Iron Man 3 Official rate & review IRON MAN 3 thread!

[spider-neil]

IM3 just jumped a point from 77% to 78% on the RT meter.

 

[Heretic]

One more time... The deconstruction is exploiting the conventions of a genre (in this case, how Superhero universes work) instead of playing them straight. Yeah, Killian was a straight Supervillain in the final act. He wasn't in the first two.

It's maybe a political commentary too, but the reason I'm saying it's a deconstruction it's because it specifically plays with the genre's tropes, it takes them apart instead of presenting them as they always were.

So, you're saying that it was using the things that we expect from superhero movies in a similar way to how Cabin In The Woods used it in Horror? Like, "look at the virgin getting attacked...I...care for her...and want her to live" and all of that stuff...throwing the cliche's in our faces?

I just didn't get that from the film at all. They took Tony out of the suit to show that he is Iron Man with or without the armor...I get that...but I believe that this was done to make the movie a buddy cop film like the director seems to prefer, not to deconstruct what a hero is (not to mention to get Tony's face more screen time). I think that The Mandarin was portrayed that way as a political statement, not because they cared about deconstructing the supervillain (after all, they just side stepped the idea of even including a superhero).

Once you decide that this is a genius deconstruction, every decision seems like a deconstruction...and once you decide that this was a lazy way of avoiding the source material, then everything seems like a cop-out. Which is correct?? Only those involved know for sure. You aren't correct just because you want to be, and neither am I (though I honesty don't care if I'm correct, I was hoping to absolutely love the movie).

 

[danoyse]

...tried to vote in the poll above but it wouldn't let me.

I absolutely loved this movie. It definitely broke the "trilogy" movie curse.

10/10

Same here, bro. I got "this poll is closed" and I'm like, "Bullhuckey!"

Thread manager restarted the thread and killed the poll.

 

[Heretic]

I'll add that Killian mentioned that the terrorists like Bin Ladin, Gaddafi and The Mandarin are all just pawns, actors in a play. This seems to suggest that the movie was making a much bigger political point than it was trying to deconstruct the superhero genre. Heck, it is damn near a 9/11 Truth type statement. The assumption is that government and corporate interests backed Bin Ladin and The Mandarin to achieve certain selfish goals. Heck, you could even take the leap that his taking over of satellite feeds was showing that the media is in bed with the government/corporate interests.

This is a worthy point for the movie to make, but it is not superhero deconstruction.

 

[Rock Sexton]

I'll add that Killian mentioned that the terrorists like Bin Ladin, Gaddafi and The Mandarin are all just pawns, actors in a play. This seems to suggest that the movie was making a much bigger political point than it was trying to deconstruct the superhero genre. Heck, it is damn near a 9/11 Truth type statement. The assumption is that government and corporate interests backed Bin Ladin and The Mandarin to achieve certain selfish goals. Heck, you could even take the leap that his taking over of satellite feeds was showing that the media is in bed with the government/corporate interests.

This is a worthy point for the movie to make, but it is not superhero deconstruction.

I'm not going to get into the whole "deconstruction" argument ..... but yes the political statement was quite apparent and I enjoyed it.

 

[Ultra Nolanite]

What humor after Happy got injured? He was pretty angry after leaving the hospital. He then makes an angry threat to kill the Mandarin and goes full on detective to track him down before having his house blown up. What humor after he doesn't save Pepper? I don't recall Tony being in a jovial mood when he is throwing down with Killian.

What you consider lazy writing is actually bold writing. You would prefer Tony to be a stereotypical superhero that screams, "NOOOOOO!", broods, and beserks like Wolverine. I have seen this melodrama in every superhero movie and am glad that Tony is set apart from it.

Heretics sarcasm went way over your head. This is why I claim the Avengers was the high point of Tony's arc. He started out as a guy who used to cope with difficult situations by cracking wise in IM1. In the Avengers you can see how the loss of Coulson shocks him. No wisecracks, no nothing.

And now they downgraded him to a character that jokes around when the love of his life dies a horrible death. The main reason why he's building all those armors in the first place. To have the feeling that he is able to protect her.

Call it what you want but thats just character backwardness.

It's not just Tony that's joking though. The whole situation with the MK42 after Peppers "death" is just jokey and carries zero weight. You wanna call it deconstructing the genre, fine. But if that's what it is I rather filmmakers refrain from deconstructing genres ever again.

