven Spielberg and I will see you at the Academy Awards sir, on stage, for best picture.

The last movie I saw was no Lincoln, but it was one of the funniest films I have seen this year, Wreck-It-Ralph.

Can I start by saying that I love Disney. I'll just do it, Disney I love you. You will not allow a bad movie to go through your studio, every movie you make you genuinely think that kids and their parents can enjoy your movies, you don't just make good children's films, you make great films. It's always hard to review animated movies because a large chunk of the live-action movie making process is gone. I will say that the voive acting in this was phenomenal. I have never liked John C. Reilly (Ralph) more than I like him here. Sarah Silverman, (Vanellope) Jack McBrayer (Fix-It Felix, Jr.) and Jane Lynch (Calhoun) were all great. The hard part about animation is making me care about a bunch of computer code that is told to make a character move around and move its mouth and Wreck-It Ralph's cast did that, I really cared about all the characters. I was emotionally involved with all of their stories and that's a hard thing to do. The plot was smart, and the jokes were clever, especially for video game fans, like me. I laughed harder at obscure video game jokes than I did anything else, but the non-video game humor was good too, you don't have to be a video game nerd to like it. I'll give it an 8/10.

So that's the film rundown, this has been a phenomenal season for film and things are only looking up. The first part of The Hobbit looks great and one of the only films that looks like it can rival Lincoln at the Oscars in Les Miserables.

Feel free to comment, agree, disagree, what you want to see reviews of. Thank for reading!