Iron Man 3

I liked this movie. I liked it a lot. But then again to be honest all Iron Man 3 had to do for me was be better than Iron Man 2, and it most certainly was. There were a lot of threads that needed to be tied together; the existing Iron Man universe, the fallout from the Avengers movie, and a new villain for our modern world. The last point is the one that I seem to differ with quite a few people on, BE WARNED IT'S A SPOILER! and I'll get to it a bit later in the review.

Iron Man 3 reconnects us with Tony Stark. It's been several months since the events in New York (from the Avengers, remember that little flick?) and things aren't going so well for everyone's favourite millionaire, philanthropist, engineer/playboy. He saved New York by flying that bomb through the worm hole, and ever since then has been having a bit of an existential crisis. He can't sleep, and when he does he's haunted by those events. To keep his genius busy he's been building some new Iron Man suits, did I say some? I mean A LOT of Iron Man suits. I think he's taking the 'does the suit make the man or the man make the suit' conundrum a bit far...but this is Tony Stark we're talking about here. On top of incessant tinkering, Tony's trouble with dealing with his feelings is causing him to push those who love him away. Silly Tony, just when things with Pepper were starting to go well!

As much as I enjoy watching Robert Downey Jr. act with those adorable anthropomorphic robots in his lab and the witty banter between him and Gwyneth Paltrow's Pepper Potts, that does not a movie make. Enter the Mandarin! The Mandarin is a terrorist (played brilliantly by Sir Ben Kingsley) who is prone to hijacking the airwaves across the US and taking credit for various attacks on American soil. Tony stays out of it until an attack hits a little too close to home, then he acts a little brashly and gives the terrorist his home address making his already fragile personal world fall to pieces. The rest of the movie is Tony Stark rebuilding himself and his suit to come back as the hero we all fell in love with. The most charming part of this is when Tony's stuck in the middle of nowhere, suit out of commission and the world believing he's dead. Doesn't sound charming? Add a smarty-pants kid. RDJ and children is a pretty entertaining combination. Plus they have the same emotional maturity. Sure, it's seems a bit silly that a man with Tony Stark's brains and money would just hang out in small town America, but suspend your belief here folks. He was pretty rattled and then used it to his advantage to do some sleuthing. ANYWAYS! There are some steps and rescues in between, but the movie finally climaxes in a pretty excellent blowup at a shipping yard, yup, it's one of those, needs-to-be-seen-on-the-big-screen type of endings.

SPOILERS AHEAD!!!!
I'm just warning you now! Here's the thing with the Mandarin: it's all a front. Ben Kingsley is amazing as both the terrible terrorist and the sloppy British stage actor who's been hired to be the Mandarin. WHAT!? I know, fans of the comics have been a bit outraged about this, but I think writer/director Shane Black has taken a very modern look at what terrorism is. It doesn't have to be men in caves in the middle of nowhere, it absolutely can be corrupt scientists manufacturing serums and promoting a fear complex in the US. Guy Pearce's Aldrich Killian was charming and horrifying as the true villain of the piece.

A couple extra things.
Don Cheadle was underused in this film.He and RDJ are great together, and quips about the Iron Patriot are funny, but come on! He's such a great actor and could've been used better.
I loved the opening of this movie. As the stars fly over the mountain in the Paramount the first strains of "Blue" by Eiffel 65 start to play. I couldn't help but smile, that was a huge song when I was in high school, and definitely helped put me in the 'Y2K' frame of mind. There was also a quick cameo in this scene, I hope everyone else caught it....maybe I won't spoil it, if you caught it, post it in the comments.
Speaking of cameos, this was my least favourite Stan Lee cameo. After his hilarious one in The Amazing Spider-Man I had high hopes.

That's about it! It wasn't as good as the first Iron Man, which officially launched Marvel's Cinematic Universe 'Phase 1', but it's a not too shabby way to launch 'Phase 2'. We have Thor: The Dark World, Captain America: Winter Soldier and  Guardians of the Galaxy leading up to Avengers 2 to look forward to!

Coming Soon...

I've got a whole bunch of pretty exciting posts coming up for you lovely readers in the next couple of days that I'm super excited about.

• 42 review (way overdue)
• Several Doctor Who posts (also, overdue, yes I see the theme)
• West Coast Geeks vs Nerds: Season Finale post
• a couple of AAAAAMAAAAAZING trailers
• a fun project for Comic-Con I'm working on
• Iron Man 3 review (I'm going tomorrow, I'm SO excited!)

Yup, all that is coming up!
Also, I was going to do weekly reviews for Game of Thrones, but I've found I just haven't had the time to watch them in any type of timely fashion. So I was thinking about doing a Season 3 recap when the season ends, thoughts? opinions? Let me know!

