Iron Man 3

[Starman]

Great movie ... has anyone else seen this yet? The Mandarin was ... interesting.

[deano_ue]

Seen it last night and honestly I don't know what to think, on one hand it was a well filmed movie with decent to some great action sequences.

On the other some elements sucked and sucked hard. Seriously the way a lot of the story elements played out it seems they just copied the play book from the dark knight rises( I'm not a nolanite in anyway)

The stuff I really just can't say I liked

Spoiler

the whole thing with the mandarin was ********, seriously if you are going to pull that why even use the character if you are going to do that, it's like if the joker was just a stand up comedian hired by black mask, seriously the mandarin making fart and ole ole jokes

Why the hell blow up the remaining armours, or why not just get the armour that he had hidden once the mk47 was up and running again

Pepper Potts takes out the villain, umm look I'm not looking for a damsel in distress but I thought this was an iron man film

The surgery to save him, ummm I thought the idea of this was impossile, seriously if it could be done why wait this long

It was an alright movie but it just seems like so much that doesn't feel right


As for the much looking forward to stinger

Spoiler

sorry this is the first marvel stinger that was just poor and did nothing to drive the mcu forward at all.

Was really looking forward to a gaudarin of the galaxy or ant man, he'll I would even taken another Thor teaser

Maybe if I think about this more but it seems like much like tdkr, and many other comic films 3 seems to be a huge roadblock. I can understand why people will like it I really can but I just don't know the film just didnt click with me.

[BentonGrey]

Wow TUE, that doesn't sound promising.  You know how much I love Nolan and TDKR...

[Ares_God_of_War]

I was hoping this would break the cycle of the 3rd movie sucking

[Tomato]

*shrug* I'm going to see it either way, so I'll reserve judgement until I personally see it. I have kooky tastes anyway (I still defend Wolverine and Green Lantern as being ok films) so I might enjoy it more then TUE did.

[Talavar]

Well, to be fair - Iron Man 3 is currently at 93% positive on Rotten Tomatoes, so I don't think we need to write Iron Man 3 off as just for those with kooky tastes yet anyway.  No offense to TUE, but one bad review does not a bad movie make.

[deano_ue]

do not get me wrong guys there some great things about thsi film, its well shot and the action is great. the cast is superb as usual and RDJ is tony personified.

there are just elements and twists within the story that left me cold. and judging buy a lot of the response you will either love these elements or hate them.

personally i know there are a few members on here that will blow a gasket

and talavar to be fair a lot of the great reviews are looking at this as a film on its own not as an adaption of a long running comic series so they would not see the elements that have annoyed a lot of fans, but then again i just have kooky tastes 

look i'm going to post the twist that just didnt sit with me. i warn you  DO NOT READ THIS IF YOU DO NOT WANT TO KNOW A MAJOR KEY PLOT POINT TO THIS FILM SERIOUSLY

Spoiler

ben kingsley is not the mandarin, the whole advertising of this movie has been a bait and switch. when tony get into the aim mansion when the mandarin is hiding he finds 2 women in a bed, when he hides the "mandarin" enters from the bathroom shouting and i quote "bloody hell i wouldnt go in there for about 20 minutes"

it turns out that kingsley is actually playing a character named tevor and out of work drug addicted stage actor who is being used by the head of AIM Aldrich Killian(guy pearce) to be a face for a great American boogeyman to keep the government distracted from what he's really planning 

[detourne_me]

I think it might actually be my favorite of the three.
Although its not quite as connected to the MCU as I would've liked it does a quite interesting job of dealing with the aftermath of The Avengers.
*******BIG SPOILERS BELOW********

Spoiler

The Extremis/war vet/PTSD angle was really interesting in my opinion. You have these people that feel like their country had given up on them, even though they had given their bodies for the country. Then you have the reluctant warrior whom is seemingly invincible trying to come to grips with the utterly insane predicaments he's gotten himself and his loved ones into. It's a much more mature look at Tony's struggle with creating his own demons

Anyway, this movie also had some of the funniest bits of all three movies too.

