Iron Man 3

[Thrizzle]

His first name is Le.

[Panch]

I've always thought it was weird too, but that's what they call him.

[crimsonfire]

So I saw Iron Man 3, I enjoyed it but I will say this:

 

 

What they did with The Mandarin was fucking stupid. Yes, Kingsley made it work to some extent and yes I know Iron Man villains are historically a bit too ridiculous to work on-screen but c'mon! They're taking levity to insane heights in the Marvel films lately. Not everything needs to be a fucking quippy little intellectual reacharound. Audiences may be getting smarter but that doesn't mean we can't have some honest to goodness cheesy blockbuster fare. They're throwing the baby out with the bath water. Am I on crazy pills? Am I the only who doesn't like the way the Marvel films are going with this tone?

 

[Iambaytor]

I don't think it's that bad, it fits with the storyline and though it's funny it doesn't compromise the dramatic element of the storyline to be funny. The stakes are still high, shit's still dangerous, a little levity is a good thing in this age of dark gritty "you guys I am so fucking serious about dressing up like a bat and throwing pieces of sharp metal at the mentally insane" superhero movies. So no. Also this:

 

<div style='width:650px;font-size: 12px;'><embed src="http://cdn2.escapistmagazine.com/media/global/movies/player/flowplayer.commercial-3.2.12.swf" flashvars="config=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/config/7231-15816c7776e9abc06ad3471919c62de4.js%3Fplayer_version%3D2.5%26embed%3D1" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" quality="high" bgcolor="#000000" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" pluginspage="http://www.adobe.com/go/getflashplayer" width="650" height="391" wmode="opaque"></embed><div><a href='http://www.escapistmagazine.com'>The Escapist</a> : <a href='http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/the-big-picture'>The Big Picture</a> : <a href='/videos/view/the-big-picture/7231-The-Big-Spoiler-Iron-Man-3'>The Big Spoiler: <i>Iron Man 3</i></a></div></div>

 

More on the Mandarin:

He's a shitty character, and MovieBob is right at best he's going to be a Lo-Pan ripoff, at worst he's going to be a more racist knockoff of movie-Bane and movie-Bane was just fucking silly.

 

Edited May 18, 2013 by Iambaytor

[Mr. Hakujin]

MovieBob knows what time it is. I totally agreed w/ that video review.

[Jables]

So I saw Iron Man 3, I enjoyed it but I will say this:

 

 

What they did with The Mandarin was fucking stupid. Yes, Kingsley made it work to some extent and yes I know Iron Man villains are historically a bit too ridiculous to work on-screen but c'mon! They're taking levity to insane heights in the Marvel films lately. Not everything needs to be a fucking quippy little intellectual reacharound. Audiences may be getting smarter but that doesn't mean we can't have some honest to goodness cheesy blockbuster fare. They're throwing the baby out with the bath water. Am I on crazy pills? Am I the only who doesn't like the way the Marvel films are going with this tone?

 

 

EXACTLY! I'm just sitting here doing my best to embrace the change but this kinda stuff is weird cross-genre like when solo Avengers or other popular characters get a Max or Knights mini with a little more edge. You don't typically pick up the popular avengers or Iron Man title for a cerebral read. But this really paved the way for a movie like Ant Man to do well, because I was already anticipating these kind of noirish shenanigans and they'd have had a weird time trying to market it as well IMO. I mean Wright is huge, but Wright Dollars aren't the same as Avengers Dollars.

 

This is what I was positing to be Phase 2: Bringing higher concepts/ different genres into play.

[Visitant]

I know i'm the only guy who likes Moon Knight but i think he would be great for a serious film. But for every srs marvel film I want a silly quippy movie. Here's hoping Spider-man delivers.

[The NZA]

I know i'm the only guy who likes Moon Knight

 

[Mr. Hakujin]

I know i'm the only guy who likes Moon Knight...

Somewhere there is a NZA whose Spidey sense just tingled.

Edited May 18, 2013 by Mr. Hakujin
Toldja. Bastard beat me to it.

[Iambaytor]

I agree with that eagle

[Panch]

Seconded.

[Reverend Jax]

I mean Wright is huge, but Wright Dollars aren't the same as Avengers Dollars.

Whedon dollars weren't exactly super-bankable before the Avengers, either. I mean, Buffy and Angel had successful runs on fledgling second-tier networks, but Firefly, Serenity, Dollhouse, the original Buffy movie, he was not what anyone in Hollywood would have considered a sure-fire bankable talent, and while fanboys and fangirls rejoiced at the announcement that he would direct The Avengers, that doesn't mean it wasn't a risky bet for Marvel/Disney (did Disney own Marvel when that decision was finalized?).

[Jables]

Nah. Snyder showed that sticking to more authentic interpretation of the source material can be bankable, and Marvel went for a guy with fan credibility who's something of an underdog, so they probably didn't have to fork out as much either.

 

What I'm saying is that a typical Edgar Wright movie is being pitched to a different crowd to an Avengers movie. Yes there's nerd and pop culture overlap but the thing is; Avengers marketing is all about netting the general viewing audience in addition to the nerds it can more or less take for granted as being there, whereas your 'nerd genre comedies' ala Spaced, the Cornetto trilogy and the like, are making trailers to get you, the niche audience excited and doesn't really play to the larger crowd.

[Reverend Jax]

Again, no one would have called Whedon a mainstream choice prior to Avengers. Wright's Ant-Man will make lots of money based on nothing other than it's be a Marvel Studios branded movie and it's coming out right after Avengers 2 and kicking off Phase 3, which if anyone at Marvel knows what they're doing, they will have hyped people up for considerably. I'm predicting it will make $500M worldwide, more than Thor 1 or Cap 1.

