Iron Man 3 (2013)

It's at this point that I wonder if I'm the right person to be writing about the Marvel movies. True, it's not like I was assigned this or anything, but you know what I mean. After Phase 1 of Marvel's plan reached its conclusion with "The Avengers," and out of the 6 films in that series, I was blown away by a grand total of 1 of them, it started becoming clear that perhaps I'm just not a Marvel guy. I just don't get the rabid, slavering praise they usually receive.

Maybe I need to read the comics to truly "get it," but I've never been a comic book fan. I just watch the movies and hope that there won't be too much stuff that flies over my head. This usually doesn't work out. I just assume every time the audience I'm seeing it with freaks out and applauds over a character appearing that they're someone important. This may hinder me from getting the same level of enjoyment from the film that they do, but at least I'm not subject to the same insane nerd rage they have whenever they see the next great "ultimate betrayal."

I'm sure I'd feel the same way about Deadpool, friend, but fortunately I don't even know who that is.

With "Iron Man 3" I was excepting to have a really good time. Hopefully. However there was a bit of apprehension on my part, considering that even though I love Robert Downey Jr., the character of Tony Stark has been steadily sliding down the scale towards irreverent, obnoxious comic relief. Yes, I know he's always been a snarky smart-ass but Joss Whedon took him so far in that direction in "The Avengers" that he should have just dressed like Oscar Wilde and had a rimshot after every line.

Actually, "The Importance of Being Ernest" would have been way better with robots.

I was very relived to find that "Iron Man 3" did indeed drop pretty much all of the camera mugging that Tony Stark had been doing in his last few outings, and instead had him act like a human being who doesn't have something witty to say after every single thing that's said. Now it's only about 50%, which means it's still a lot, but coming from 98% in "The Avengers" it seems almost dour.

Unfortunately this is one of those instances where I have to once again be a big buzzkill and go against the common consensus when it comes to the Marvel franchise. Like most of the rest of the films before it, there isn't too much glowing praise I can give "Iron Man 3" because it was just okay. It wasn't bad, by any means. This is a well directed, well acted film that has a great look and style to it. Hell, it's by Shane Black, who is a director I really like. The craftsmanship on display is admirable. I can not take that away.

But at the same time I'm having trouble remembering much about it. Some of that has to do with the fact that I don't have an encyclopedic knowledge of these characters, which made the story kind of hard to follow. Some of that has to do with some clumsy storytelling. And some of it has to do with me being kind of bored through a portion of it.

After "The Avengers," Tony Stark is suffering from some PTSD, which is understandable since he almost died. He can't sleep, is getting even weirder than normal, and eventually starts getting full blown panic attacks. Throughout the film he tries to come to terms with all that, which serves as his character arc here. I do have to give the "Iron Man" trilogy credit for having Tony Stark evolve as a character with each film.

The actual plot has to do with The Mandarin (Ben Kingsley), a shadowy Osama bin Laden type figure who is doing a pretty good job of blowing up a lot of stuff without getting caught. There is also an epidemic of exploding people going on which seems to be connected to The Mandarin. After his friend and head of security, Happy Hogan (John Favreau) gets severely hurt in one the attacks, Tony foolishly calls The Mandarin out, only to get his house blown up and all his stuff wrecked.

Oh man. This was ill-advised.

A side story that eventually takes center stage is a scientist named Alrich Killian (Guy Pearce). He's working on technology that will allow people to rapidly heal themselves, and also turn themselves into 3000 degree walking infernos if they feel like it. That's a hell of a side effect, but there you go. That's a real scientist in action, folks. There is no thing in science which doesn't lead to horrible, world-ending abominations of mankind.

"Hey man. Do you want science or not?"

So we've got The Mandarin blowing stuff up, Killian doing science that assures that he'll be a villain, and Tony traipsing around Tennessee trying to fix his suit. Eventually everything comes together and we get a showdown with these walking fireballs and a whole lot of Iron Man suits that are all fully capable of fighting without anyone inside. This is all fine, and fulfills the requisite number of explosions, at least in the third act when the action thankfully kicks in after a pretty talky first two acts.

I will praise "Iron Man 3" for Tony getting to show off his ingenuity after he is deprived of his suit, and must construct a bunch of makeshift weapons that come across like if Red Green had to make an machine like that. True, there was no duct tape that you could see, but I'm pretty sure there was probably some in there somewhere. Either way it was fun to see him go DIY after we're used to him pulling the most random bits of super technology out of his ass like the computerized version of Batman's utility belt.

"If they can't find you handsome, they might as well find you capable of improvising lethal weaponry."

