I never thought we’d get to this point, but the warm(er) weather is finally upon us! And with that warmer weather comes movies; action movies. Action movies with explosions! Cue Iron Man 3, the long-awaited sequel to the kind-of-disappointing previous entry in the series.
The movie takes place after the Avengers film, which would usually set us up for disappointment after the awesomeness that was the freaking Avengers film, BUT lo and behold; this was actually pretty kick-ass too! You just have to read this to understand why (HA, I’ve locked you in now! You can’t escape bitches! ... Hey, hey, don’t run away! I was kidding!!! Damn American kids and your sensitivity. In my day, we had those parts cybernetically removed! Grow an artificial pair why don’tcha!?).
So by this point in the story, Tony Stark (played by the “sexy in a totally plutonic way” Robert Downey Jr.) is pretty shook up from the last movie; so much so, that he begins having panic attacks. As a result of this, he builds more and more Iron Man suits, because hard labor makes perfect sense when you’re having panic attacks (and again, I feel this is a good time to discuss those cybernetic enhancements I was raving about in the last paragraph. Takes the pain away, kids! *thumbs up*). Pepper Potts is however gettin’ real tired of Tony’s s@#t, and starts to grow more and more distant from him, which is funny because it has nothing to do with the fact that she’s like twice his height. (Seriously, look at how she’s barefoot in every scene with him while he’s wearing high-heeled shoes and STILL looks shorter! Go ahead and look; I’ll wait… You see it now? Wasn’t that freaking hilarious!? Haha, he can’t reach her at eye-level!)
Amongst all of this estrogen-fueled chaos, a new terrorist villain emerges called The Mandarin, who starts attacking different parts of the US and making videos about how he’s going to keep doing more of it. This doesn’t sound familiar to any attacks on the US in any way shape or form either… None… Also, I am a flying pig who farts out rainbows. True story. Anyhow, this doesn’t actually matter to Tony at all, until a security guard named Happy Hogan becomes a victim of one of the attacks. This character was never really a big deal in the movies, but for some reason, this sparked Tony to go bats@#t insane and threaten The Mandarin, giving him his personal house address. Mandarin takes that challenge, and all hell breaks loose.
This film is quite different from the previous Iron Man movies. I assume that new director Shane Black is the biggest reason for this. Instead of having a boatload of crazy action like the other movies, this one focuses more on story, development, and feels that will probably make you uncomfortable (Seriously though? Those cybernetic enhancements?). And you know what? I think that’s a great thing. Sure, call me crazy (and you should; I’m f@#king nuts), but this movie actually did well by focusing on its plot more. We finally got to start taking Tony and Pepper’s character more seriously, as well as many other characters in this film. James Rhodes and the Iron Patriot armor are excellent, but anyone who’s actually a fan of the Iron Patriot armor knows that’s not how it came to be, and it’s not nearly as epic as when Norman Osborne donned it with the Dark Avengers. But what do you care? You’ve never read that and probably just rolled your eyes at me. You think I didn’t see it? I’ve seen things you could probably arrest me for if you knew about it. Haha, yeah. Think about that before you go to sleep... ;)
Unfortunately, there’s not much more I can say about the movie without giving away srsly srs spoilers. Just know that it’s good; really really good. As long as you actually appreciate a good story, and are willing to deal with a little less action this time around, I think you’ll be really happy. Some of the pacing was a little slow, but I rarely got bored. It takes the plot of “Middle-Eastern terrorist attacks the US” and turns it so hard on its ass; you’ll start to wonder if there are some things your country’s media isn’t telling you about the world… lolz, couldn’t say all of that with a straight face. ^_^
9 sets of Iron Man armor out of 10
Joss Whedon (director of the Avengers film, along with the criminally under-appreciated series, Firefly) actually said he doesn’t know how he’s going to make a sequel after watching this film. Without giving anything away, I can understand where the poor guy is coming from. With that said, I openly invite Mr. Whedon to direct my movie instead. I can’t provide you all of the millions that Avengers banked you, but I CAN provide plenty of chimichangas, as well as my skills after the zombie apocalypse takes place. You may laugh at this request now, but this is no laughing matter. Besides, I’ve already stolen the blueprints of Tony’s old armor sets and tweaked it to my OWN specifications… Oh yes, that’ll do nicely…
Oh god, keep Wade away from a power suit!
ReplyDelete