Iron Man (Movie and Sequels)

[Darby]

Saw it yesterday and really enjoyed it. Better than 2. The twist was probably the best part, but I really enjoyed the character going back to his roots. Like everyone else I was expecting a bigger bad or some greater connection beyond the film, but maybe the point was to avoid that and just have a movie.

[Sprry75]

Man, I thought it sucked.  Why do the Mandarin if you're going to do him like that?  Why do the Iron Patriot armor instead of War Machine?  Just a mess.  RDJ is excellent, and if this is his last turn in a stand alone film, it's a shame.  I hated it.  Maybe my expectations were too high, but major disappointment.

[McMetal]

My enthusiasm died over the weekend when I read some interview with the director who called the original Mandarin comic character "a racist caricature" or something to that effect. It's that kind of lack of respect for the source material that turns me off to these revisionist interpretations.

[BillCable]

Yeah... no racist caricature here...



He may as well be singing "Deck the harrs wiff barrs of horry... fa raa raa raa raa..."

[Pete_Fett]

For me, I didn't mind how they changed the Mandarin - in fact there was one line in the movie that IMHO means that The Mandarin could always be in a future Marvel Universe movie.

(sorry, I'm trying not to spoil anything, but it's kinda hard)

[Scott]

Saw it last night with my boys, they loved it and couldn't stop talking about it.  I gave it a big meh.  Maybe because we've seen this exact same thing almost three times now.  Maybe because deep down I never really liked Iron Man.  Maybe because the twist was absolutely stupid.  Good humor again, great effects...just sick of this.

I did notice that at the end of the movie it said "Tony Stark will return" and not "Iron Man will return"  You can't have an Avengers without one of the big three in Cap, IM or Thor.  Not having one of them isn't that big of a deal, that was sort of the deal with being an Avenger.  People could go do their thing and always come back.  To me Cap is the Avengers, if RDJ is done with Iron Man, I am too and am fine with where they left it.

[JediJman]

A bunch of my coworkers saw it over the weekend and were just raving about it.  I wonder if its appealing to the masses, but maybe less so to those of us that have already built up a history with the character via the comics?  I'm more anxious to see it even more now given people seem to either love it or hate it.

[BillCable]

I've read Iron Man off-and-on for years, and I thought the movie was great.  Unless you have some intense affinity for the silver age canon of the Mandarin, or don't like Tony outside the suit, I can't see finding anything morally offensive about the film from a geek standpoint.  From a movie standpoint, the comedy either works for you or it doesn't.  The twists either work for you or they don't.

[Qui-Gon Jim]

I agree with Bill.  I thought this was better than 2 but not as good as 1.  I liked the twist. SPOILERS AHEAD:

Without the twist, Mandarin is just Bane.  That would have been too Batman-like since the first thing I thought of when I saw Killian was Jim Carrey's portrayal of The Riddler.  In the end it was handled better, but Pearce's take on the nerdy Killian was a bit cringe-worthy.
The after-credits coda was funny, but a little disappointing.

I think that Avengers 2 will center around getting Stark to "suit up" and save the day.

[BillCable]

Yeah - the movie has its flaws.  Nerdy Killian was one.  The whole scene in the TV van was cringe-worthy and insulting.  That scene was worse than the drunk party scene in IM2, IMO.  Are there really Christmas Eve beauty pageants with swimsuit competitions in Tennessee? 

And Happy Hogan must be a yo-yo dieter.  15 years ago he was a whale.  Fighting with Black Widow in IM2 he was fit and trim.  And back again guarding Pepper he was huge again...

But those gripes are minor when weighed against the awesomeness of most everything else.

[Qui-Gon Jim]

Agreed.  The choreography of every action sequence in the film is so impressive.  I thought that Rhodes was (again) underdeveloped, but minor quibbles as you said.

[Nicklab]

I read some of the comic run of Iron Man, but it's really been the movies that made me that much more of a fan of Iron Man.  That's due in no small part to the amazing job that Robert Downey Jr. has done portraying Tony Stark.  And in Iron Man 3 I think he was able to make the character grow beyond what we've seen in the previous two films as well as in Avengers.

I think the big theme of this movie was that Tony was human.  He may have this amazing intellect and fantastic skill at building things, but unlike some of his fellow Avengers, Tony is just as frail as any other man.  Still, as "The Mechanic", Tony has been able to do things that are truly astounding.

Tony has had the armor at his beck and call through the whole movie series.  Seeing him in a position where he has to rely on his wit more than the power of the armor has given his character that much more depth.  Especially when he's faced with a foe like Killian who possesses an intellect that's on par with Tony's.

The Mandarin façade was interesting.  It harkened back to the Ten Rings plot point from the first Iron Man.  But I have to agree with Bill, that the Mandarin character from the early Iron Man comics was very much a charicature that was a product of it's times.  And the concept behind the Mandarin's powers doesn't really work in the world that Marvel Studios has established.  At least not without a serious backstory that could bog down the flow of Iron Man 3. 

I can't say that I know that much about the Extremis storyline from the Iron Man comics.  Or if Aldrich Killian had been established in the comics.  But I think that if you're going to have a villain who can come across as credible in a film like this, they have to do so from the shadows.  AIM works better in the movie universe as a think tank / research organization that's engaged in questionable research to put itself in a position to get government contracts, etc.

