Invincible? Not Exactly, but Not Bad.

Grab your seats, class is in session.

We haven’t had a lesson in a while because, well, let’s be honest. The Professor is a might lazy and hasn’t seen a whole ton of new movies since the Amazing Spider-Man came out. However, being the Marvel fan that I am, there was no way I wasn’t going to see this one. So, today’s lesson is the 3rd in the Shellhead trilogy:

When the first Iron Man movie came out, I admittedly was a bit skeptical. While a popular character in the comics, I wasn’t sold that Iron Man was enough to carry a whole movie, let alone bring people in masses to see it. Needless to say, I was more than pleasantly proven wrong. I still stand by the feeling that the first Iron Man movie is the best Marvel superhero movie to date, with the Avengers coming in a real close second. Along came Iron Man 2, which in some ways was doomed to not be as good. Iron Man was really so iconic, what could they honestly have done to top it? Not many sequels outdo the first, outside of Aliens and the Empire Strikes Back (I know there are others, but those are probably my best to examples.) So along came Iron Man 2, which while not a bad movie, certainly didn’t match the first. In some eyes, the second movie was garbage. I disagree, even though I wasn’t a huge fan. It was still good enough. Then came 3 along with its new man at the helm, Shane Black. A scary thought in itself as people tend to worry about continuity, the different writing styles, etc. It’s a fair worry, usually. When two different people write scripts for the same character, they write what they want, not what the other created. Something always changes noticeably, it’s unavoidable. Sometimes this makes things horribly wrong. Sometimes, this actually makes the series better. What happened here? Something in between.

So part 3 takes place after the events of the Avengers. Tony is having issues because he can’t explain exactly what happened, or how it happened at all, and for a man as brilliant Tony Stark, that isn’t good. It causes issues for him and makes him doubt himself, which is a huge theme that runs pretty much the entire movie. I do my best not to spoil things here, so I won’t give examples, but you can definitely feel it. For me, probably a little too much so. I’ve always known Stark as a guy who doesn’t normally panic, he just figures it out. While I get the need for it here, it might have gone on a little too long and never really has the resolution I would have expected.

I can’t say much more about the story without really giving away big portions of it, so this portion of the review is tough to write. One thing I will say is that the movie does have a definite “man vs. machine” vibe to it, although I’m not 100% sure it was supposed to. There is also a lot more Tony without the suit than I expected, and I’m not sure how I felt about that. The movie is called Iron Man, which he really isn’t without the suit, so that kind of bugged me. Again, that probably falls under the “man vs. machine” feeling. If you see the movie, I think you might get what I mean. I would go more into the story, but without the spoilers, it’s just a rehash of what you have already seen on the previews anyway, so I’ll go on to other parts.

The cast. I really don’t think I need to get into Downey, Jr., Don Cheadle, or Gwyneth Paltrow. They are each excellent actors whom we have already seen in these roles. They honestly don’t bring anything overly new here, and really, don’t need to. The one thing I can say is I would have liked more Don Cheadle/War Machine. It’s a strong character that really needs to be more prominent. So that basically leaves us with Ben Kingsley, Guy Pearce, James Badge Dale, and Rebecca Hall. Three of these four characters have fairly major plot twists, one of which I was not a fan of. Let’s start with Kingsley. He is of course one of the best actors of our time, and that doesn’t change here. He plays the Mandarin, one of Iron Man’s oldest and most dangerous enemies in the comics. They moved away from the comic route here, which made perfect sense. Not really sure the comic Mandarin would have played properly, so he was turned into a world terrorist bend on world domination. He gets Tony’s attention by killing innocents at first, and then hurts someone close to Tony to really get his attention. His twist is the one I did not like, but I understood it. The other three characters I went in honestly knowing nothing about, so I can’t really explain how well or how badly they might have played the character, but I’ll do my best. Guy Pearce’s character, Aldrich Killian, is a scientist who is starting an organization and wants Tony to join him. Once I caught the name of his organization, how his character would play out became mostly predictable. I did enjoy his performance. His character could very easily have been WAY too over the top, and I felt he kept a lid on it nicely. I liked Rebecca Hall when she was in The Town, so I was fairly sure I would enjoy her here as well. It was difficult though, because while her role in the movie is important, she doesn’t see a whole lot of screen time. Understandable, as there are a lot of players, but I guess I expected something more. Her twist is also somewhat predictable. James Badge Dale also kind of falls into that category. His character, Eric Savin, was a bigger character in the comics, from what I have read. In this movie, though, I’m not entirely sure why he had to be Eric Savin. I’m fairly sure he could have been a new character and still had the same effect.

The effects. I really don’t need to say much about this, do I? Like them or not, the one thing all the Marvel movies have had are amazing effects. Being a part of Disney and now having Industrial Light and Magic to go along with it, this part can only get better. The scene with all the armors flying in that you probably have seen in the trailers is just phenomenal. The armors themselves honestly look real, whether he is in them or not. It’s difficult to even notice when it’s CGI vs. actual armor they created. Just amazing.

What did I like? Of course, Downey, Jr. It’ll be a shame if the rumors of his no longer wanting to be Tony Stark are true, because he is the only person outside of J.K. Simmons to completely nail the comic character to a T (J Jonah Jameson, from the first 3 Spider-Man movies). I love the effects, as if you couldn’t tell. I very much enjoyed the pace of the movie as for me, it never hit a lull that didn’t keep my attention. It does slow down a bit, but even then there were enough important things going on to keep you engaged.

So, what didn’t I like. Not a ton, but there were somethings. I did not like the Mandarin twist. I did not like what I felt was a little too much “Tony Stark as James Bond” in the movie (you’ll see it when you see it). There was not enough War Machine and when there was, he was made to look a little silly. It also was, at times, a little TOO campy, but that didn’t surprise me at all. There’s a reason a lot of people are calling this “Kiss Kiss Iron Man” (Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang was a Shane Black movie with Downey, Jr., for those who don’t get that reference.)

So overall, I dug the movie. Was it great? Not at all. Was it bad? Not at all. It was definitely enjoyable. In the Marvel pantheon, I’d put it somewhere after Avengers and above Thor. Definitely better than Iron Man 2, but no better than Iron Man 1. I would say it’s worth seeing in the theaters, if for no other reason than the amazing effects and battle scenes. Oh, and stay through the credits. Funny stuff.

I do believe, however, that it will not be the “Geek Movie of the Year”. I believe Star Trek: Into Darkness is going to take that title.

Until next time…

Class dismissed.