About the Mandarin

Spoiler

The Mandarin reveal was fantastic, and even referenced himself in a way with the story of the fortune cookie.... The fact is, it would be completely racist and irresponsible to go the whole Asian terrorist route (see Olympus has Fallen) this was a much more engaging way of showing evil, and allowing Ben Kingsley to just chew up the scenery in two very different ways.

[deano_ue]

Detourne I'm gonna have to respectfully disagree with you on this.


While I agree that in no way could they have went with the over the top fu man chu aspects of the early comics. In no way did the films marketing or the first 40 minutes portray that they were. He'll the mandarin didn't even have a middle eastern accent.


i'm not a mandarin fan boy of any means with my only experience of him is the god awful 90's cartoon

i wasnt a fan of the twist for 2 reasons

Spoiler

1. the mandarin is iron mans big bad. he's green goblin, his joker, his red skull it seems like they have just changed it to be ohh edgy. that and though i may not agree 100% with it the idea idea he was changed to protect possible revenue in certain markets for the film, may have some elements of truth to them, as its been well reported that marvel was wary about the character to begin with

2. what we had up until the reveal was really interesting. kingsley was looking to be this great dark evil overlord that has been pulling the string for years and if you have seen him in other films where he's that bad guy eg sexy beast he could have been amazing if they went the full role. which in sadly they didnt and we ended up with another rather poor ticked off scientist bad guy

[detourne_me]

I completely understand your point of view man,

Spoiler

I'm just tired of seeing asians as only bad guys. I also think that Marvel and Disney are pretty hip to the fact that the international market rakes in tonnes of money for them. For example, theaters have been packed all over seoul for IM3.  I didn't pre-book a ticket so i had to go to a cheaper place.  probably going to try the 4DX experience on friday though. It was fantastic for movies like Fast and the Furious and Life of Pi

[Outcast]

I saw it last week and to be honest...didn't really enjoyed it that much. It's ok i guess.

Spoiler

Maybe it was because i was expecting IronMan to fight the real Mandarin and that I was not familiar with the story behind Extremis at the time. I found the action scenes somewhat lacking too and like TUE it didn't feel that awesome when Pepper Pots defeated the main bad guy. She managed to finish the guy rather quickly. But i suppose maybe the guy was already at a very weakened state by that time.

I've read some harsh reviews from others that have watched it...quote..

"What is this sh1t? Disgusting...I am shocked to my frelling core. Shane Black has done to Iron Man what Bret Ratner did to X-Men.

I went to the cinema looking forward to see Ben Kingsley play a ruthless Mandarin. Instead, it all turns out to be a joke, and the Mandarin, Iron-man's arch-nemesis turns out to non-existent. So much for all the hype in the trailers. The writers probably thought they were smart in putting such a drastic plot-twist, but instead I left the cinema feeling deceived and disappointed. As someone already mentioned, they should just have just stuck to the established storyline.

If that was not enough, there were a host of other things wrong with this movie. The one-liners got painfully annoying. Loud explosions are expected to compensate for half-thought out action scenes.

The plot was half-baked at best with a lot of holes. First AIM is selling Extremis to the Mandarin, then it turns out he wants to create supply and demand to sell it to the government, and next he's killing the president and "moving on". As many others have mentioned, then Iron Man who was able to withstand Thor and his lightening melts in 3000c heat. War Machine gets disabled because a woman touched his hand. The iron suit, which is supposed to be powered by the arc reactor, a limitless power supply, needs to be charged like your iPhone."

[BWPS]

Spoiler

Guy Pearce was a terrible character so it didn't make up for The Mandarin being a phony. That said, I liked that twist and the character. I just think a real terrorist is more interesting than a less cool Sam Rockwell redux, I have no idea what the villains motivation was at all. Breathing fire didn't help.