I will say that Guy Pearce is doing a very good job of turning me around on my opinion of him. For a very long time I thought he was at best an average actor but lately he's really been busting his ass proving me wrong. In this film he's quietly intimidating to great effect, and he was actually a lot of fun to watch. Even though he character going from the mindset of helping mankind to terrorism just because a rich jerk snubbed you once seems like a rather severe leap. I'm just saying.

Ben Kingsley as The Mandarin was...interesting. When he's being the cold, ruthless terrorist he's perfectly evil, as Kingsley is an old hand at villainy to say the least. Then the character is taken in a slightly bizarre direction, and while it seems out of nowhere and probably a departure from how he is in the comics (I have to assume), I have to admit to getting a lot of entertainment out of him in the second half of the film.

 The Mandarin could be either a terrorist or the singer for an awesome power metal band.

Gwyneth Paltrow was alright I guess. Pepper Potts was always kind of a nothing character for me, personally, as I'm not quite sure why she's there because she doesn't really do anything. But at least here she serves more of a purpose when she gets kidnapped and is the focus of a "shocking moment" that was effective for all of two seconds before I called what was going to happen after. I was a bigger fan of Rebecca Hall, because even though she's kind of pointless too, she is gorgeous while doing so. Not that Gwyneth isn't easy on the eyes as well but Rebecca Hall is so hot you could cook a steak on her.

Medium rare, please. :D

The only person I didn't care for was Harley, a little geeky child played by Ty Simpkins. Ty is a fine young actor who was good in "Insidious" but I was not a fan of Harley. He's obnoxious and can't physically shut up. There's a scene where he ends up giving Tony a panic attack after rattling all these questions about the alien invasion at him, and I almost felt sick to my stomach - not because I had PTSD but because I wanted to punch him so hard that it caused me pain. I will admit that the chemistry between him and Downey Jr. was great, though. You can tell they had a lot of fun.

You know, all of this adds up to a fine film. It's entertaining, it's well acted, and it's seldom dull. So why aren't I aglow with praise? I'm not sure, really. I think it just goes back to me not really caring overly much about the Marvel franchise. And at the end of the day, if I can't recall a good majority of the film a mere day after seeing it, what does that say?

"That you have a moderate to severe head injury?"

I'm not sure. I don't know what my deal is with these movies. But whatever my issue, it probably means I'm going to get a lot more people telling me I'm dead wrong. Fine, whatever. Start the nerd rage. Take a number. I'm going to be over here, watching "The Dark Knight Rises."

Here's the trailer for "Iron Man 3," in case you've been under a rock for 6 months.

THE BOTTOM LINE - "Iron Man 3" is a competent movie. It's fine. It's well done. And it's fading from my memory so quickly it's difficult to remember many of the praises or various issues I had with it. I can't see myself watching it again, although I'm not upset that I saw it. I honestly have very few feelings towards it whatsoever. So if my apathy isn't condemnation, by all means consider this a recommendation.

Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows (2011)

I like Guy Ritche. While "Revolver" didn't do much for me, I thought that "Snatch" and "Lock Stock N' Two Smokin' Barrels" were two very fun movies, and the first "Sherlock Holmes" was an awesome time. Of course, the first time I saw "Sherlock Holmes" I thought it was a confusing, disjointed mess that I couldn't make heads or tails of, and I slept through what seemed like a good half hour of the film.

This may seem odd, but I do have an excuse: I was ripped off of my freaking gourd. It was Christmas evening, and after I had put forth a long day of heavy drinking my friends called me up and asked if I wanted to see a movie with them. I said "Sure, as long as you drive." So while being so drunk that my back molars were singing "Anchors Away," I saw "Sherlock Holmes." This was a mistake.

"Sherlock Holmes" is not a movie for stupid people. Nor is it a movie for people not paying attention. Nor is it for people who are drunk to the point of reaching a plane of incorporeal existence. And while I don't consider myself part of the first group, the second and third group counted me among its VIP members that evening. So that was that. I did not like "Sherlock Holmes."

Then when it came out on DVD I watched it sober and loved it. Lesson learned: Guy Ritche is one director you don't want to watch drunk. Him and Darren Aronofsky. Ritchie because his plots are really twisty turney, and Aronofsky because if I did I'd probably want to kill myself afterwards due to apocalyptic depression.

Anyways, after waiting an obnoxiously long time for "Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows" to come out for rent (I sadly missed it in theaters) I'm happy to say that the sequel continues the first film's intelligence and entertainment factor. I dare say that it may be a tad more intelligent than its predecessor, in fact. But while the script is smart, and the characters fiendishly so, I can't help but feel that some of the entertainment factor may be ever so slightly lacking. And while the character is great, I have to say that it's due to the fact that the villain, Professor Moriarty, is a bit too obfuscated.

