It might perhaps be too early to anticipate IRON MAN 3

All depends on what you think of Shane Black.

really? :(

The slavering comments on the story are a bit weird.

would be more interested in seeing his Doc Savage movie tbh

shane black owns, should be cool

If he writes, then YES YES YES. If he only directs, then YES. Also if he brings in Kilmer and him and RDJ go improv crazy so it's like "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang Iron Man 3" would be my dream that will never happen, of course

But Black is great. I can't see this being a bad thing.

http://blogs.indiewire.com/theplaylist/archives/drew_pearce_will_write_script_for_iron_man_3_not_shane_black/

genius

shane black just screams 'helmer of empty event movie', but all these rumours about him being allowed to WRITE it? crazy talk. thank god the studio has seen sense.

Anyway, things are starting to get a little clearer now, thus:

James Badge Dale will play Savin, a villain in Iron Man 3. Robert Downey Jr stars and Shane Black is directing. Badge Dale just finished The Lone Ranger for Disney, and will next be seen in the Robert Zemeckis-directed Flight with Denzel Washington and World War Z with Brad Pitt. Marvel Studios has just gotten underway with the film. Ben Kinsgley has been rumored as The Mandarin, and Gwyneth Paltrow and Rebecca Hall are also in the film.

...hm.

http://www.comicbookmovie.com/fansites/JakeLester/news/?a=60689

And it's...a photo! Of something!

http://www-deadline-com.vimg.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/im3__120604171341.jpg

Also:

The gang’s all back with Robert Downey Jr. once again playing billionaire Stark as well as the Amored Avenger himself. Gwyneth Paltrow returns as Pepper Potts, Don Cheadle as James “Rhodey” Rhodes and Favreau himself, who is also one of the executive producers on the flim, as Stark’s driver Happy Hogan.

Gee given the Avengers you would have thought they could just name him Hulk...

I love how that picture really emphasizes that Iron Man is Barbie for Boys

io9 clarifies a thing:

It seems we may have jumped the gun with all those rumors saying Rubicon star James Badge Dale was playing the Iron Patriot in the movie. But, perhaps you're saying, didn't we actually see set photos of just exactly that? Well, it looked like we did, but the latest reports suggest what we actually saw was the new costume War Machine wears in the movie, and Iron Patriot isn't in the movie at all. (Dale, by the way, is supposedly playing Coldblood, which seems like a better thematic match for Ashley Hamilton's fellow villain Firepower anyway.) The fact that a white guy was in the suit instead of James Rhodes actor Don Cheadle is simply because, well, the stars don't actually walk around set in those giant suits unless they absolutely have to. So, that was just a stand-in. The rumors add that War Machine's armor is now ready for military use, which is why it has the new all-American look.

We got Mandarin:

http://img.gawkerassets.com/img/182ym113iczs1jpg/original.jpg

Trailer tomorrow, etc.

And behold

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2CzoSeClcw0

Extended look trailer worth at least the first 30 seconds of your time:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tl-pn7ADx1c

haven't detected any Shane Black in the trailers so far

maybe he came up with that opening though

"Make him look EXACTLY like he was drawn by Bryan Hitch."

http://spinoff.comicbookresources.com/2013/02/18/iron-man-3-poster-introduces-guy-pearces-aldrich-k*ll*an/

Trailer out.

uhhhhh Ben Kingsley...?

This was fun, crowd literally screaming in the cinema I was in.

Really enjoyed this, thought it was better than the second one, though I suspect fans of the comic might not.

and since Kiss Kiss Bang Bang was mentioned upthread... really, Guy Pearce's character may as well have been played by Val Kilmer. Not sure if it was intentional, but his introduction was essentially a tribute to Kilmer's performance in The Saint.

Really enjoyed it myself too. Might even be tempted to see it again.
Can't really talk about it without giving spoilers which might be a bit early just yet. Assuming that the preview day here was in sync with elsewhere around the globe. But this is a 2ary town, not the capital so I could be a week out.

But did like the joke of the end scene talking about Tony Stark as narrator., whcih I assume that was about.

Also really like the end credit sequence, but think I may have missed the couple of cameos from other Avengers at the end.

This was fun, crowd literally screaming in the cinema I was in.

― stet, Friday, April 26, 2013 6:05 AM (Yesterday) Bookmark

what were they screaming?!?

"Eeeeeek!", "Aaaaaaargh!", "Whooooooo","Gadzooks!" Etc.

This = great! Scary, funny, increasingly ridiculous as it gets closer to the end.

I'm not sure that being a bigger fan of the comic would cause you to prefer the strained father-son relations and over-stuffed sausage of the second film to this - but then I'm not sure what would.

I don't know that there was any obscure Avengers cameos, Steveo, though you've reminded me that I went to check the IMDB trivia page, and one of the items, probably stuck in as early as Ned's first post here, relates to the role of an established Marvel supervillian, mentioning who was up for it first, who was considered, and who eventually got it. Dude is in the film for literally 5 seconds :)

I also noted one or two other places where the bones of a previous script seemed to be sticking through, but I'll shurrup for a bit until more people have seen it.

Also I really want to watch this in Croydon now, which is not to be honest something that I could say about the first two.

I'm not sure that being a bigger fan of the comic would cause you to prefer the strained father-son relations and over-stuffed sausage of the second film to this - but then I'm not sure what would.

Yeah I kinda phrased that earlier sentence wrongly... I just meant that comic fans might not be too happy with this movie's version of a certain character's backstory.

@Andrew re: established Marvel villain: wasn't Andy Lau originally supposed to play that role? I mean it turns out to be nothing, but still.

Yeah looking around it was apparently a bigger deal at some point - there's a on-set shot of character + Rhodey + Pepper in a hospital ward which is completely absent from the movie, I was just amused because literally 5 seconds.

Roz - verging close to spoilers, but I think playing that character the way they did is the only way to play them in 2013 (as well as being fecking hilarious)

Man I need to see this

an established Marvel supervillian

please please please be MODOK

Yeah, I was going to bump it for the weekend, saying dudes: if you are thinking about seeing this film, go out and see this film.

i am thinking about seeing this film

i will go out and see this film

Indeed so. (Plans to see it on Tuesday in place.)

wondering abt seeing it on Sunday morning

*wonders*

Thought this was pretty solid. Best of the Iron Man films, though I'm not really a fan of them so it isn't saying much. Dargis was pretty off the mark in her NYT review.

i'm tbh v excited for this

looking forward to some Kingsley action

Going to see this tomorrow -- pretty stoked.

this was enjoyable (not great), loved just how little it was an iron man movie, a brief bit at the beginning, an awesome scene about an hour twenty in and then the deus ex machinas overload at the end. thought they handled the mandarin pretty brilliantly, kingsley was awesome. when cheadle and downey were on the docks w/ handguns i was grateful and happy that shane black had managed to almost completely turn this superhero flick into another buddy action film and then stark calls in 'backup' and i'm thinking 'omg superheroes are awesome'. it doesn't feel as fresh as the first one did but i'd definitely agree that this is the best iron man movie.