The movie is fine, it's funny and has some sweet action, but it's not up to the standard set by the other two and Avengers. It lacks depth and plot and I really thought it was going to deliver Nolan levels of both. Jon Favreuau should have completed the trilogy.


But mainly all the armors at the end should have fused into one giant armor. I don't know what that would have accomplished but it would have been sweet.

[Podmark]

Just saw it earlier today. I liked it, not sure how much though. It might be my least favorite of the 3. RDJ is great in it, and I liked Cheadle as well.

A couple of specific points:

Spoiler

The Mandarin thing didn't bother me. It's a perfectly reasonable story element, if they didn't use the Mandarin for the role it wouldn't be controversial.

I've never really liked any of the main villains in the Iron Man movies, but Killian was probably my favorite of the three.

Didn't like that Rhodey doesn't really do any fighting in the Iron Patriot armor.

Wasn't big on the whole jumping from suit to suit to suit Iron Man thing. It made the Iron Man armor seem cheap and disposable. I'm happy he blew them up at the end, now he can build something a little more substantive.

Odd that Tony is out of the suit for so much of the movie. I'm not sure if I liked or disliked that element. Probably take me another viewing to decide.

Really happy that Happy had a decent role and survived the film. With Favreau no longer directing I thought he might just be a cameo, and the trailers implied he would die.

I think at the end of the day my biggest concern right now is that nothing really stood out. I just saw it and I'm not really replaying favorite scenes or lines over in my head like I will in a movie I really liked.

[steamteck]

Just saw it earlier today. I liked it, not sure how much though. It might be my least favorite of the 3. RDJ is great in it, and I liked Cheadle as well.

A couple of specific points:

Spoiler

The Mandarin thing didn't really bother me. It's a perfectly reasonable story element, if they didn't use the Mandarin for the role it wouldn't be controversial.

I've never really liked any of the main villains in the Iron Man movies, but Killian was probably my favorite of the three.

Didn't like that Rhodey doesn't really do any fighting in the Iron Patriot armor.

Wasn't big on the whole jumping from suit to suit to suit Iron Man thing. It made the Iron Man armor seem cheap and disposable. I'm happy he blew them up at the end, now he can build something a little more substantive.

Odd that Tony is out of the suit for so much of the movie. I'm not sure if I liked or disliked that element. Probably take me another viewing to decide.

Really happy that Happy had a decent role and survived the film. With Favreau no longer directing I thought he might just be a cameo, and the trailers implied he would die.

I think at the end of the day my biggest concern right now is that nothing really stood out. I just saw it and I'm not really replaying favorite scenes or lines over in my head like I will in a movie I really liked.

I pretty much agree with  except I'm not undecided about disliking some of the elements you were unsure of. Its the first of the recent Marvel movies I have no desire to own on DVD.

[MicroBlasto]

pretty dissapointed with iron man 3. Anxiety attacks really? your freaking Iron man thats all i was thinking about. The only thing i did like was the Manderin and that whole twist but man the little kid though was annoying ill tell ya.

[BentonGrey]

Well, I certainly understand what TUE was saying now.  I saw it, and I was somewhat disappointed.  I enjoyed it, the movie was pretty good, but there was a lot about it that troubled me.  I'll have more substantive comments coming soon.

[JeyNyce]

I saw the movie and I really enjoyed it.  Mine you, this wasn't a Iron Man movie, but more of a "Let's get to know more about Tony Stark" movie.  I understood the Anxiety attacks.  He still getting over the events that happen in the Avengers and he's under pressure to be ready if something like happens again.  Some people make feel that this movie was a bit incomplete, but I think Marvel is using this as a setup for their "phase two".  We all know that there will be an Avengers 2, so something going to happen that will make Tony build another suit.  This will also give Marvel to introduce a  new suit in the comics and then in the movies.