One more time... The deconstruction is exploiting the conventions of a genre (in this case, how Superhero universes work) instead of playing them straight. Yeah, Killian was a straight Supervillain in the final act. He wasn't in the first two.

It's maybe a political commentary too, but the reason I'm saying it's a deconstruction it's because it specifically plays with the genre's tropes, it takes them apart instead of presenting them as they always were.

It seems like people are just saying this as if that automatically makes it a genius film when it really doesn't.

 

[divan]

It seems like people are just saying this as if that makes it a genius film when it really doesn't.

It's certainly more ambitious than what most other CBMs do (except for The Dark Knight Saga, which plays on another level altogether). If it failed or not is a matter of personal preference, but guys don't act as if your point of view were universal.

 

[Incredible Hans]

[blackout]Stark didn't have those defenses for his house because (1)he never gave out his home address to anyone.[/blackout]

Come on, you won't tell me that nobody knows where Tony Stark lives? That's ridiculous. You can't keep that a secret.

The female journalist who spent a night with Tony in IM1 certainly knows. And she certainly isn't the only one.

Such a big special house in a very special location... I'm sure a lot of people know where Stark lives.

 

[ElMariachi]

Heretics sarcasm went way over your head. This is why I claim the Avengers was the high point of Tony's arc. He started out as a guy who used to cope with difficult situations by cracking wise in IM1. In the Avengers you can see how the loss of Coulson shocks him. No wisecracks, no nothing.

And now they downgraded him to a character that jokes around when the love of his life dies a horrible death. The main reason why he's building all those armors in the first place. To have the feeling that he is able to protect her.

Call it what you want but thats just character backwardness.

It's not just Tony that's joking though. The whole situation with the MK42 after Peppers "death" is just jokey and carries zero weight. You wanna call it deconstructing the genre, fine. But if that's what it is I rather filmmakers refrain from deconstructing genres ever again.

But that isn't true at all, in regards to the Avengers. He is sad about Coulson's death for about one scene. After Captain America tries to console Tony, he almost immediately makes a joke. Remember when he drops a 'son of a b---h' after realizing Loki's plan? A scene that almost everybody in the theater laughed at. Tony joked after pretty much every serious scene in Avengers. After he gets rescued by Hulk, it's all laughs. The rest of the Avengers are serious about it but not Tony who asks for shawarma and freaks out thinking some non-Widow Avenger gave him mouth to mouth. He is like this the entire movie, even during the 'argument scene'.

By the way, when did he joke about Pepper dying?

 

[Norek]

By the way, when did he joke about Pepper dying?

A few moments after [BLACKOUT]"Pepper dies"[/BLACKOUT], he calls the Mark 42 and it breaks apart, and he says [BLACKOUT]"Whatever"[/BLACKOUT] like nothing happened.

And this is not like Coulson, this is the woman of his life, his everything (according to this very film), it's hard for me to believe that this would be his reaction against his biggest enemy (again, according to this film) who's partially responsible for the [BLACKOUT]death of his love[/BLACKOUT].

 

[ElMariachi]

Exactly.

Spoiler

As Killian declared in the end: "I'm AM Mandarin!" He is the real villain in IM3, not the fake actor who wore robes and acted like Bin Laden for the world to hate and focus on. And while the U.S. was focusing their resources on capturing this make-believe villain, Killian was doing all the work in the background, and that was why he was able to kidnap the President and nearly succeed in executing him on the big screen. People are just too fixtated on Kingsley's Mandarin and fail to see what this movie is trying to deconstruct.

Yeah, I am not sure what people were missing with this. I don't think we are even having this conversation if Killian had slightly different eye lids. [BLACKOUT]Killian was clearly the Mandarin and possessed his traits as a villain. Well, aside from the rings which would never have played on the big screen.[/BLACKOUT] Trust me on that, people would have complained about how ridiculous the magical rings would have looked. They would have complained about the lack of Fin Fang Foom, too many cosmic references, the CGI, or some other reason. Iron Man 3 was unique and not what people expected. As an Iron Man fan, I liked that.

 

[ElMariachi]

A few moments after [BLACKOUT]"Pepper dies"[/BLACKOUT], he calls the Mark 42 and it breaks apart, and he says [BLACKOUT]"Whatever"[/BLACKOUT] like nothing happened.

