Been a while since I did a ‘movie review’ or felt strongly enough to SAY anything about a movie. After last year’s wonderful movie releases, including the Avengers, Spiderman, Brave, Batman, and Wreck-It Ralph, I was hoping for more great movies this year, with Iron Man 3 leading the way…
Unfortunately, Iron Man 3 didn’t deliver.
These are just some random thoughts that I’ve had from watching the movie.
The movie was OK at best. It felt very disjointed and kinda hard to follow. My guess is that there’s about 30 – 40 minutes of footage on the cutting room floor that would absolutely make the movie flow better. Kinda like Episodes I through III of Star Wars. The cutting room floor stuff actually made the movies make sense.
***mild spoiler alert***
IM3 seemed to be cut from a very different cloth than One and Two. It felt like the studio said, ‘Hey look at how successful the Batman movies were! Let’s make this one just like the final Batman movie, all dark and serious and stuff!’
The beginning with the voice over was really weird. It was almost like they took the opening sequence from the first movie with the time bump, but tried to let a voice over explain it instead of letting the people / actors / scenes tell the story. Plus, the one liners feel very flat, and cheesy. The other Marvel movies seem to be very light hearted, with the jokes being able to be tossed out with a second thought. In this movie, every joke is almost cringe worthy.
The next disappointing element… the music. Where’s the AC/DC? How about Black Sabbath? Good ol’ hard rock & heavy metal? The hip hop doesn’t cut it for this movie.
For me, the biggest disappointment is that Tony Stark doesn’t get to *be* Tony Stark. Downey Jr. makes the character the likable a-hole because of his playfulness and just ‘fun’ spirit. That is so crushed in this movie. Stark is dour, moody, uncertain, and generally miserable throughout the entire movie. If I wanted that, I’d go watch Batman. The arrogant, fun, playboy that everyone wants to party with is completely missing.
One good thing is that you get to see more of Pepper Potts. She has a bit screen time in this one. Unfortunately, it didn’t feel like she and Stark connected that much, not like the first movie or the Avengers.
As much as I hate to say it, the Iron Man movies are probably done. It seems Hollywood is in love with the format of 3 movies, then retell the first one again. It’s truly ironic that the latest Spiderman summed it up pretty nicely (I’m paraphrasing)… ‘There is only one storyline; the main character discovering who he/she is’. I think that’s why the original stories are always so intriguing. We don’t really care that a hero is doing hero work, we want to know why they became a hero in the first place. Unfortunately, that bites the comic book stories in the rear. Three movies isn’t a lot of time to develop a character.
Will Downey Jr be back for the second Avengers movie is anyone’s guess.