[Talavar]

Iron Man 3 was pretty great.  Significantly better than Iron Man 2, possibly as good as Iron Man 1.  There; now that's out of the way, I'll address some specific points:

Spoiler

1.  The Mandarin twist was pretty awesome, particularly since it wasn't spoiled at all so far as I was aware, unlike the Talia Al Ghul one in Dark Knight Rises.  The traditional Mandarin is a terrible character, a racist Asian caricature, and also a poor match-up to Iron Man as a combatant.  Sure, he's got his magic/alien rings which are great at offence - what happens if Tony just shoots him?  It's well established at this point that movie Iron Man kills.  I'll leave it at that; if you're major objection to Iron Man 3 was the Mandarin twist, I don't think I have any common ground on movies there.

2.  Iron Man having PTSD/anxiety attacks - this was very well done.  Marvel heroes have always had feet of clay, and this is a great response to what Tony's been through.  Up to Avengers, he was always the smartest, always had the highest technology - then he was put up against alien super-technology and nearly died despite his cutting edge super suit.  Living through that, and having to live up to that success if/when the Avengers are needed again would take a toll.

3.  Pepper finishing off the villain - seriously, this is a complaint?  Tony defeats all the Extremis goons, and helps save the president with Rhodey (is that okay, by the way?), but Pepper getting in the final blow is somehow stealing his thunder?  I personally thought it was great after all the damsel-in-distressing, but I also like that the villain basically lost due to his own hubris - it was Extremis and his injecting Pepper with it as a threat that made their victory possible.

4.  The plot.  I didn't see any major holes here.  Guy Pearce has a formula for making super-soldiers, except sometimes they explode.  By politicizing those random explosions, he creates a need by the government to buy said super-soldiers in bulk.  He wants to eliminate the president to cement the reputation of his terrorists, but also to have the new president be someone in his back-pocket who is sure to play ball.

5.  3000 degrees Celsius melting the armour when Thor's lightning did not.  Now, this is some serious nerd-quibbling here, but let's address it.  Lightning produces heat because of the resistance of the mediums it passes through - poor conductors means more resistance which means more heat.  Most metals are very good conductors, which means not that much heat compared to other materials, and the lightning does visibly damage the armour while getting redirected & absorbed. 

6.  The kid.  I'm sorry, but that was one of the better uses of a kid in an action movie.  And superhero fans who complain about stuff for kids, particularly when it's done well, should be allowed to watch nothing but horrible Batman fan-films.

7.  Destroying his armours.  This one is debatable - it'll depend on what they do next with Iron Man.  I don't take it as him quitting, a la Bruce in Dark Knight Rises, for a couple of reasons.  First, the film ends with Tony re-affirming that he is Iron Man.  Second, the post-credits teaser, which shows Tony talking to Bruce Banner, re-affirming his Avengers connection.  I could see the next step for Iron Man be one of reinvention, maybe on the east coast at Stark/Avengers tower.

[Podmark]

Following on Talavar's points:

Spoiler

1. As I said above I had no problem with the Mandarin.

2. I liked the anxiety attacks. Nice way to show him reacting to Avengers.

3. I found Pepper defeating Killian a little disappointing. I have nothing against Pepper fighting, just that the main villain should usually be stopped by the main character. That said Tony did nearly beat Killian before so I think it works alright.

4. Yeah I thought Killian's plan was pretty good. Reminded me of a Metal Gear plot.

5. I wonder if these new armors might not be as tough as the Avengers one. They seemed to be destroyed fairly easily in the final battle. Perhaps the whole quick access/assembly thing made them less resistant.

6. I thought the kid was fine. I'd probably have left him out if I wrote the film, but he didn't bother me. And there were a number of dialogue between him and Tony that I enjoyed.

7. I didn't really see anything that said Tony was quitting. Just that he was starting over and getting past his current problems. He's the mechanic, no way he can't build a new armor - he is Iron Man.

[detourne_me]

Talavar,  are you....me?
I completely agree with all your points.

[Tomato]

Talavar,  are you....me?

But Vegeta... I'm me.

[Talavar]

Talavar,  are you....me?
I completely agree with all your points.