Saw this last night and loved it, great dialogue, RDJ's scenes with the kid are top notch, the Mandarin is a stroke of genius. Honestly does more to interrogate the US mindset re: terrorism than The Dark Knight did, and I really like TDK. An uncomfortable bit of "too-soon"-ism re the scene at the Chinese Theater, but that's not the movie's fault.

Jon Favreau got swole, btw.

shane black factor has got me super-stoked

Without meaning to get into spoilers (for a couple of days) the whole "No, Jon, you're not the director any more but you are totally in the cast, we have a very special and important job for you" angle is pretty lol.

this is the best marvel movie by a large margin. i was afraid that black's voice would be diluted by all the marvel machinery, but it's really A Shane Black Film through and through... just pg-13

when cheadle and downey were on the docks w/ handguns i was grateful and happy that shane black had managed to almost completely turn this superhero flick into another buddy action film

otm

Quite surprised at the uniformly positive reaction. I didn't think it was Shane Black enough. A damn sight better than the second one but decidedly average

there were some points where you could tell SB was on a leash, like when a certain character is cracking budweisers when you know he should be snorting coke and dropping f-bombs... it feels like tony stark was meant to be even harder edged too and disney probably wanted those corners smoothed down a bit. still i think the best instance of an authorial voice coming through clearly with one of these flicks

God save us

lol

hang on to yr petticoats, morbs

okay, y'all sold me

H4A OTM, IMHO. LOL

Yeah this was a good time.

A damn sight better than the second one but decidedly average

otm

it's interesting how these marvel movies have like, carved out their own vocabulary or something, i don't really know how to put it. i hesitate to call them "comic book movies" bc it's like they've created their own genre that exists outside the universe of actual movies. it's hard for me to judge them on their own. i'm not sure if it's a good thing or if they're all just so formulaic they've achieved some bizarre singularity

seeing this next bargain Tuesday for sure

i hesitate to call them "comic book movies" bc it's like they've created their own genre that exists outside the universe of actual movies.

Makes sense since the comics did roughly the same thing in 1962-65.

I thoroughly enjoyed this! Keep in mind I am a stan for The Long Kiss Goodnight and stuff Shane Black has written in general.

you are among friends, fellow-stanner :)

definitely hear that on Marvel movies doing their own very specific formula. kinda like James Bond in that sense.

this one was a lot of fun though, by far the best of the Marvel superhero flicks that I've seen, mainly because of Black and how he pretty much forces this to be a Shane Black movie. the way he handled Mandarin was excellent, both made the character somewhat relevant and did away with the gross fu manchu vibes the original character had--and, as expected, fanboys are hating the movie because of this.

remember Marvel's "Acts of Vengeance" series from 1989-1990? When the Mandarin flew in to kick some Avenger ass, a policeman cries, "Look! A flyin' Chinaman!" The Mandarin says, "Spare me your petty racism, fool."

haha

I thought I heard comics dudes liked this movie

oh well, I thought it was a fun buddy action film

Yeah, where are these hater fanboys? Every reaction I've seen has been positive so far.

Going to the 3:00 matinee shortly.

~~spoiler~~

mandarin starting out using a heath ledger joker voice with bane-ish iconography and then turning into a poncey british actor also read to me as a funny send-up of nolan's villains. im surprised the fanboys are hating this but i guess a lot of them must've thought kingsley saying 'turrorist' and 'teacherrrr' was badass and wanted more of it

yeah can we just turn this into a straight-up spoiler thread yet

just glanced at the imdb boards and yes the fanboys are indeed OUTRAGED at how the mandarin was treated and how quippy it was, lots of negative comparisons to tdkr.

movie fanboys on imdb, right?

thinking it's an inferior film to sandpaper grit tdkr is pretty funny

imdb threads -

Does anyone have any clue as to why they messed up with Mandarin soo bad?
NOBODY wanted to see a 'meta'-Iron Man movie...
Anyone else annoyed that this was set at Christmas time?
Anyone hoping for a IM reboot soon...
This will go down as a bigger failure than spider man 3
This was complete trash
how did marvel even approve this script?
So it's official. TDKR was better
Why was this film so campy?
They could easily use (and salvage) The Mandarin in the future
It ceased to be Iron Man when...
Got the last 2 tics and walked out after 15 minutes
Comparing this to TDKR is like comparing Transformers to HEAT
unbelieveable hate
This is why the mandarin fail
Don't blame the Avengers for this one sucking

william sadler as the president was funny shane black casting. c'mon, who would even elect that guy to be dogcatcher. big disappointment: miguel ferrer not getting to chew any scenery

yeah though as soon as he was shown as veep you knew what that meant, loved the 'dunh dunh DUNH' at his granddaughter or whatever's deformity reveal.

haha yes

xp Yeah, I hear that - the one scene they omit in the interests of not spelling things out, and it'd be the one with Miguel Ferrer!

lol imdb. smdh.

The epic fanboy butthurt is just so amusing to me.

It's hilarious when someone's biggest problem in their life is that they don't like the movie portrayal of a comic book character.

Why was this film so campy?

WTF? Has this person even seen the other movies?

shane black handled the kid subplot fairly well in this, which i'm grateful for. in the wrong hands that could have been excruciating.

i was kind of disappointed there wasn't more miguel ferrer in this though

haha when the kid showed up i briefly panicked, like dont go soft on me shane... it worked out well though

Doing this tonight. Anyone watch 3D ver?

The show we wanted was sold out, the next two shows were sold out, didn't want to see it in 3D or late in the evening...I'll give it a few days.

I hadn't seen Tupelo so crowded in 20 years.

We saw the 3D - it was unobtrusive.

$175.3M US weekend according to the BBC, 2nd biggest ever. Why aren't Sunday ticket sales included in weekend numbers?

They are, that # is based on projection.

yeah real number comes out monday or tuesday, sometimes studios will fudge their estimation to spin a flop or try to get #1 in a tight weekend.

This was way great!

Iron Man 3's $175.3 million debut is a huge leap over Iron Man 2's $128.1 million. That's a remarkable achievement given the dodgy history of three-quels—nearly all of them decline from their predecessor—and Iron Man 2's questionable reputation. The main reason for this is simple: audiences viewed Iron Man 3 more as follow-up to The Avengers, which is almost universally beloved, than as a sequel to Iron Man 2.

The Avengers was a cultural phenomenon, though, and it took an exceptional marketing effort from Disney to retain so much of that movie's audience. The centerpiece of the campaign was the destruction of Stark's Malibu home, which managed to up the personal stakes while also showcasing some impressive action. The marketing also emphasized Stark's conflict with the elusive Mandarin, which is typically a good strategy with superhero movies (a hero is most interesting when juxtaposed against a strong villain). Add in a marketplace devoid of competition, and this was a perfect recipe for a blockbuster opening.

the kind of insight only boxofficemojo can deliver

The marketing also emphasized Stark's conflict with the elusive Mandarin, which is typically a good strategy with superhero movies (a hero is most interesting when juxtaposed against a strong villain).

gree hee hee

exceptional marketing effort

BTW am I crazy or is the mansion that Stark infiltrates the same one used in the climax of Beverly Hills Cop?

lol

how about the fact that the ending starts with a black guy and a white guy with guns looking like a buddy cop duo and they're... in a shipyard

reminds me of something, maybe something this director wrote, can't put my finger on it

BTW am I crazy or is the mansion that Stark infiltrates the same one used in the climax of Beverly Hills Cop?