And this is not like Coulson, this is the woman of his life, his everything (according to this very film), it's hard for me to believe that this would be his reaction against his biggest enemy (again, according to this film) who's partially responsible for the [BLACKOUT]death of his love[/BLACKOUT].

How is this a joke? He was in the heat of battle. Was he supposed to just give up and start crying? Screaming, "NOOOOOOOO!". This is nothing more than a minor nitpick of the movie. I didn't find that scene to be played for laughs. Not saying it couldn't have been handled a bit better but it really wasn't an issue for me.

 

[NickNitro]

Alright so help me on this guys, I also dont understand why we need to blackout anything on a rate and review thread , but I'll follow suit.

[BLACKOUT]Since IM 1 Killian helped Obadiah/Killian was leading the 10 rings Terrorist group? I understand he was the true Mandarin in the movie but I can't help but feel a little lied to/cheated. Cap has The Red Skull/Thor has Loki.....IM should of had The Mandarin, at least if it was Killian not die at the end of IM3 but be an ongoing villain

Also with the death of Killain and AIM pretty much done for, we can no longer have MODOK or any other villain AIM created?[/BLACKOUT]

 

[spideyboy_1111]

hmm it keeps telling me the poll is closed...

but id give it a 9/10

i loved it, and the Tony/Ironman Killian/Mandarin parallel was

Spoiler

pretty genius and an interesting twist on the character.. basically splitting modern mandarin and old school mandarin into two separate characters. Could they have pulled off a menacing mandarin using both sides of him combined into one? yes, and i would have loved that, but I would have loved both ways the same. so that was a win/win for me

my only minor gripes would probably be

Spoiler

that i felt the extremis virus's damage intake was random, and only to serve a story.. killian blows up but lives, but pepper blasts him and he's gone? I would have also liked to have seen tony bring rhodey a new war machine armor with "house party", i would have liked to have seen the hall of armors, and I really wish we had a tie in to the previous two films by having killian mention that the villains in IM1 and 2 were all 10 rings affiliates or something... (though they thought they were working for mandarin and not killian/aim)

that would all probably put it at a 10 for me, but the film was vastly enjoyable, and i hope we get an IM4

 

[spideyboy_1111]

Alright so help me on this guys, I also dont understand why we need to blackout anything on a rate and review thread , but I'll follow suit.

[BLACKOUT]Since IM 1 Killian helped Obadiah/Killian was leading the 10 rings Terrorist group? I understand he was the true Mandarin in the movie but I can't help but feel a little lied to/cheated. Cap has The Red Skull/Thor has Loki.....IM should of had The Mandarin, at least if it was Killian not die at the end of IM3 but be an ongoing villain

Also with the death of Killain and AIM pretty much done for, we can no longer have MODOK or any other villain AIM created?[/BLACKOUT]

Spoiler

i think Obie, Raza and Hammer both were affiliated with faux mandarin, and knew nothing about Aim/Killian . And I wish they did reference that.

and as for the fate of AIM, we don't know. Killian had a very "comic booky death" (no body = always can return) after all the guy already exploded once and survived, who knows. we know there was an actual AIM building during filming which was apparently cut from the film... so who knows what went on their and how big the company really is. It could be big like Hammer or Stark industries, and simply have a CEO (scientist supreme) step in and take his place after. It was inferred that AIM also provided the scientists to help loki in avengers.. but yeah it'd be nice to have that be confirmed. I was hoping AIM would show up in Cap 2.

 

[Incredible Hans]

Absofrickinlutely right.

That's probably why there's a lot of ******** fans in here ---- they've just been targeted and insulted. IM3 is a deconstruction of the genre, and it skewers not only Nolan but Whedon as well, but more importantly, it skewers fandom. The point of the movie is that we create our own ideas of what a hero is and what a villain is, and when that conception fails to reflect reality, things fall apart.

This movie is way, way, *way* over a lot of CBM fans' heads. The ones who only wanted to see "Iron Man vs. Mandarin!!! zomg pew-pew socko-blammo" got a cold hard dose of reality poured over their heads. Even Tony Stark did. The difference is, Tony recognized it in the end, and became a more mature and better person because of it. The fanboys are still stuck seething in their impotent rage, blind as ever.

IM3 is the most realistic depiction of a superhero world yet.

 

[ElMariachi]

Alright so help me on this guys, I also dont understand why we need to blackout anything on a rate and review thread , but I'll follow suit.