Maybe I am.     Have you ever seen you and me in the same place at the same time?

[deano_ue]

My thing with the ending

Spoiler

its not the fact that pepper beats him, when she stepped out of the fire you knew she was going to have a hand in it

It's the fact she beats him with such easy and how she does it. Seriously super uppercut and flash kick. She's pulling off martial arts moves that would make black widow to wow. Being injected with a super solider serum doesn't just make you an ultimate hardcase even cap had to go through military training before his.

As I said before I do not want a damsel in distress that's a load of crap but for her to do it single handily was what annoyed me. A better idea would have been if it took pepper and tony a combined attack to take down the villain. Either together or one after the other

Tony hits him a few times gets swatted away pepper moves in attack and repeats until the final blow

It would have made him seem more of a threat and would have cemented the theme that they work better as a unit and as a couple rather than as separate people. Which has been a theme throughout the entire trilogy

This film seems to be black and white with fans you either loved it entirely or were not fond of elements, and sadly like on a lot of other threads if you didn't love every little thing you're in the wrong.

[Podmark]

Yeah I think that would have worked better UE.

[BentonGrey]

My thing with the ending

Spoiler

its not the fact that pepper beats him, when she stepped out of the fire you knew she was going to have a hand in it

It's the fact she beats him with such easy and how she does it. Seriously super uppercut and flash kick. She's pulling off martial arts moves that would make black widow to wow. Being injected with a super solider serum doesn't just make you an ultimate hardcase even cap had to go through military training before his.

As I said before I do not want a damsel in distress that's a load of crap but for her to do it single handily was what annoyed me. A better idea would have been if it took pepper and tony a combined attack to take down the villain. Either together or one after the other

Tony hits him a few times gets swatted away pepper moves in attack and repeats until the final blow

It would have made him seem more of a threat and would have cemented the theme that they work better as a unit and as a couple rather than as separate people. Which has been a theme throughout the entire trilogy

This film seems to be black and white with fans you either loved it entirely or were not fond of elements, and sadly like on a lot of other threads if you didn't love every little thing you're in the wrong.

Yeah, I agree completely.  That really bothered me.  There were several moments like that, which just strained credulity and broke the film's own established standards of suspension of disbelief.  I'm still going to put together a complete record of my thoughts, but to build on the same thought:

Spoiler

Getting super healing/heat powers doesn't give you super strength.  At one point, we see that they're rewriting the genetic code to be able to generate healing, okay, I'm with you.  It's a comic book idea, but it works in this universe.  Then, they can generate so much energy that they literally 'run hot.'  Again, okay, it's far-fetched, but sure.  I'm with you.  It's an interesting idea.  Then we have several fights where the bad guys seem to be just more or less regular folks with heat powers and super healing, then all of a sudden they are stopping punches from Iron Man's armor, cold...er...hot.  Being able to melt the armor is one thing, being able to catch and hold him helpless when he's got the power to throw a tank is something completely different.  I understand it's a world where the fantastic is possible, but I felt like the internal logic of their universe broke down in some spots.

TUE, I really feel you about the 'if you didn't love if completely you're crazy' thing.

[Talavar]

The whole "if you didn't love it completely, you're crazy" thing is bunk.  I didn't love it completely.  As is too often on the internet, you have to run at full speed just to stand still - in a case like this, you have to defend something voraciously just so people don't talk about it as if it was a steaming pile.  Because that's how this thread was trending....

[BentonGrey]

Ehh, I think that was more about history than the present, Talavar.  The last two Nolan Batman movies tend to attract rather rabid defenders (not necessarily here, per se), and if you don't think they are the Lord's gift to superhero movies, folks act like you're nuts.  I actually just had that conversation with some people at our university. 

[Tomato]

Yeah, I never got that. I enjoyed the Nolan franchise (they might well be the best "films" even though they aren't the best adaptions) but they had flaws and I inevitably like the Marvel films more with only a few exceptions. I actually had the opposite conversation one time though... some lunatic was trying to say that DB:Origins was greater then TDK and I wanted to punch him.