AVENGERS!

Assemble up, true believers! It's time for another Marvel movie, and let me tell you know, they've seriously outdone themselves this time! If you've seen the five 2-hour trailers [Iron Man, Iron Man 2, Thor, Captain America: First Avenger and to a lesser extent the Edward Norton Hulk movie] leading up to this epic event you might have an idea of the awesomeness in store. So, on Sunday, around 20 of my Browncoat friends [for you muggles, that's fans of Joss Whedon's Firefly and Joss in general] met up at the theatre to revel in Joss' big budget feature. So, if you were at the 6:10 show at Metrotown on Sunday, I apologise, you honestly can't take us out in public, but you have to admit, we were having a good time, right?!
In all honesty it's been a very long time since I've had such a good time at a movie. The theatre was full of people who were ready to be entertained, and entertained we were. We laughed, we clapped, we outright cheered, it's just that type of flick. The action starts right at the beginning and that pace doesn't really let up for the rest of the 142 minutes. By now, I'm sure you know the basic premise of Avengers, Loki [Tom Hiddleston] has assembled a space army to take over the Earth and the only people who can stop it are a band of misfit would-be heroes, Captain America [Chris Evans], Iron Man [Robert Downey Jr.] , Thor [Chris Hemsworth], the Hulk [Mark Ruffalo], Black Widow [Scarlett Johansen] and Hawkeye [Jeremy Renner]. As a huge comic fangirl there were so many moments that just made me so happy. When Cap and Hulk first arrive at S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters, a massive aircraft carrier, I leaned to my neighbour and whispered, "It would be so much better if that was the heli-carrier" Mere moments later I was clapping with joy as it transformed and rose into the sky! Well played Mr. Whedon, well played.
What Joss has done so well, [that's right, not only did he direct this movie, he co-wrote it as well] as he often does, is mix snappy, funny dialogue with some serious character building and throw a whole bunch of action on top. Despite the fact that all of these characters have featured in their own movie or had cameos in those movies they still have a lot of growing to do to become The Avengers.
There's poor, disillusioned Steve Rogers [Captain America]. In his own movie he was so young and idealistic, but now, pulled into a new century, away from everything he knows and loves, he's a bit lost. He needs to find something new to fight for.
Bruce Banner [The Hulk] is still fighting 'the other guy' for control of his own body and consciousness. Let me tell you, Hulk is SO much better in small doses. I enjoyed his character SO much in this film, more than his other two flicks put together. I think we can all only take so much, "oh woe is me and my gamma radiation poisoning". That being said he gets some of the best lines in this movie.
Thor is still Thor. He's far less arrogant than in his movie, but he is still a freaking God, and a powerful one at that. He's still trying to come to terms with the brother he grew up with to this new treacherous and dangerous Loki that's taken his little brother's place.

Tony Stark [Iron Man] actually has the biggest character arc in this flick. The thing about Tony that we love is also the thing that makes it hard for him to be a member of a team; his outrageous and  narcissistic intelligence. Inside he is a good guy, I mean, you don't don't become a hero if you're bad news, you become a villain. However, over the course of the movie he starts to realise that he needs trust other people's intelligence, like Dr. Banner's and other people's leadership, like Cap's. Don't worry though, he doesn't lose any of that awesome Stark cockiness. 

Black Widow and Hawkeye kind of get the short end of the character growth in this movie. We still don't know that much about them, and not a whole lot is revealed in the movie either. Especially with Hawkeye spending half the movie not being himself. That being said they still show that they can hold their own in the big battle for Earth.
Speaking of that battle, thank goodness for CGI. Poor New York took an absolute BEATING in the final battle sequence of this movie, buildings toppled, rubble EVERYWHERE. It's all kinds of amazing. And even during this all-out battle to end all battles there are still a bunch of laugh out loud lines. It really is the type of action movie I would like to watch every time.
Marvel, I must doff my imaginary hat to you, I think after some mishaps a little while ago with some other characters movies, you've really come into your own. Also, I'm all kinds of impressed that you were able to find time when all of these busy actors were available AT THE SAME TIME to film this movie. Seriously, these are not nobody actors who have nothing better to do than be that character, they're all in pretty high demand!
So, to end this very long and probably overly favourable review, GO SEE THE AVENGERS! And if you've already seen it, go again! Nothing makes us Browncoats happier than seeing our beloved leader succeed, go Joss go! And for the LOVE OF GOD, don't leave before the end of the credits! This is a Marvel movie people, there is ALWAYS something after the credits.