 

Anyway, Iron Man 3 passed the billion dollar mark yesterday, and passed The Dark Knight's worldwide gross, and will pass TDKR soon too to be the 2nd highest grossing comic book movie yet.

Edited May 19, 2013 by Reverend Jax

[Iambaytor]

So I caught a late show of this last night, I knew all the spoilers because I couldn't resist that Moviebob video and because Hakujin had to be a little cuntbitch and straight up say it completely unspoilered in the Ender's Game thread (that's why that post was negged, by the way) so we could apparently applaud his wit.

 

I liked this more than The Avengers, and I REALLY liked The Avengers. Admittedly, Iron Man 3 was an entirely different type of movie that was far less epic in scope and the only thing they seem to share is a universe and some of the same characters (as it should be.) I like that S.H.I.E.L.D. wasn't involved (my theory is that they knew what was going on on both sides and they knew Tony would handle it.)

 

I'm glad to see Favreau was a good sport and came back as Happy Hogan. Though can we talk about John Favreau's ever-changing weight? He's worse than Peter Jackson in this regard. My theory is that ingested a wildebeest prior to production and didn't finish digesting it until well after the premier.

 

Shane Black blew this out of the water and I'm glad to see my early excitement was not misplaced. He did things with the characters and set-pieces that a lot of other directors would not have. I like that the villain wasn't just another guy in the suit, that Tony spent a large portion out of the armor and using his intelligence to get him through the situation, and I'm glad they made him vulnerable and a bit buffoonish even at critical moments. The PTSD angle is much more interesting than tackling the whole Demon in a Bottle storyline, it makes Tony Stark less of a scumbag than his comic counterpart but it also just makes for a better storyline. The thing with the kid was also great because they didn't go sappy with it and it felt more real because of it.

 

 

I also like that the movie was more mature, this did not feel like a kids movie that adults could watch too and I appreciated that about it. The Mandarin reveal was perfect, did anybody not see that coming? He was ridiculous: the accent, the fortune cookie thing, I'll admit that the videos were suitably chilling but any other way of tackling that would have been ridiculous and dumb. Killian was a really good villain and his glowy super soldier army were legitimately creepy and menacing. For the first time it felt like Tony was up against an enemy who actually outmatched him without having to handicap him.

 

Unkillable Pepper should also take away any danger of damsel in distress or women in refrigerators syndrome in the future. I like that she's the one that finally killed the villain, it was the logical progression of her character at this point in the series and I'm glad they had the balls to pull it off. Honestly, this is the movie that The Dark Knight Rises should have been, it's not nearly as contrived and has a lot less stupid inconsistencies that any moron could spot. DKR was a smart movie that was very stupid and Iron-Man 3 is a dumb movie that was done very intelligently. It did its own thing and it's unique, and fun, and just satisfying in every way. Fuck everyone that had a lukewarm or (god forbid) negative reaction because this was not just good, it actually proved that superhero movies could do something different and it already raised the bar further than the Avengers did last year and I like that it was a serious movie with actual stakes without resorting to taking itself far too seriously like the Batman movies. Movies like this with a sense of humor make it far easier to overlook little flubs and are just generally far more easy to take seriously.

 

 

I'm glad to see that Marvel's hiring talented directors that haven't really gotten their due. Joss Whedon hit it out of the park and so did Shane Black, I'm glad to see they're taking a chance on James Gunn and Edgar Wright as well. I hope maybe they could score Peter Jackson, Sam Raimi, or even Guillermo Del Toro in the future. I also hope they hire Joe Carnahan to do that Daredevil movie he wanted to do, and they have the rights to the Punisher, maybe they could talk Walter Hill into that (doubtful they'd even try, but it would be awesome.) I hope Marvel sorts out their actor/payment issues and continue making money because they seem to be upping the ante in a serious way. The trailer for Thor: The Dark World looks a million times better than the first (and I rather liked the first) so I expect good things to come from Marvel Studios in the future.

[Mr. Hakujin]

So I caught a late show of this last night, I knew all the spoilers because I couldn't resist that Moviebob video and because Hakujin had to be a little cuntbitch and straight up say it completely unspoilered in the Ender's Game thread (that's why that post was negged, by the way) so we could apparently applaud his wit.

So you spoiled it for yourself, but I'm a cuntbitch for trying to make a joke?

 

 

I probably should've wrapped it in spoilers. I still negged you anyway because, you know, that's what's expected.

 

[Iambaytor]

I'm not the only one who read that, and at the time I didn't know.

[C_U_SPACECOWBOY]

Dammit Hakus! You annihilated my +1 to Baytor's review!

[Iambaytor]

It's okay, we all know he's a monster.

[Panch]

There you go, Jon. I gave up mine for ya, buddy.

[Mr. Hakujin]

Dammit Hakus! You annihilated my +1 to Baytor's review!

Please, like anyone actually read that whole thing.

[Iambaytor]

Is anyone else disturbed by the fact that a man who teaches language and reading to our nature's youth frequently dismisses anything longer than 6 paragraphs to be too long to be worth reading? you're kanye's ghost writer, aren't you?

[Mr. Hakujin]

Is anyone else disturbed by the fact that a man who teaches language and reading to our nature's youth frequently dismisses anything longer than 6 paragraphs to be too long to be worth reading? you're kanye's ghost writer, aren't you?

Good Lord, no. I'm not dismissing "anything" over six paragraphs too long to be worth reading. However, if something is going to be written terribly, at least make it as succinct as possible...

 

 

Hence my mini-movie reviews.

 

Self deprecation is in this season.

 

[Reverend Jax]

Iron Man 3 is now the 5th highest grossing movies of all time for worldwide box office. It will probably not go any higher as it is about $200M away from the current 4th highest grossing film, the last Harry Potter. But at least there is no longer a Transformers movie in the Top 5.