[docdelorean88]

Iron Man 3 was pretty great.  Significantly better than Iron Man 2, possibly as good as Iron Man 1.  There; now that's out of the way, I'll address some specific points:

Spoiler

1.  The Mandarin twist was pretty awesome, particularly since it wasn't spoiled at all so far as I was aware, unlike the Talia Al Ghul one in Dark Knight Rises.  The traditional Mandarin is a terrible character, a racist Asian caricature, and also a poor match-up to Iron Man as a combatant.  Sure, he's got his magic/alien rings which are great at offence - what happens if Tony just shoots him?  It's well established at this point that movie Iron Man kills.  I'll leave it at that; if you're major objection to Iron Man 3 was the Mandarin twist, I don't think I have any common ground on movies there.

2.  Iron Man having PTSD/anxiety attacks - this was very well done.  Marvel heroes have always had feet of clay, and this is a great response to what Tony's been through.  Up to Avengers, he was always the smartest, always had the highest technology - then he was put up against alien super-technology and nearly died despite his cutting edge super suit.  Living through that, and having to live up to that success if/when the Avengers are needed again would take a toll.

3.  Pepper finishing off the villain - seriously, this is a complaint?  Tony defeats all the Extremis goons, and helps save the president with Rhodey (is that okay, by the way?), but Pepper getting in the final blow is somehow stealing his thunder?  I personally thought it was great after all the damsel-in-distressing, but I also like that the villain basically lost due to his own hubris - it was Extremis and his injecting Pepper with it as a threat that made their victory possible.

4.  The plot.  I didn't see any major holes here.  Guy Pearce has a formula for making super-soldiers, except sometimes they explode.  By politicizing those random explosions, he creates a need by the government to buy said super-soldiers in bulk.  He wants to eliminate the president to cement the reputation of his terrorists, but also to have the new president be someone in his back-pocket who is sure to play ball.

5.  3000 degrees Celsius melting the armour when Thor's lightning did not.  Now, this is some serious nerd-quibbling here, but let's address it.  Lightning produces heat because of the resistance of the mediums it passes through - poor conductors means more resistance which means more heat.  Most metals are very good conductors, which means not that much heat compared to other materials, and the lightning does visibly damage the armour while getting redirected & absorbed. 

6.  The kid.  I'm sorry, but that was one of the better uses of a kid in an action movie.  And superhero fans who complain about stuff for kids, particularly when it's done well, should be allowed to watch nothing but horrible Batman fan-films.

7.  Destroying his armours.  This one is debatable - it'll depend on what they do next with Iron Man.  I don't take it as him quitting, a la Bruce in Dark Knight Rises, for a couple of reasons.  First, the film ends with Tony re-affirming that he is Iron Man.  Second, the post-credits teaser, which shows Tony talking to Bruce Banner, re-affirming his Avengers connection.  I could see the next step for Iron Man be one of reinvention, maybe on the east coast at Stark/Avengers tower.

I completely agree with this! As someone who was absolutely wholeheartedly disappointed with Ironman 2,  this movie was the best it could have possibly been in my eyes.

The whole "if you didn't love it completely, you're crazy" thing is bunk.  I didn't love it completely.  As is too often on the internet, you have to run at full speed just to stand still - in a case like this, you have to defend something voraciously just so people don't talk about it as if it was a steaming pile.  Because that's how this thread was trending....

And yes, i agree with this as well.

[Tomato]

speaking as the guy who was on his own defending green lantern against the negative reviews it got from FRers(or ToF members, since I think FR was still down at the time) I can respect you guys for standing up for this one, even if it was utter garbage. I mean, did you even SEE that one scene where tony did that thing with the suits and then Mandarin did that other thing. Blah, horrible.





But no, seriously, I haven't seen it yet. I'm kind of an odd duck when it comes to movies (I liked Green Lantern and Wolverine, for example) so I don't really care what you guys think anyway.