I thought it looked verrrry familiar when I was watching the movie so it's possible!

Guy Pierce was the Gary Busey of this movie.

i was sort of surprised there weren't any other avengers in the action at all, even for like a little token cameo or something (except that one exception), figured they'd milk it. it also sort of doesn't make much sense for like captain america to disappear when the pres is in danger and stuff

kind of the definition of comic book continuity, there

oh yeah i suppose, but these movies have a lot more to gain by getting everyone excited about their little reunions

The razor's edge between anticipation and excitement for cameos and x-overs on one side and "familiarity breeds contempt" on the other side is going to be one of the most carefully-navigated parts of this whole Marvel Studios thing from here on out, now that everybody knows for absolute sure that the filmed M.U. is potentially worth billions.

"a lot more to gain" than the 2nd biggest opening ever?

the explicit goal of this one seemed to be to make sure that people still wanted to come out for an individual character's movie. that's obviously a better position for marvel than having to go back to the shared universe well to get butts in seats, especially since it would devalue the next avengers movie

2nd biggest opening ever isn't cool, you know what's cool
a billion dollars

lol

When Guy Pearce first walked into frame, I thought it was Val Kilmer as Gay Perry from Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, they look exactly the same.

guy pearce in the opening scene looks exactly like one of kilmer's characters in The Saint. im sure if kilmer wasnt a bloated has-been he would've been in the mvoie

kilmer was apparently gonna play a SHIELD agent in early drafts

jumping in here to say that Tony Stark having really real panic attacks was one of the more affecting things I've seen in a movie recently.

this was pretty great but i wish they'd slow some of the action down, not sure if i'm getting old or what but sometimes i was like, is this iron man or the flash?

also bummed that they seriously underused miguel ferrer, he can be such a great heel

Btwn this and spider man, I never knew limb regeneration research had such evil consequences

definitely hear that on Marvel movies doing their own very specific formula. kinda like James Bond in that sense

Jeez I'm surprised I haven't seen MORE of a mention of Bond so far on this thread. Obviously Black's a freak for those films thus Kiss Kiss Bang Bang even just as a title, but the whole John Barry guitar when Stark first infiltrates the mansion, the way the end credits sequence was soundtracked, "Tony Stark will return," etc., it's there and then some.

Anyway, that aside, great fun, Lethal Weapon 5 and I'm with the sentiment expressed on Twitter that a Mandarin film with Kingsley would rule.

i really love how shane black sets all his movies at christmas

Forget Bond, this movie straight up ripped off Metal Gear Solid in a lot of ways!

also cool how much of a point they made of showing tone chowing down on healthy snacks in the first half of the movie

lol'd so hard at the two fucking ORACLE product integration bits. Tony Stark's holograms: powered by the Oracle™ Cloud™. Some shitty news remote van: powered by a fucking Oracle Exadata rack that starts at $200,000 for an 1/8th rack.

(just checked an Oracle price list because I care)

I don't know much about news van equipment. They always look so cool and bleepy and like, frequently left open with nobody in them and "could I just slip in there for a few seconds and swipe something I could fence for a few grand?" But yeah, the rack in the van was pretty jarring to me too.

also cool how much of a point they made of showing tone chowing down on healthy snacks in the first half of the movie

― we're up all night to get (s1ocki), Wednesday, May 8, 2013 1:28 AM (3 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I totally missed this. What was he eating?

while the cheadman was eating fries, he had a veggie snack plate. while in his lab, there were multiple shots of his plate of sliced apples

did he eat mandarin oranges like you for breakfast

at least minus 60% this weekend, amirite

this movie was bad. the thing i took away from it is that the people who coordinate the special effects and fight sequences of these movies are way more adept at manipulating the viewers' emotions/sympathies than the people who write the scripts. i felt that the fight sequences, for the most part, were really elegant, and did a good job building and relieving tension in a way that was engaging, whereas the actual screenplay was incompetent and jumbled.

at least minus 60% this weekend, amirite

― ballin' from Maine to Mexico (Dr Morbius), Saturday, May 11, 2013 11:49 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark

whoa MAJOR ZING

no just trying to estimate the rate at which product like this exists only when it's fresh and wet.

you mean art like this

This thing is up against what? Nothing... It'll be #1 in the box office for a few weeks at least. ticket sales of IRON. 15% of it from adults who still have fond memories of the first Iron Man, 85% filthy children who will watch anything.

pretty sure these films' willing adult viewers break down half and half between "fond memories" and "will watch anything"

lol you're probably right.

it's fun and serviceable

h8 these nostalgic adults, making our culture soft and decadent because of their fond memories from five years ago.

I remember those days...you could make references to MySpace and Jim Cramer in a movie and not be laughed at...

btw this ruled

why? the best part for me is the hilarity of the pseudo-science... when they were standing inside the brain scan and he points to the blank spot and says it means that humans are "scheduled for an upgrade" or something. but i thought, in general, this movie was kind of messy -- the villains' motives were confusing, for one thing, and the kid wasn't integrated into the plot as fully as i think they intended -- and, for me, that made it unsatisfying. the best superhero movies are elegantly crafted, i think.

ummm the only comic villain whose motives were straightforward were General Zod's. He wanted the whole world to KNEEL BEFORE ZOD.

The villain's motives were messy? One was wrestling between pursuing research to its unethical end and having a conscience while the other was becoming a Perfect Specimen while attempting to generate a neverending war conflict that could create endless profit by selling weapons to both sides; where's the messiness?

Also, did you want the kid to move in with Tony or something?

Mandarin used his confusion ring on Treeship

the main villain seemed to have two motives. 1.) a vision of an improved humanity, like lizard man, dr. frankenstein etc. and 2.) a vendetta against tony stark for standing him up. and it wasn't clear which one was really driving him so i got bored. it would have been better if he was just a utopian dreamer type of character, i think. to me he wasn't compelling.

seeing this tomorrow, can't wait!!

xxpost, oh i didn't remember the war profit thing. never mind. i still think the movie seemed kind of disjointed and didn't do enough to make me feel invested in the conflict.

that dude who was like "look, I hate working here, these guys are so weird" was incredible

i have to agree that the bad guy motivation was kinda weak but the hilarity of the mandarin reveal more than compensated for that

http://www.marvunapp.com/Appendix/Image443.gif

ben kingsley as "trevor" was a highlight

the quips really made the movie. back and forth with the kid was great. also the closing action sequence was hilariously ott.

I loved how self-conscious the movie was about making sure Tony Stark was mean to the kid so as to avoid the 'cutesy' cliche. Made up for the essential superfluity of the kid character imo.

sterling otm

I saw this on Sunday - really, really dug it. Love that it was pared back to almost-an-action-movie, lots of legit good dialogue. And yeah, I TOTALLY thought we were going to get Gay Perry when Pearce first showed up in the opening scene. It was interesting though bcz Mr Veg was v underwhelmed by it, said he didn't feel like it did much of anything very successfully.

