Iron Man 3 Official Iron Man 3 rate/review thread. - Part 1

Post your reviews or reviews from critics in this thread

Source: http://www.joblo.com/movie-news/joblo-movie-podcast-your-2013-hottie-champion-early-word-on-iron-man-3-oldboy-tons-of-reviews

 

I'm not a major comic book movie geek....but I would even ignore that review...lol

 

Stephanie Zacharek's negative review was predictable because she hates good genre films. I've read her reviews since her days at salon.com and she hasn't changed a bit in 15 years. Her former Salon colleague Andrew O'Hehir's review of The Avengers wasn't so much criticism of the film itself -- he didn't even address it -- as it was a diatribe against the entire genre. Critics in the US tend to indulge themselves in this manner, which is why I and others anticipated that Iron Man 3 would do well among the literate and intelligent foreign press and come a cropper when the domestic reviews came pouring in.

 

The American press tries so hard to present themselves as cultured and what not but end up just looking like wannabe elitist jerks looking to ingratiate themselves with a very small group of movie viewers.

 

i think this was a good film but not a good ironman or genre film. it deconstructs and diminishes the very life blood (the comics) it's spawned from. i wish the same story had been in a film not called ironman 3 and that marvel were shepherding their breadwinners with more care.

 

It's not referring to whether the plot was complex or not, that would come off as condescending on my part.

You walked into this film with certain expectations as did many other people, and what you got was tonally (and plotwise) different from your expectations. While in some cases (which i assume is yours) people don't mind that sort of thing and they just genuinely don't like the change, speaking more generally (especially for something like comic book movies) some people just don't like change at all, or anything that deviates or challenges their idea of what the property should be like in terms of interpretation and tone.

 

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http://img2.timeinc.net/ew/i/2013/04/29/iron-man-poster_1300x895.jpg

That poster is perfectly indicative of what we got more than any other poster released for the film, it was exactly like a pulp novel, in tone and plot only thing needed was a

Spoiler

beefed up maya hansen role as the femme fatale, she could have been so much more instead of just feeling etched in, my only true complaint about the film.

 

That is exactly it. Too many American critics pride themselves on supporting what they see as "serious" movies, congratulating themselves for having tastes that differ from those of the average viewer. Usually that boils down to praising only indie films or those by a select few directors and scorning all others. And if the movies critics love don't make much money at the box office, so much the better because they can maintain their exalted status as films appreciated only by a select few. Whereas films that attract a wide audience and bring in lots of cash are, with few exceptions, dismissed as mediocre regardless of their actual quality.

 

I don't deny some people take it as a personal insult whenever changes are made in order for something to work in the medium at hand, that said I think the majority of people have a legitimate gripe due to the expectations the film was drumming up. First off there's the marketing, then there's the good reviews, then there's the build up within the film itself - you can't not expect people to get excited with what they were seeing/hearing/reading. Thing about expectations is that it's easy to say curb them, but when it looks like the film is living up to them you can't help but feel a sense of being robbed when the bomb drops so unexpectedly. I think in this case the vast majority of fans aren't liking the change because they're discovering the downside of what it means.

Thing is everyone seems to agree it works in context of the film, I'm seeing very few people actually say it flat out sucks because it isn't like the comics or whatever, it's just the epic showdown that was on the horizons never eventuates. The formula of hero verses villain has been around since we came down from the trees and there's a reason, because there's something inherently uplifting about seeing the good guy defy the odds against someone who in many ways is usually superior to him/her either physically, mentally or both. The question is is this the type of movie to be deconstructing the formula? I can appreciate them attempting it, but at the same time it's obvious doing so comes at a cost. If it's one thing Iron Man needed above anything else it was a memorable villain in this series, he hasn't even had a Loki level bad guy let alone a Joker or Lex Luthor one, and I think that's at the heart of the problem, the series is robbed of a nemesis that will etch itself in peoples brains when everything was pointing toward getting one, and I think deep down that's what everyone wanted. I know there this tendency on the IM boards to downplay the importance of villains but the truth is they are so important to the legacy of the character and everyone knows it. The Joker, Darth Vader, T-800, Gollum, Blofeld, Wicked Witch of the West, Moriarty, Sheriff of Nottingham, Grendel, you can go all the way back to ancient Greece with Poseidon, just a handful of the great villains in all of history, the list goes on, those antagonists helped cement the stories of their heroes for years, in some cases centuries after they were first told. And I think that is what people were hoping, maybe even longing for without knowing until after the fact, they wanted a new name etched into the stone alongside those other names.

