Cindy Prascik’s Review of Iron Man 3

Dearest Blog, yesterday I braved the fanboy throngs for Iron Man 3's opening weekend.
Spoiler level here will be mild, nothing you haven't seen in the trailers.

When billionaire Tony Stark's world is torn apart by a terrorist, he sets out to save "the one thing (he) can't live without"...and, you know, maybe the rest of us too.

If one of those realistic movie description sites took on Iron Man 3, its tagline would undoubtedly be "Go big or go home." The movie is in constant competition with itself to be bigger and bigger and BIGGER, to the point it sometimes feels like nothing more than a series of ever-growing explosions. Regular reader(s) will know that's a concept I firmly support, but the runtime's pretty bloated for so much filler.

Robert Downey, Jr. is, as always, magnificent in a role tailor-made for him. The brilliant Don Cheadle is underused 'til the movie's last act, and Guy Pearce is marginally less ridiculous than he was in Lawless. (That's meant as more of a compliment than it sounds.) Gwyneth Paltrow is her usual pasty, unbearable self--why can't all films take a cue from Contagion and kill her off right away??--but my beautiful girl Rebecca Hall more than makes up for it. Oscar winner Ben Kingsley does what he can with what I'll call a curious role.

As mentioned, the action and destruction in Iron Man 3 are HUGE; the digital surround-sound on this one almost necessitates earplugs. The effects are pretty terrific, though, and I daresay the bigger the screen, the better they look. I'm not invested in Iron Man lore, so any affronts to the core fandom would have gone straight over my head. The story's nothing to write home about, but some of the dialogue is amusing enough to showcase Downey's comedic talent. Overall it's pretty entertaining, but the film definitely over-labors some points and would have been a lot better with a half-hour edited out.

Iron Man 3 runs a very unnecessary 135 minutes and is rated PG13 for "sequences of intense sci-fi action and violence throughout, and brief suggestive content. Of a possible nine Weasleys, Iron Man 3 earns six.

Until next time...




Well, hellooooooo Iron Man!

MOVIE REVIEW: IRON MAN 3

Tony Stark (Robert Downey, Jr.) wrestles with inner demons while contending with monsters of his own creation in this sequel from writer\director Shane Black. The story in Iron Man 3 picks up shortly after the events of The Avengers. Having previously entered another dimension in order to save New York City, Tony remains deeply haunted by the experience. Tony has only started to appreciate the gravity of his problems when an enigmatic terrorist named the Mandarin (Ben Kingsley) hijacks the airwaves and threatens to bring America to its knees with a painful series of "lessons". ~ Rovi

Director: Shane Black

Cast: Robert Downey, Jr., Gwyneth Paltrow, Don Cheadle, Guy Pearce, Rebecca Hall

Release Date: May 03, 2013

Rated PG-13 for sequences of intense sci-fi action and violence throughout, and brief suggestive content

Runtime: 2 hr. 20 min.

Genres: Action/Adventure

Review:

Picking up after the Avengers was going to be a bit of a task, thankfully Iron Man 3 handles it fairly well lead by new director Shane Black. A slightly more focused, albeit kind of silly, plot than the overstuffed 2nd entry breathes life back into the franchise. Black and Robert Downey Jr. have a tangible chemistry together. Black is capable of keeping RDJ from going into cruise control and the script forces him to explore the effects of the events in The Avengers. It’s a solid logical choice, it would have been terribly easy to just breeze past it and keep him feeling invincible. There are still plenty of laughs and tons of massive summer movie level action set pieces that are thrillingly staged such as the attack on Starks home and a mid air multi-person rescue. That being said there are a few blemishes on the film. It’s not as overstuffed as Iron Man 2, which was too busy serving as a sequel to Iron Man and prequel to The Avengers, but it’s still too busy. The villains are a bit too cartoonish with Ben Kingsley going a bit too overboard (with good reason though). Sadly, Guy Pierce’s character never feels like a complete creation, simply functioning as a plot mechanism. Paltrow and Cheadle are given some extra bits of characterization but nothing earth shattering. As the film, wraps the film starts to feel like it’s tying things up in case RDJ decides to retire from the superhero business (this films marks the last film on his contract with Marvel). While a bit of streamlining and trimming would have made this more efficient summer film, it still manages to trill and excite so maybe it’s not time to throw this franchise on the scrap heap just yet.

B