Honestly I was more in the camp of, Iron Man 2 sucked balls because there was waaaay too much Iron Man in the suit, so the fact that this was a 90% Tony Stark kicking around dragging the suit behind him was a lot more satisfying for me as a fan of the movies.

The one thing I did feel palpably though was how much less of a kid-friendly vibe this Iron Man has vs the first 2. Favreau skated the line pretty well between movies for adults/movies for children whereas Black seems more likely to have been reigned in from an R and this is him at the most kid-friendly he could manage. This was definitely more of a 'technically this movie is for adults but if your kid can deal, okay cool'

but I loved the comedy of him with the parts of the suit and such, and the barrel of monkeys skydiving rescue cracked me up.

my bird

I liked the callback during the big fight scene when the suit targeted Pepper to Tony's nightmare and how his suit almost attacked Pepper in their bed.

I normally find GP to be a really boring white person but the bit with her kicking ass was hot

sorry, feeling really dudish today

Quite honestly, Gwenyth Paltrow in this role across all of these movies and The Avengers was a career redeemer for me.

I think the Iron Man/Avenger movies are the only time I've ever really legit liked Paltrow...and her kicking butt was awesome.

xxpost yeah I liked that too!

yeah i think goop is great in these movies, she has nice comic timing and the vibe she brings to them is really distinct

and i love her with freckles

freckles are cool, sure

Quite honestly, Gwenyth Paltrow in this role across all of these movies and The Avengers was a career redeemer for me.

I usually like her acting, it is her persona offscreen that's a dud.

frackles

I usually like her acting, it is her persona offscreen that's a dud.

tbh I have held Shakespeare In Love against her for a very, very long time

I forgot that movie! That's all kinds of awful.

yeah me too

xpost

she's always been legit funny on her Jimmy Fallon appearances. maybe it's just she doesn't get much stuff written with a strong comedic voice for her? idk

I checked out Paltrow's post-SiL/Ripley filmography, and allowing you your Iron Mans, why would anyone have seen those, aside from Contagion?

i cant even hate her as a person, i sorta love that someone as ridiculous as her exists

i was gonna bump the paltrow thread with this but i'll just post it here, thought it was pretty funny:

http://nymag.com/thecut/2013/05/i-tried-gwyneths-diet-and-got-a-rash-on-my-face.html

that is FANTASTIC

xp Post-Ripley there's also Tenenbaums and I have a soft spot for Sky Captain but I haven't seen the rest.

Sky Captain was ridiculously terrible and I am ashamed that I enjoyed it so much

Two Lovers is v. good.

I keep hearing that, and I keep meaning to watch it

i am pro-gwyneth paltrow. shakespeare in love isn't that bad compared to other best picture winners. she is great in the royal tenenbaums. she lives her way the way she wants to, and doesn't really seem to care about coming across as an elitist, which is both good and bad i guess (good because it means she seems to have an authentic sense of who she is.) is hot.

Two Lovers is Joaquin's show, but yes, she was alright in it.

oh the use of Eiffel 65 to kick off the movie was also great.

YES

I was cracking up pretty hardcore at something I read where someone couldn't figure out why the super ppl were blowing up/heat generators and I was like "did you miss the entire first half of this movie"

xpost -- Hahah yeah I loved that too. And Lou Bega following!

I feel bad for all the fanboys who are so upset by the Mandarin doublecross

However this is still kinda fun reading anyway...

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1300854/reviews?filter=hate

I think if you were looking for a source-faithful recreation of Mandarin in a 2013 Hollywood movie, you deserve all of the kicks to the nuts

sidenote, my brother insists on pronouncing Mandarin like the fruit and it cracks me up every time

the amount of clues they dropped as to what was going on was sort of ridiculous. i mean they let us see the way the explosions were caused directly, but nonetheless i was constantly thinking "really, tony? that doesn't seem familiar? like after the glowey person was chasing you plus that botanist lady showed up you are that dense?"

oh the use of Eiffel 65 to kick off the movie was also great.

― stefon taylor swiftboat (s.clover), Monday, May 13, 2013 12:57 PM (10 minutes ago) Bookmark

this killed me, i was just 100% onboard from that moment on

yeah it was the perfect opening

RDJ's 90's facial hair kinda reminded me of Jackson Galaxy, it was making me lol

sidenote, my brother insists on pronouncing Mandarin like the fruit and it cracks me up every time

― set the controls for the heart of the sun (VegemiteGrrl), Monday, May 13, 2013 12:09 PM (8 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

wait, what?

I have no idea, I was gonna let it slide

How are they pronounced differently?

ok oops sorry I should explain -- in australian the mandarin fruit is pronounced mandareen; and the language is mandarin with the hard n

it made me feel like it was 2000 again, for sure

lol Australia

oh the use of Eiffel 65 to kick off the movie was also great.

― stefon taylor swiftboat (s.clover), Monday, May 13, 2013 12:57 PM (24 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I had never heard that song, but I could totally tell what era it was setting us down in.

what

where were you in 1999?!?

... if there is a "hard n", what is a "soft n"

I feel like a whole new world is opening up in front of me

hard n:

http://comeol.elotrolado.net/~alejoi/nnng.jpg

what

where were you in 1999?!?

― tweeship journey to 77 (mh), Monday, May 13, 2013 1:32 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Mostly at Phish shows :\

I'm sure they played "Blue" there too, song was inescapable ime

I was out of touch with a lot of pop culture during those years, believe it or not.

thankfully I escaped that one too

only thing that could have poss been better would have been barbie girl

(tho that's a few years earlier)

I'm sure they played "Blue" there too, song was inescapable ime

I'm pretty sure Phish at least teased this song on a tape I have, but so far my usual Phish stat resources aren't backing that up with any hard data.

such a perfect opening lyrically too haha
"yo listen up, here's a story..."

lol yes, it was so cheesy, along with the monologue opening, that I was almost saying "oh get the fuck out"

It was cheesy, but I was so stoked.

count me in as another one who somehow totally missed that song's existence

between the narration and Eiffel it was the perfect 1-2 Shane Black touch that told me i would probably dig the rest of the movie

count me in as another one who somehow totally missed that song's existence

― Nhex, Monday, May 13, 2013 2:09 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

then have i got a treat for you: https://www.youtube.com/user/VengaboysChannel?feature=watch

dying

Ideally there'd be ushers patrolling the cinema at that point, tapping people on the shoulder - "Hey dude are you okay, are you perhaps sober? Here, have a little something on us"

ok now i had to do it We like to Poll: Vengaboys Singles

and since Kiss Kiss Bang Bang was mentioned upthread... really, Guy Pearce's character may as well have been played by Val Kilmer. Not sure if it was intentional, but his introduction was essentially a tribute to Kilmer's performance in The Saint.

― Roz, Saturday, April 27, 2013 2:08 PM (2 weeks ago) Bookmark

have never seen the saint but was briefly wondering how they got val kilmer slim and unbloated again when i first saw pearce's character

but I loved the comedy of him with the parts of the suit and such, and the barrel of monkeys skydiving rescue cracked me up.