That is actually pretty ironic when you think about it, really. The whole point of Moriarty is that he is this criminal mastermind who is orchestrating Machiavellian plots without ever revealing himself or his true intentions to anyone. Holmes is the only one who can keep up with him, which is why him and Moriarty play so well off each other. These two are locked in a game of mental chess that only they know the true maneuvers of.

Like the game of chess they play which is AMAZING.

And that's why it's a problem for us. It's so tiring at times trying to figure out what exactly it is that Moriarty is up to. This makes sense, of course, and watching Sherlock figuring it out is fun, but as a result I found that I wasn't ever really intimidated by Moriarty. He has the makings of a fantastic villain, and Jared Harris does a phenomenal job playing teh eeeeeeevals, but I couldn't really get scared of him because I had no flipping clue what it was that he was doing. Now, they do explain his master plan, and he is killing people and torturing Sherlock with a meathook (good gravy), but I never picked up "World Shattering Consequences" from his plans even though that's what they amounted to. Perhaps a scene earlier in the film which laid his plans bare would have been helpful.

Now the main reason people see this film, and any film with Robert Downey Jr., is for Robert Downey Jr. And while I wasn't a big fan of how they turned Tony Stark into a mugging chuckle-head in "The Avengers," besides that I can't really think of a single performance he's given which wasn't spot on to the point of running away with the film. "The Avengers" was the only movie I couldn't stand him in. Everything else has been gold. And it's still true for "Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows." He just so completely owns the role of Holmes that, like pretty much all of his characters, it's hard seeing anyone else doing it. So nothing has changed in that regard from the first movie.

If anything, Holmes is a bit more high strung in this movie, which in many ways is a lot more fun to watch, but he is climbing so many walls he should invest in some mountaineering gear. This is due to both meeting his intellectual equal (some would say superior), and Watson getting married, which brings up a facet of the movie which some might consider a tad...unnerving. Since there's no real polite way to say this, it's best to just come out and say it:

Holmes and Watson just need to bang and get it over with.

Now that's not being judgmental or insulting to the characters. I'm not even saying that either Holmes or Watson are gay, but there are some unresolved feelings and issues there that need to be addressed one way or the other on the right-quick, because the fate of the world could literally hang in the balance. I mean think about it. Moriarty is trying to cause a world war, and our only hope can't think straight because he's trying his best to underhandedly and subtly oust the bitch stealing his BFF. Is this really the best thing for the fate of the world?

Come on, Watson. For the sake of all mankind...give Sherlock some sugar.

Ok, ok. That's my little immature wink-wink nudge-nudge moment for this entry. Don't worry, there will surely be more. That whole dynamic between Holmes and Watson just makes it that much more interesting to watch anyways, and Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law both are having so much fun playing these characters that it's impossible to not like them. It's seriously one of the better on-screen buddy movie pairings I've seen in a very long time.

Also, on a closing note, it's nice to see me liking Noomi Rapace again. She's really growing on me as an actress, and while I wasn't as taken with her as I was in "Prometheus," her Madam Simza was another step in distancing myself from her Lisbeth Salander, which I am grateful for. And any movie where Noomi Rapace takes over for Rachel McAdams is doing at least one thing right.

THE BOTTOM LINE - "Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows" may not be as instantly memorable as the first film, but it's a fine addition to what will hopefully become at least a trilogy. Don't expect it to be as surprisingly good as before, but it's well worth the time. Recommended.

The Avengers (2012)

I intensely dislike Joss Whedon. I would love to punch him in the face. Him and that smug style of writing he has. I can't explain it, but there it is. I've never been able to put my finger on what it is about his writing that just irritates me to no end, but I'd say there are two big factors: smugness and the fans.

The first factor is pretty self-explanatory: Whedon's writing is full of itself. Nearly every line from every character in one of his shows is some quirky, wink-at-the-camera, oh-I'm-so-clever, snarky joke that I just never see the humor in. And the second factor, the fans, love it.

Oh you Joss Whedon fans. I really am not too fond of you, either. Not on a personal level, no you're fine people generally speaking, but you just can't wrap your heads around the fact that I don't like Joss Whedon can you? That fries you to your core, doesn't it? It just gets under your skin and festers like a wound. Your eyes go wide, your jaw drops and you shout "WHAT?!" at me when I responded (after you asked) that I didn't like "Firefly." Then you tell me I have no taste in sci-fi. Every time. You lot are nothing if not consistent, I'll give you that.