[BLACKOUT]Since IM 1 Killian helped Obadiah/Killian was leading the 10 rings Terrorist group? I understand he was the true Mandarin in the movie but I can't help but feel a little lied to/cheated. Cap has The Red Skull/Thor has Loki.....IM should of had The Mandarin, at least if it was Killian not die at the end of IM3 but be an ongoing villain

Also with the death of Killain and AIM pretty much done for, we can no longer have MODOK or any other villain AIM created?[/BLACKOUT]

[BLACKOUT]
This assumes that the Mandarin is actually dead. The Extremis almost made him into a Wolverine-esque character. I'm not sure how they would handle his return but I would certainly like to see a darker tone with it.
[/BLACKOUT]

 

[spideyboy_1111]

A few moments after [BLACKOUT]"Pepper dies"[/BLACKOUT], he calls the Mark 42 and it breaks apart, and he says [BLACKOUT]"Whatever"[/BLACKOUT] like nothing happened.

And this is not like Coulson, this is the woman of his life, his everything (according to this very film), it's hard for me to believe that this would be his reaction against his biggest enemy (again, according to this film) who's partially responsible for the [BLACKOUT]death of his love[/BLACKOUT].

keep in mind the entire film established that Tony doesn't process events real well in his life.. he has PTSD... he did't freak out about the events right after avengers until he was able to think about it... and i'm sure the same goes for pepper...

 

[Incredible Hans]

Trust me on that, people would have complained about how ridiculous the magical rings would have looked.

Yeah, I'm sure they would have looked as ridiculous and magical as do armour parts flying on their own many, many hundreds miles in a minute without any visible power source or means of propulsion.

I hope I never see such a thing in a movie.

 

[Norek]

How is this a joke? He was in the heat of battle. Was he supposed to just give up and start crying? Screaming, "NOOOOOOOO!". This is nothing more than a minor nitpick of the movie. I didn't find that scene to be played for laughs. Not saying it couldn't have been handled a bit better but it really wasn't an issue for me.

It obviously was, it got one of the biggest laughs in my viewing, and in yours I'm sure. A scene like that could've easily worked better before the [BLACKOUT]Pepper dying[/BLACKOUT] scene. I could never believe that Tony's reaction was that of a guy who [BLACKOUT]just lost his one and only purpose[/BLACKOUT]. It was kinda obnoxious.

 

[Whiskey Tango]

Moar sarcasm! MOAR!

 

[ThePhantasm]

keep in mind the entire film established that Tony doesn't process events real well in his life.. he has PTSD... he did't freak out about the events right after avengers until he was able to think about it... and i'm sure the same goes for pepper...

He got pretty emotional / angry about Coulson's death.

 

[spideyboy_1111]

He got pretty emotional / angry about Coulson's death.

id argue he actually was more angry over the supposed pepper death... he kinda went all "gloves are off" with killain. Not only that.. but I think Pepper's death is a bit harder to process..

let's keep in mind that nothing phased Stark in avengers UNTIL things got real with Coulson's death. And once he was able to decompress.. and had nothing left to think about but Aliens, Gods, Extra Dimensional beings... he snapped.

he obviously was not handling those things well... and Stark has a pretty deluded sense of reality... especially in this film. It's like when he first broke down in Tennessee, it was also the first time he had to also deal with the fact the Mandarin just attacked his house and sent everything he had into the ocean and nearly got his greatest love killed in the process. He didn't cope with it right after it happened.. he put it off. The larger the shock the less he deals with it (this much is obvious) and Pepper dying is a MAJOR shock to his system. So i wouldn't expect for him to deal with it instantly.

 

[ElMariachi]

Yeah, I'm sure they would have looked as ridiculous and magical as do armour parts flying on their own many, many hundreds miles in a minute without any visible power source or means of propulsion.

I hope I never see such a thing in a movie.

Compared to an old man shooting a tornado, black holes, and ice out of his fingertips? Yes, that's a big difference. It's called science fiction and fantasy. You may as well be comparing Star Trek to Harry Potter.

 

[ElMariachi]

It obviously was, it got one of the biggest laughs in my viewing, and in yours I'm sure. A scene like that could've easily worked better before the [BLACKOUT]Pepper dying[/BLACKOUT] scene. I could never believe that Tony's reaction was that of a guy who [BLACKOUT]just lost his one and only purpose[/BLACKOUT]. It was kinda obnoxious.

I've seen the movie twice. Not many people laughing at it.