― set the controls for the heart of the sun (VegemiteGrrl), Monday, May 13, 2013 11:38 AM (2 days ago) Bookmark

yes when the camera zooms in on the survivors afterwards and they are hooting and hollering and giving the thumbs up

yes! and the way they all kinda landed 'THWAP!' into the water was p lol

yeah i don't know how that scene would hold up on a second viewing

loved the weird FiOS product placements - not only the shot at the end, but also the scene in the news van where he wants the guy to 'rewire the ISDN' or whatever. you get the feeling that shane black has put up with some shitty kbp/s on his torrents in his lifetime

also i want to pig out and admire stephanie szostak for a moment. my god im moving to france where literally everybody is insanely attractive

http://i.imgur.com/9wOzE6v.jpg

Shane talks up the Mandarin change:

“I would say that we struggled to find a way to present a mythic terrorist that had something about him that registered after the movie’s over as having been a unique take, or a clever idea, or a way to say something of use,” says director Shane Black, defending the direction in which his film took the character.

“And what was of use about the Mandarin’s portrayal in this movie, to me, is that it offers up a way that you can sort of show how people are complicit in being frightened. They buy into things in the way that the audience for this movie buys into it.

“I think that’s a message that’s more interesting for the modern world,” continues Black, “because I think there’s a lot of fear that’s generated toward very available and obvious targets, which could perhaps be directed more intelligently at what’s behind them.”

i hope this means that shane black is secretly a truther

two Q's for ppl

1.) did trevor really shoot the dude on the floor

2.) did maya really believe in 'the master' or was she just trying to sell product

1.) did trevor really shoot the dude on the floor

In the end credits for Kingsley in particular, they show that scene, with an extra bit showing the guy on the floor then getting up and shaking the Mandarin's hand. So...no.

aw i missed that part

he's in the pad chilling w/ mandarin and babes also iirc

Oh shit! I had to take my kid to the bathroom during the credits. We made it back for the Bruce Banner scene, but I didn't realize there would be other stuff going on.

Yeah, when Tony first enters the mansion, oil exec dude is the one playing ping pong with the two ladies.

lol

I kind of hope they stick the Trevor character into a comic at some point

idg the fan-hate at trevor - seems like exactly the kind of storyline you'd find in the comic book [nb i don't read comics]

he is the best

it does seem like the kind of thing Bendis might have done on Ultimate Spider-Man (this will mean nothing to you)

Kingsley's performance of Trevor is so perfect, though. I'm not sure the character would come across on the 2D page. Maybe written by Alan Moore, who has done some amazing things with accents in comics.

xp lol totally

Oh shit! I had to take my kid to the bathroom during the credits. We made it back for the Bruce Banner scene, but I didn't realize there would be other stuff going on.

what, there was actual fun content during the credits? i was too busy looking at my phone trying to find out if i should hang around for a post-credits scene.

all i saw was a lot of names

the dudes behind me made some comment to the effect of "animators and effects artists? I saw a lot of effects, don't know what they mean about animation.."

apparently they think all those iron man suits exist and are not basically pixar characters rendered in a more realistic style

the one point in the credits when the screen was literally full, left to right and top to bottom, of names just from one single effects studio was kind of astonishing.

1.) did trevor really shoot the dude on the floor

In the end credits for Kingsley in particular, they show that scene, with an extra bit showing the guy on the floor then getting up and shaking the Mandarin's hand. So...no.

― Ned Raggett, Thursday, 16 May 2013 23:39 (Yesterday) Permalink

is this true because that did not happen during the credits I saw

or is it during that montage-y flash of scenes from all three movies

Nah it was during Kingsley's specific credit and was one of the scenes in the chop-up on screen.

ah ok

I can't remember, had AIM purchased Roxxon in this movie? Was the implication that that dude was an actual Roxxon employee living the drug life or was he another actor? Because unless AIM has Roxxon on lock one way or the other I don't see how they could get away with faking the death of a Roxxon executive within the logic of the movie.

Not that it really matters because, as I said before, the movie ruled.

haha there were so many plotholes that i just sort of shut down that part of my brain

like why would they make war machine's suit pilotable by anyone but starks' suits were keyed to him and pepper

also was it implied at one point that AIM had handled war machines rebranding? i forget

xxx-post

One of the boats at the oil rig (or whatever it was) toward the end of the movie said "Roxxon" on it

of course it did, torching the president was a fake symbolic gesture to punish him for his role in oil spill cover-ups or something

also was it implied at one point that AIM had handled war machines rebranding? i forget

oh yeah - "they rebranded your suit so let me hack in to get the secret files they'd obviously have saved in there"

War Machine's suit was built before all of the Tony-only suits were made, which he was working on to avoid sleeping/thinking about the alien invasion that almost destroyed NYC in The Avengers movie. Also, it's not clear that all of those suits were keyed to Pepper; she didn't end up in one until Tony explicitly put one on her, and even then should couldn't fully control it.

Wasn't War Machine (re)made by the US Army? It used AIM software because lowest bidder also the army are clowns.

"they rebranded your suit so let me hack in to get the secret files they'd obviously have saved in there"

actually it was more "your suit is a conduit into AIM's infrastructure so give me your username and password" IIRC

Just like I could never hack into microsoft through an apple mac?

if AIM rebranded war machines suit then why did they have to spend so much effort to get rhodes out of it

because plot hole

xxp i should have said LINUX BOX obv

actually, wasn't that after Tony had used his suit to hack into AIM? I think he said something about patching the holes

Just like I could never hack into microsoft through an apple mac?

it's more like "let me use your work laptop and its VPN connection to explore what's on your company's internal shared drives"

if AIM rebranded war machines suit then why did they have to spend so much effort to get rhodes out of it

I can't remember, did they EMP him to disable his suit? That may have trapped him in there, assuming that's what they did. Regardless, Tony had been messing around with it so it's not unfeasible to think he blocked some of AIM's access to it.

i couldnt help but think about how much it would hurt him every time he crash-landed from the sky and bounced around on the pavement

prob not if he's sufficiently cocooned

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Stapp#Works_on_effects_of_deceleration

whoa thats weird cuz i made a short movie called the decelerators and that word only shows up in weird places (thank u google alerts)

i couldnt help but think about how much it would hurt him every time he crash-landed from the sky and bounced around on the pavement

iron man 10: tony stark gets CTE at 45, pepper puts him in a home

also kind of bugged me how kid was able to remain anonymous for so long; you'd figure extremis dudes would be combing the area

also bad dudes should put GPS devices in their cars in case iron man steals one

i couldnt help but think about how much it would hurt him every time he crash-landed from the sky and bounced around on the pavement

― we're up all night to get (s1ocki), Friday, May 17, 2013 10:41 AM

That reminds me of an infuriating bit in the SHIELD tv show trailer. Some powered dude jumps out a 5th floor window with an unconscious woman in his arms and lands on his feet. He's fine, and somehow she doesn't have her neck, arms and legs broken, why because he was holding her.

His superpower is that he is an inertial damper.

If they actually explain it that way, all is forgiven.

the one point in the credits when the screen was literally full, left to right and top to bottom, of names just from one single effects studio was kind of astonishing.