 

good post, I got nothing.

 

Excellent post.

 

Yeah. This is an excellent point...

 

Great post.

Even IF Mandarin was historically a terrible stereotype, the IM3 team had a chance to fix that and make him truly memorable.

 

Nailed it.

 

This is the reason I have jmc on ignore.
But since all y'all keep quoting him, I keep reading his totally unsubstantiated **** like this:

"Vast majority of fans?" What, his overinflated sense of self-worth makes him and the handful of haters who've hijacked this thread the "vast majority of fans" now?

IM3 on RT: 90% positive. So, by jmc's math, 10% = "vast majority of fans" are hating on this movie and have had their childhoods raped by Shane Black.

Riiiiiiiiiiight.


*Edit: And by the way, we *did* get an outstanding villain. The haters just keep trying to harp on the wrong actor and the wrong role.

 

Gonna add on and say this was a great post.

 

what, RT reviewers are fans now !?

It was a good post, at least Sharkboy can agree to that eventhough he doesn't necessarily agree with JMC's opinion of the film.

It was a good and true post.

 

Gonna jump in here and add that the majority of fans on tumblr love love love the movie and the Mandarin twist. (I keep getting "Let's Twist Again" stuck in my head whenever I read or type this). There's maybe 3% of people on there that are disappointed.

Also, +1 to what cherokeesam said. You're all focusing on the wrong role and the wrong character. We did get a good villain.

 

Black and Pearce exercised the option to adapt Mandarin as they saw fit, since he was such a mess of a character in the comics. Their version of Mandarin was a way of fixing the character, in that they reshaped and used him in a way that worked for their screenplay.

 

^^^

Spoiler

But the way Ben Kingsley portrayed him pre-twist was a complete travesty ?

 

Tumblr adores Iron Man 3. The vast majority there absolutely love the movie, just as they've loved other Marvel films. All of the people I follow are avid comic book collectors who have no problem with the changes made because they realize that the film is an adaptation, not a carbon copy of what is in the comics. They also, to a person, raved about the deeper emotional aspects of Tony Stark's journey as opposed to obsessing over minutia involving the villains. Tony's PTSD and his relationship with Pepper really struck a chord with people in the wider fandom community.

 

I don't agree with JMC, but a good post is a good post. I have nothing to argue with other than difference of opinion.

Oh and with the whole vast majority thing...that is pretty tough to say considering half the world hasn't seen this film yet, but if you'd look anyplace where there is an opinion on this film I'm pretty sure it skews towards the positive, it's all perspective i guess.

 

Why do you keep implying that those who didn't like the film didn't like it because the Mandarin wasn't a carbon copy of what's in the comics? Many people and I have already stated that that's not what we expected! Many of us liked [BLACKOUT]Ben Kingsley as the Mandarin the way he was promoted and up to the point where it was revealed he's a drunken idiot[/BLACKOUT]. He was different from the comic book version, yet he looked like a fresh take on the character. Just like Bane, I have nothing against re-imagining certain characters. I encourage it all the time! I realize it's an adaptation, just like all those people you're citing that actually loved the movie.

 

Except, like it or not, Tony Stark does have a memorable villain not only in this film, but in every Iron Man movie: himself. Iron Man 3 is not a movie about a good guy improving to fight a bad guy, it's about a guy improving to fight his own flaws. The 'hero vs villain' game is effective, but not necessary when you have an alternative which is as interesting as that one. IM3 had a chance to portray Tony Stark's definitive villain onscreen and did so, just not the way you expected it because Tony's worst villain in the film is himself: his past mistakes and insecurities come to haunt them either physically such as the case of The Mandarin

Spoiler

(and by Mandarin I'm referring to Aldrich Killian because yes, he's IM3 Mandarin and yes, they did exploit the chance to bring the character to the 21st Century by commenting on the overall ridiculousness of its roots and 'media bad guys' in general)

or psychologically such as his inability to properly function without the armor during a good part of the film. His fight against this problems is his fight against the villain, because the villain is just an extension of what he did wrong. So yeah, Batman has his Joker, 007 has his Blofeld... Tony Stark has Tony Stark.