As for nerdy Killian from the 1999 scenes in Bern?  That was a bit over the top.  As was Happy Hogan's look at the time.  But I did appreciate the fact that they worked Yinsen from the first film into that scene.

And in the whole mix of things, it turned out that the speculation regarding the Wasp making it into the movie was just that.  It would have been nice to see some possible future Avengers introduced in this movie, but I get the sense that doing so might have bogged down a pretty dense movie.

[EdSolo]

I would think the major gripe with the "twist" is that a major villain from the Iron Man universe essentially doesn't exist.  I suppose a true Mandarin could show up later, but I think that ship has sailed.  I don't see why Kingsley's version couldn't have had the magic rings.  I think the depiction of AIM fit very well in the movie Marvel universe.  I don't think you could have brought in a character like MODOK into the movie.  I think they did a good job with most of the Extremis elements as well.  I'm not sure I would have gone with the Killian arc as they did though.  Overall, I think the villains have been the weak point in the Iron Man trilogy as a whole.

[CloneF13Y35]

I never did add my review last weekend but my son and I loved it. I could tell right away it was going to have a different 'feel' to it - if that is something you can discern by the style of new director shane black. I was also a little giddy at hearing one of my fav nerdy 90's techno songs 'Blue' at the start of the movie though not hearing anything by ac-dc to start it off was an "oh, ok..." moment.  but as the story unfolded I liked what they did, not being an expert on iron man from the comics, any inconsistencies didn't bother me.  It had a very different pace to the story, not as slow as the previous ones (not saying they dragged at all, this one just had a quicker pace to it). I thouroughly enjoyed the dialogue and snappy back n forth between tony and pepper, tony and rhodey and how tony interacted with the kid (though I did say to myself "did he really just say 'p**sy' to the kid?).  But I have to say the really big 'shock' to me was when pepper fell into the fireball during the final fight - I was like 'did they really just kill her off?'; but I suspected she'd survive due to her extremis treatment. I really dug all the cool iron man suits, just wished they'd given a little more close up time to each of them but I'd seen enough of the suits online and in the official iron man 3 movie magazine I got.
Overall I was very happy with it, I asked my son how he liked it and which one was his fav and he enthusiastically said 'this one!'.  can't wait for the dvd set in a few months!

[JediJman]

Finally caught this over the weekend.  As a massive Iron Man fan for 30+ years, I have some mixed feelings about it, but overall would give the movie a 7 out of 10. 

RDJ is fantastic as always.  His wit and sarcasm make the movie come to life.  I loved the side story with the kid who helps him out and I liked that he showed some weakness with panic attacks.  Not so sure about the Tony/Pepper relationship - I like Tony as a playboy who never really lets anyone in, but nice to see Paltrow get some action scenes in I suppose.  The Extremis storyline from the comics was pretty much the template for this movie, but in the comics the real Mandarin was behind it (not AIM) and Tony ends up getting Extremis, leading to a host of new abilities with and without his armor.  I'm glad they went this route with Pepper instead and cleaned that up by the end.

I was okay with the Mandarin twist.  Disappointing that we won't see the power rings in action, but I love that they found a way to bring AIM into the Movie Universe for potential future supporting roles.  They covered Mandarin, AIM, Extremis, Pepper in the suit, Happy nearly killed by a foe, and Iron Patriot, so lots of current and old storylines mixed into one.  That's hard to do while still making a convincing/complete story, so I think they pulled it off well. 

My disappointment in the movie stemmed from several missed opportunities.  They went to the effort of bringing Yinsen and mentioned the alien invasion from Avengers a few times, so A+ there.  But they stopped short on other easy tie-ins that could have made the movie so much better:

 - The story centers around a threat to the president, but we don't see any sign of a SHEILD response?  Given their presence through all the other Marvel movies that's a real head scratcher. 

 - I thought the panic attacks were a nice touch given that you have a relatively newb-hero coming out of an alien invasion.  But they could/should have tied that into Tony's drinking to make him a truly flawed hero.  You see signs of his drinking in earlier movies and he could have easily been drunk instead during all those panic attack scenes.  Alchoholism is such a major theme in the comics that its hard for me to believe we've gone three movies without touching on this.

 - The War Machine/Iron Patriot was totally under utilized IMO.  Great gag with the name and cool enough armor, but Rhodes in armor was pretty much useless.  Yes, he saved the president, but basically just by flying away.  How about having him come back to the fight at the end somewhere to help out!?  They could have even made some reference to him with ties to SHIELD - maybe set him up to replace Iron Man on the Avengers if they want to go that route.

 - I was really surprised to not see any ties back to other Marvel movies.  A visit from Banner, a phone call to Cap, a date with the Widow...it was really strange not to see a cameo from one of the Avengers when they've done this in pretty much every Avengers related movie.  Just another missed opportunity that made it feel less than what it could have been.

Still a fun movie and great addition to the Iron Man series.  This movie had a sense of finality to it, but I hope we see lots more of RDJ's Stark down the road.