― nagl dude dude dude (ledge), Friday, May 17, 2013 7:37 AM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

a fun game to play during movie credits is "spot the fx house that is now bankrupt or out of business"

that doesnt sound fun at all mate

no it's not, really ;_;

this was super fun!

panic attack stuff was iffy and jarvis is obv the most preposterous deus ex mach but whatever

p surprised to read about shane black on a leash etc upthread, this was as incessantly zingy as kkbb (lolled at the "hispanic scott baio" callback btw) plus for a disney movie the af1 scene with numerous dudes getting shot and stabbed point blank was pretty hardcore imo

enjoyed all the terminator 2 refs, appreciate the honesty at least. the kid's dialogue was v edward furlong as well come to think of it

madarin was definitely a nolan zing, even rdj going "where is the mandarin WHERE IS HE" like come on

everyone was really good in this (thank fuck for cheadle cos terrence would probably have been a bummer somehow) but i particularly liked whoever the guy was playing the classic s.b sassy main henchman (basically the long kiss goodnight guy but better)

damn i appear to have written a lot

that was my dude james badge dale

he was great!

yeah im a big fan of his.

james badge dale, or JaBaDa as i know him

lol

i liked that spy show he was in

It took me like 20 minutes into the movie before I figured out, "Hey, it's that dude from The Pacific!"

1) Not bad

2) Why the hell was this set at Christmas? Is that a Shane Black in joke?

3) This is the first movie I've seen in a while where I was just dumbfounded by the amount of technical wizardry. I get the general gist - computers, etc. - but at this point I have no idea how movies like this are even made anymore. The mesh of real and not real, sound and image, the sheer spectacle and production design. I wonder how much the director actually does, beyond assemble all the pieces made by the disparate teams.

i enjoyed it a lot but the deus ex machina was just too too too. after hulk's "oh hey you know how i was crazy? now i'm not" in the avengers i'm kind of worried captain america 2 is going to end with him shooting lasers out of his eyes or something.

I love how the comic book world is divided into all these various strata of conflicts. There are gods and godlike beings fighting interdimensional battles, mutants fighting other mutants, Hulk fights unfightable stuff, superheroes fighting supervillains, etc. Captain America and Iron Man gets assigned big military-like targets, but this movie underscores how the interdimensional stuff is sort of beyond the latter's grasp. I'm sure there;s been a comic crossover series showing all the shit going on all over the place on the same day.

I'm tempted to paste the entire list of credited effects folks, just to see how it looks here ...

this movie underscores how the interdimensional stuff is sort of beyond the latter's grasp. I'm sure there;s been a comic crossover series showing all the shit going on all over the place on the same day.

I always liked Marvel's Alias series about a superhero who withdraws from the whole superhero/mutant life and works as a private investigator. It's basically a hard boiled noir comic, but with the Avengers as unhelpful police.

xp: Where can you find such a list?

2) Why the hell was this set at Christmas? Is that a Shane Black in joke?

all his movies are!

Was looking forward to this cos I liked KKBB, but this was one of the most boring films I've ever seen. I never felt like it actually started and I had to concentrate really hard just to make myself pay attention, it was doing so little for me. Also the solution to his panic attacks being to... just stop worrying and build something? Yeah cool ok good job.

Kingsley was fun tho

Also don't superheroes have rules about, I dunno, killing a bunch of people?

Have you seen the previous films? Pretty much the first thing he does is kill a bunch of people.

Yeah but I didn't notice as much then! Also he had to, right? You're allowed in your origin story when you've been kidnapped by terrorists but I think it's a no-no when you graduate to full on superhero

I guess I'm just really with Spider-Man and Batman on this one... I mean what does Spider-Man do when he's hanging with the Avengers and Iron Man and Cap are just killing dudes left and right (it's fine when it's aliens tho nobody gives a shit about them)

Our 8 year old has decided that Trevor is a double bluff, that he still is the mandarin really, just pretending to be an actor, and that he's going to be the main bad guy in Avengers 3. Clearly he's destined for a job in Marvel's fanboy appeasement department.

that would be p cool tbh

I love how the comic book world is divided into all these various strata of conflicts. There are gods and godlike beings fighting interdimensional battles, mutants fighting other mutants, Hulk fights unfightable stuff, superheroes fighting supervillains, etc. Captain America and Iron Man gets assigned big military-like targets, but this movie underscores how the interdimensional stuff is sort of beyond the latter's grasp. I'm sure there;s been a comic crossover series showing all the shit going on all over the place on the same day.

Oh yeah – this happened often in the Marvel universe: Secret Wars, Acts of Vengeance, the Thanos series where he makes the Infinity Gauntlet (every god in the universe fights him, even Lord Chaos and Master Order!).

Secret Wars, though, was all the heroes and villains taken to a different planet to fight it out. I assume while they were gone earth just chilled peacefully.

I thought Miguel Ferrar, for a recognizable actor, had so little to do he might be primed to show up in future movies, too.

eh don't forget rutger hauer and tom wilkinson had random bits in batman begins

this was ok? i was entertained but left vaguely disappointed, i'll have to figure out why. maybe.

i think cos most of the enjoyment i got was shane black jokey aside stuff and the core elements of tony stark solving problems, less so

it's also six hours long

i think throwing an earnest narration about his ish resolution after the whole "oh hey, forgot i had this 'iron man army' whistle all along, lemme blow it" climax was so shamelessly unearned that it's hard to say "that was a good movie" rather than "I enjoyed those two point five hours"

james badge dale is good stuff tho, he looked super familiar to me but i haven't seen any of his big roles; must be the departed i'm remembering?

rebecca hall's arc was stunted. her moment of double-cross was not well done; and i fully expected some moment of heroic self-sacrifice on her part but she just makes a big threat and then gets capped, to no real plot-effect later on? what did she know what was even important, then?

da croupier 100% otm (xpost)

the whole "oh hey, forgot i had this 'iron man army' whistle all along, lemme blow it"

calling in all of his prototypes to dumbly self-destruct as a *means* of beating up all the fire people would have been a better idea imo. the geography is still pretty nuts but it's less of an obvious deus-ex, and sort of merges that beat with the throwing-away-the-toys-for-love idea. why don't i get to write these things?

Tony's suit army is blatantly foreshadowed throughout the entire movie, to the point where I think it's grossly unfair to call it a deus ex machina

p much just a machina

if his house computer can do all that, then how is anything that happens in the movie a problem?

djp, if anyone can explain why doesn't call on any of that shit earlier, it's you

if his house computer can do all that, then how is anything that happens in the movie a problem?

― goole, Thursday, May 23, 2013 1:14 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark

what do u mean

he should have just called up the rest of the Avengers imo

it's highly possible i missed the acknowledgement of an army of suits that didn't get blown up by the mandarin and the perfectly good reason he could leave pepper a message and not jarvis a message but iron man 3 was too subtle to get that across to us plebes

who cares

his house getting bombed, being fake-dead, stuck in tennessee -- it all looks like kind of a waste of time if there were 40-odd iron men who could be out doing things that whole time. he kept them all in the basement because he's trying to be non-violent and retired for his girlfriend? is that the motivation?

i get that he has the spate of mystery bombings to solve, which requires brains and not force (even that resolution i didn't quite get tbh)

he calls up cheadle... to get a password... so he can get into a badguy database? that has all the early experiment videos in it? whole thing kind of lost me there.