 "You DARE defy The Great Forehead?! Destroy him, my minions! FLY!!!"

I've actually been threatened with physical violence over "Firefly" before on two separate occasions, so don't tell me you people can't get a bit intense. "Star Trek" fans don't do that when I say I liked "Voyager." They just roll their eyes and say "Next Gen" was better. That's called "civility," people. I'm sorry your show only lasted a season. Trust me, FOX screwed me out of MY favorite show, "Arrested Development" too. I feel your pain. WE ARE KIN.

So before going into "The Avengers," let me clear the air and address some things right now. Here are the issues which I'm sure I'm going to get called on, and let me answer them here and now.

1) "You're going into it with a bad attitude!"
I wasn't too excited about "The Avengers," no, but I wasn't dreading it. I was more neutral. But I've never liked Joss Whedon's works before, so you can't blame me for being apprehensive.

2) "It's just a movie, dude! Turn off your brain and have fun!"
I like to have fun with my brain ON, thank you very much. I don't consider mindless acceptance a positive quality to have. That trait is why Michael Bay still has a career. It's kind of evil.

3) "Why do you have to nitpick everything and ruin everyone's fun?"
Because unlike most of you, I'm a critic. It's what I do. I've been doing it for years. I was published in a newspaper. It was my job. What do you think my reviews would have been like had I just typed IT WAS AWESOME 100 times? It doesn't mean I'm necessarily out to ruin stuff, I'm analyzing it. And don't ask me what I thought if you don't want the truth.

4) "But in the COMIC they explain-"
Didn't read. Don't care. Irrelevant.

5) "Well I thought it was awesome."
Cool! I thought it was mediocre!

Ok? Now on the part where I make a lot of people mad at me. Beforehand, let me just say, I'm sorry and please don't firebomb my house.

Before I get into the character aspects of the film that I found annoying, I'd first like to bring up some plot related stuff that really irked me. First up is that there seemed to be some real inconsistency in powers. Most of this come from The Hulk. Now, at about the halfway point of the film, Thor has a fight with The Hulk, and while he doesn't exactly beat him up, it was a pretty close fight before it got cut short. However, later in the film, Thor has his little showdown with Loki and can't touch him. And then here comes Hulk, beating the ever-loving cream-filled stuffing out of Loki.

How does that work? We also have to assume Thor was probably going easy on Hulk at least a bit, since he probably didn't want to really hurt him, if that was even possible. But there's no way he was going easy on Loki. So if Thor could hold his own against Hulk while holding back, and Hulk could just sneeze on Loki to pulverize him, Loki verses Thor at full tilt shouldn't even have been close. Instead, Loki pretty much wins that fight. So exactly how powerful is he, then? Make up your mind, movie.

"Hulk level up between scenes!"

And another thing with The Hulk! Why does Hulk all of a sudden not go into an insane rage the second time he Hulks out? He was trying to kill Scarlett Johansson earlier, and now he's fighting alongside them and taking orders? What changed? Did I miss a line? All of a sudden he's totally cool, capable of taking orders, and totally knows who is on his side and who isn't? You just can't do that without explaining it! It seemed that Whedon realized that he wrote himself into a corner with Hulk, but said "screw it" and had him fighting with The Avengers at the end just because.

OH! Another thing!!! How in the hell did the mystical MacGuffin wind up on the roof of Tony Stark's building without him knowing? The dude is hardwired into everything on the freaking planet with his tech, yet his AI butler dropped the ball on his home security?! And you can't tell me they hacked his AI butler, because he's functioning perfectly throughout the entire affair.

Alright, alright I'm done with the plot holes. Besides, apart from the MacGuffin on the roof, none of those were really deal breakers for me. They were more like little annoyances. No, for me the real Listerine in the punchbowl were the characters themselves, and how they acted. Particularly the guy who was once one of the most awesome superheroes around, but has now become one of the most insufferable: Tony Stark.

"Hi, my name is Robert, but you can call me Chuckles the Clown."

Tony Stark is hands down the least interesting character in this film. He's a walking punchline. And no, that doesn't automatically make him awesome. That makes him a punchline. There's a difference. I seem to recall Tony being slightly less obnoxious with the amount of jokes and "Lookit me, I'm not taking this too seriously" lines in the other "Ironman" films. I mean, they were there, sure, but they seemed a bit more spaced out. In "The Avengers" it's like EVERY SINGLE LINE with this guy. If Tony Stark is on the screen, there can't be 12 seconds going by without a witty, snide comment with the appropriate amount of pause afterwords so the audience can laugh. Irritation and distraction are not powerful enough adjectives to describe the effect that had on me. And of course, he's probably the Avenger with the most screen time.