- he was working on prototype #42 near the beginning of the movie
- said prototype was later shown to be able to be remote-controlled on several different occasions
- in the aftermath of the fight at the house, Tony passed out and Jarvis depleted the suit's batteries flying to TN
- Tony used a phone to leave Pepper a msg saying he was alive
- Tony then went to recharge the suit
- Tony abandoned the suit while it was charging to go to Miami
- Tony later summoned the suit to him in Miami after it was recharged
- in the climactic battle, Tony used the suit to activate the other prototypes

the only real plot hole is "why didn't Tony try activating the prototypes when the house was attacked" which, you know, comic books

well yeah and were the protoypes not all in the basement of the house that got blown up?

his house getting bombed, being fake-dead, stuck in tennessee -- it all looks like kind of a waste of time if there were 40-odd iron men who could be out doing things that whole time. he kept them all in the basement because he's trying to be non-violent and retired for his girlfriend? is that the motivation?

they were buried under rubble, dude.

Why do bad guys always upload all their videos so later they can get discovered and everyone can be all "I knew it!"

(Guy Pearce's company was contracted to do blah blah military blah blah Cheadle)

like, I took away as a clear implication that with the prototype offline, access to Jarvis was offline what with the house being bombed to hell

xp: apparently they were under the house in a vault; I don't think answering the question "what did he do with the other 40 prototypes" is by definition a deus ex machina, especially when the movie takes great pains to say "Tony spends all of his spare time building Iron Man suits and they can walk around without him in them"

I think the greater deus ex machina is that building things can cure your anxiety and then you can go and kill a bunch of people without a suit and be totally relaxed about it

tough love guys

yeah i missed the part where they said the house was destroyed but the vault was safe the whole time. and it still seems odd that he can contact his honey through the mask but not the mask. if it's not a deus ex machina, it's definitely a DJP ex machina, where it looks like a movie's been overcome with plotholes until DJP flies in to save the day.

I'm sorry you're too enlightened to enjoy things, dick

oh dude i'm teasing, relax. just calling out a common element of these movie threads.

and i said i enjoyed it several times!

i kind of want to send jon favreau a thank-you bouquet for having little to nothing to do with this or the avengers, aside from a scene or two where he holds a sponsoring tech device

rebecca hall's arc was stunted. her moment of double-cross was not well done; and i fully expected some moment of heroic self-sacrifice on her part but she just makes a big threat and then gets capped, to no real plot-effect later on? what did she know what was even important, then?

― goole, Thursday, May 23, 2013 1:02 PM (45 minutes ago) Bookmark

i think this was a pretty good use of anticlimax

she's in there more to be a source of friction for tony/pepper's relationship than for her tech

As above, I am greatly amused by the idea of Shane Black telling Jon Favreau that he has a very special plan for him in Iron Man 3, the whole cinema will be waiting most of the movie to see what vital intelligence he's been doggedly holding on to, oh shit sorry dude that scene got cut at the last minute, it's pretty much just you getting beaten up and looking like shit.

downton abbey pulling someone OUT of a coma? the unbelievability of this movie, god

*golf clap*

I think the greater deus ex machina is that building things can cure your anxiety and then you can go and kill a bunch of people without a suit and be totally relaxed about it

― not lazy but clowning (Suedey 2), Thursday, May 23, 2013 1:32 PM (49 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

am i forgetting something, what is this about "curing" his anxiety, didn't the movie sort of imply that the anxiety arc was basically over after he blew up all the suits

i thought the anxiety arc was over after he went to home depot

tony constantly working on the suits in the beginning = attempting to control his situation and soothing anxiety = one of the more realistic things in the movie ???

you're forgetting most ilxors are unfamiliar w/ the concept of 'bury yrself in work'

I really enjoyed this. The fact that they squeezed a buddy cop movie out of a Marvel superhero flick is quite entertaining.

Yeah he seemed pretty aight from the moment he raided that home depot, but a bunch of tools can sooth a man like that

I didn't think the suits at the end was a big deal. When else was he going to call them into action? You mean when his mansion was getting destroyed and he was busy struggling to keep his girl alive while he was being dragged underwater and came up after the bad guys had left and was unconsciously flown to Tennessee? Cause I mean:

he should have just called up the rest of the Avengers imo

Like, these heroes are already walking, talking, flying deus ex machinas, all of them!

Yeah but comics

the suits were disappointing because of how easily they were destroyed... i don't recall his suits being so vulnerable in the first two movies

my favourite bit is how the whole story was narrated to the hulk who didn't give one shit and fell asleep

Well, zactly, Plot holes in these things begin and end with "if this were real he would be dead." The rest is flying and quipping and blowing up and stuff.

I mean, isn't the belated removal of his heart shrapnel a thing, too? Like, why did he wait, if it was that easy?

xpost They were all prototypes, not fully functional.

Do love Hulk falling asleep.

IM3 basically like a stand-alone issue.

Hahaha oh shit I forgot he was the hulk, I just thought "what's ruffalo doing there, why is downey talking to this random dude". I'm too senile for these long game movie series.

my favourite bit is how the whole story was narrated to the hulk who didn't give one shit and fell asleep

― not lazy but clowning (Suedey 2), Thursday, May 23, 2013 4:43 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark

i enjoyed that esp as a justification for the narration

oh shit i knew there was some post credits stuff, but i had to piss

its not that funny a scene tbh... not as funny as this anyway http://www.vulture.com/2013/04/mark-ruffalo-science-bros-avengers-robert-downey-jr.html

I mean, isn't the belated removal of his heart shrapnel a thing, too? Like, why did he wait, if it was that easy?

― Josh in Chicago, Thursday, May 23, 2013 4:44 PM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark

apparently there was a bombass chinese heart surgeon (cut from the american version) who i think would have been the one responsible

lol @ this btw:

HONG KONG – As the houselights dimmed in cinemas across mainland China at around midnight on Tuesday, audiences attending the first wave of public screenings of Iron Man 3 fell silent with apprehension as a question appeared on screen: “What does Iron Man rely on to revitalize his energy?”
After a three-second blackout, three big Chinese characters appeared onscreen: “Gu Li Duo."
The Marvel fanboys shouldn’t bother to rummage through their libraries to solve this riddle, because Gu Li Duo isn’t a a mystical power source in the original comic series — it’s a milk drink which is on sale for less than $1 a carton in convenience stores across mainland China.

calcium man

Thought this was okay-to-good, not great. Loved it every time it just swung for over-the-top ridiculous like Don Cheadle's awesome rescue of the President, or the big airplane scene. But in lots of places it skipped past things that should have been emphasized (the "dragging Iron Man through the snow" thing seemed like it was going to be a key character moment from the trailer but it was over in like two seconds) (or all of Maya Hansen's character beats) and then ran into the ground things that were clear from the get-go or didn't need to be spelled out quite so much. Like, I sort of got the idea of the Extremis secret project after Tony had watched one of the hacked videos - did I need to see him clicking and opening three more and going HMM I WONDER WHAT THESE BAD GUYS COULD BE UP TO??? Once the Mandarin's real status has been revealed, does the scene need to play out that long with that many jokes hinging on the same idea? How many suits can blow things up in the big climax before it stops being exciting? And wasn't the President in horrible danger the whole time? The exact geography of that whole sequence was hard to keep straight which didn't help either.