The far more interesting characters for me were Captain America and Thor. I found Captain America interesting because he was the man representing loyalty and faith in the system, something he fought and basically died for, but he gets thrown in a position of having to question that very loyalty and coming to terms with what the "right" thing to do really is, even if it means disobeying orders. It's an interesting bit of character development which lasts for about 5 minutes before an action scene starts, and when it's done he's made his decision. That's fine, but personally I would have liked to have seen it addressed maybe one more time, because it was a good angle for the character.

Now Thor I liked because of the connection he had with the villain. Loki being Thor's brother added a connection that the other characters couldn't hope to match. For that reason, the scenes between Thor and Loki are quite good and have far more impact on a dramatic level than when any of the other Avengers are fighting him. For everyone else it's just the Big Bad of the movie, but for Thor it's personal.

Loki also possess the power to turn into Michael Sheen.

Thor is also the only character that was given the exact proper amount of funny lines. That total ended up being maybe three. He's basically the complete antithesis of Tony Stark in that regard, since Tony had maybe three lines that were serious, and for that reason Thor was the only character that I actually found funny. When he said something humorous, it was unexpected, and to be perfectly honest, Chris Hemsworth had a FAR superior sense of comedic timing. The one joke I laughed at was Thor meekly mentioning that Loki is adopted when it's brought up that his brother killed a lot of people. That was pretty funny.

But YOU need to shut up, dude, before you wear out the love I have for you...

Speaking of shutting up, the absolute biggest problem I had with this flick was the unbelievable amount of talking going on. GOOD. GRAVY. I thought we were over this. Did I miss something? What have we been doing the last half decade? What were all those other movies about? You know, the FIVE Marvel films that were the lead-in to "The Avengers?"

I thought the point of those was so that we didn't need an hour and a half of talking in "The Avengers" movie. I thought in this movie, since we already knew everyone, they would simply form a team because of an evil that threatens the world, and a lot of stuff blows up and awesome superhero action awaits without having to bother with drama and petty bickering.

Boy was I wrong. Almost the entire first two acts of the film are devoted to the Avengers bickering and in-fighting with each other as they can't seem to come to the simple conclusion that they really need to work together otherwise they're all dead. Oh wow. That's fun. That's what I paid $10 to see: superheroes having a penis measuring contest. For that reason I found the first 2/3rd's of the movie to honestly be pretty darn boring, with the exception of an occasional brief action scene snapping me out of drifting off.

But shock of all shocks, once the third act comes along, "The Avengers" out of nowhere gets pretty freaking good. I'm not going to lie, the last act is outstanding. And although the action does have an annoying habit of flipping back and forth between "phenomenal" and "way-too-close-what-the-hell-am-I-looking-at-stop-shaking-the-camera," the ratio of amazing to confusing is severely skewed in the positive direction. The last 40 minutes or so of "The Avengers" is probably some of the best, most consistently exciting action I can recall from...well nearly any movie, really.

And that fact makes it just that much more frustrating for me when I realized that had this movie been about half an hour shorter, started at the third act, and just played out Loki's plan to a more severe outcome, "The Avengers" would have ROCKED. The alien invasion that is the third act should have happened by the half hour mark. Not the hour and forty minute mark. This should have been a movie entirely made up of The Avengers fighting back the alien horde. Not Tony Stark and Steve Rogers puffing their chests out at each other and setting a time and place to fight after school.

Most of the movie is The Avengers fighting each other rather than the bad guys.

I know people are going to come down hard on me for having these views, but I'm sorry. For the most part I found "The Avengers" to be boring, obnoxious and WAY too full of itself. And I blame every single bit of that on Joss Whedon, because that is the exact same reaction I've had to pretty much everything he's ever done.

And for those of you fanboys and fangirls ready to tear my head off over what you would probably call my "blasphemy," ask yourself a question, think about it seriously, and be honest:

"Did you really enjoy "The Avengers" on a objective level, or did you enjoy it simply because it's there?"

THE BOTTOM LINE - "The Avengers" is not a bad movie. It's just not that great if you ask me. It's kind of boring, it takes way too long getting started, the plot never really solidifies, and most of the movie is superheroes being snarky jerks to each other. When it finally does pick up at the end, it's fantastic, which is the best redeeming quality for the film. Fanboys will worship it because that's what they do. For someone with their blinders off, I can say it's just "OK" at best. Recommended for a rental, or perhaps theaters after all the annoying diehards are done seeing it 15 times.