The biggest problems for me though had to do with tone. So Tony sees the woman he loves fall to her apparent death and is shocked and overwhelmed. This is a big character moment for the guy whose last movie revolved around him having to face his own mortality (versus his sense of his own invulnerability and eternal youth douche thing), and who has now established that, sod the cars and the house and the super suits, this woman is the one thing I can't give up!! And yet fifteen seconds later he's being mister clever-clever wisecracks with the bad guy. It was like the backwards version of the Bane/Batman thing, where the second time they fight Batman doesn't appear to have wised up or be fighting in any way 'smarter' - here the story seems to be suggesting this time we'll see Iron Man fighting on passion rather than wanting to prove to the person he's fighting that he's smarter than them, and yet, no. I admit it's more satisfying to see Iron Man outsmarting the bad guys but maybe that could be saved until later in the sequence when the Pepper crisis has been resolved.

Also think these movies are really struggling with basically telling the same story over and over: Tony grows up a little, says he's sorry a lot, and Pepper forgives him for endangering her, himself, and everybody else. Isn't this kind of icky? Would have been okay with this being the movie where Tony starts out with most of his immaturity stuff resolved and his main character arc having more to do with the anxiety attacks and such carrying over from the Avengers climax. (Which btw I was hoping would be played less as PTSD and more as, this is the guy who thinks he can science his way out of any problem, and now he's just barely survived bluffing his way past an encounter with an Asgardian god not to mention an extra-dimensional magical wormhole gateway thing that is way out of his league as a 'mechanic'.) Similarly I didn't find the way he treated the kid funny, at all. Couple of good lines in there but he sort of just seemed like a shithead. You could have given a lot of those lines to a slimy villain character and they'd have worked. Thought it was a missed opportunity to do, like, he's still witty snarky Tony but he's a little more grown up now, and checks himself enough to give the kid some real encouragement and approval. They sort of tried to do that but it didn't work, for me.

All that being said - - - I did think this was tons of fun! Better than the second one for sure.

Also think these movies are really struggling with basically telling the same story over and over: Tony grows up a little, says he's sorry a lot, and Pepper forgives him for endangering her, himself, and everybody else.

Iron Man comics -- hell, Marvel comics -- in a nutshell, really. Hard (for this Marvel Zombie) to fault the studio for successfully bringing that to the screen.

Similarly I didn't find the way he treated the kid funny, at all. Couple of good lines in there but he sort of just seemed like a shithead. You could have given a lot of those lines to a slimy villain character and they'd have worked.

I believe this was the entire point of the kid interaction

I mean, don't get me wrong - I was thrilled not to see the stock movie-kid-bonding thing, but they could have done this in a way that didn't make me resent the main character at the point in the story where he should be most sympathetic.

the suits were disappointing because of how easily they were destroyed... i don't recall his suits being so vulnerable in the first two movies

exactly what I thought ! they really seemed disposable whereas he was (almost) invicible previously. and blowing up all the suits at the end was really a pity/waste.
the movie was fun, if not great, though.

apparently the original version of the movie was like 3 hours and 15 minutes (!) so that might explain stuff like rebecca hall's character not making a lot of sense

i liked that stark called mandarin "ringo" at one point, cos that's the first thing i thought of when he appeared onscreen.

I mean, don't get me wrong - I was thrilled not to see the stock movie-kid-bonding thing, but they could have done this in a way that didn't make me resent the main character at the point in the story where he should be most sympathetic.

― Doctor Casino, Friday, May 24, 2013 12:28 PM (2 days ago) Bookmark

no way, it made him MORE sympathetic imo

everyone hates kids in movies

word

the more i think about it and the more i read other people writing about it, the more i appreciate this movie. maybe the only superhero movie i can think of that incorporated Real Life Stuff (capitalists using racism as a tool for warmongering! a full PTSD story arc!) with so much grace and accuracy and humor.

embarrassment of riches imo. justifies the first two. not only better than it had to be but genuinely felt like talented people cared about it standing with their best work.

plus kingsley doing dudley moore i just. and ruffalo doing woody allen.

Okay so sad RDJ for new meme:

http://img.gawkerassets.com/img/18qpz1n3jxvn9jpg/k-bigpic.jpg

This was a bore except for Ben Kingsley doing his I'm-in-a-Simon-Pegg-flick bit.

much better than the first two tho

Disagree. I liked the first two equally; I regarded the second one as an excuse for funny actors to swap lines.

how can you like that piece of shit second one

the first was great, this is great, the second is a turd.

how can you consider any movie that starts with eiffel 65 a bore i mean

wtf second was way better than the first. hammer was hilarious.

wtf at all this second movie challops

u_u

the first had them dancing in an airplane disco

come on

I thought IRon Man 2 was fairly mediocre. Love 1 + 3

got around to watching this - it was okay, plenty of enjoyable bits, a fair amount of stupid stuff, but all delivered well. There is a glibness/blitheness to the Marvel films in general that I find distancing, or maybe distracting. It's not entirely unfaithful to the general tone of Marvel comics (ooh look hamfisted contemporary cultural/political references + soul searching protagonists w snappy one-liners!) but it prevents me from feeling invested in the movies, I don't actually care about what happens to anybody or anything, it's just a lot of nodding + winking. Which is not to say that DC cornering the market on being ponderous and dour with their superheroes is any better but it's weird how there's no middle ground.

guardians of the galaxy seemed to be fun/winky and still managed to make the characters likable, i dunno

Cap 2 seemed pretty into its characters (and has reaped the whirlwind of fanfic - I'm sort of curious of what happens when Cap 3 isn't just "2.5 hours of Cap and Bucky boning")

I think you mean "if"

fun/winky and still managed to make the characters likable

I find the Iron Man characters all pretty likable generally - as noted RDJ's banter with the kid is v entertaining. I don't find them or their dilemmas particularly compelling - nothing has any weight to it, nothing feels "real" for lack of a better term, I always feel very conscious of the fact that I am watching a Marvel Universe(tm) Movie

watching this now, it really hits home how fucking long ago 2013 was, in about a zillion ways.

curious what you have in mind. skimming over my comments upthread i realize I remember almost nothing about this movie except the mandarin review, a little of the kid stuff, and flashes of the airplane scene.

It's possible that Tombot is referring in part to superheroes risking their lives to save the president from a supervillain instead of grabbing some popcorn and watching from the sidelines as the dude gets obliterated.

Not really a Gwyneth fan but I rewatched this recently and feel she's kind of an underrated part of these movies - just lights up every scene with RDJ. And who knew she could be badass? The last bit when Pepper uses her Extremis powers was surprisingly impressive + hot.

yeah, she's def a talented actor cuz she's really super-charming in these movies but every time i see her interviewed in real life i want to self-harm

lol otm

She's the anti-Natalie Portman for me - I always think I'm not gonna like her whenever I see her name come up in a movie, and then I do.