With the latest Marvel movie just around the corner, here are my thoughts on the three Iron Man movies.
No, the title isn't a reference to Tony Starks' big reveal near the end of
the first movie, but rather to the intro of the Black Sabbath song which scared
the shit out of me the first time I heard it.
No, I don't think Iron Man was supposed to be grim, dark or ugly--like the
song. But there is one short sequence that managed to be grimly fun--where
Starks emerged from the cave, fought while clad in a giant black metal
suit that spews pure hellfire, managed to skyrocket himself and escaped his
captors, only to crash-land into the desert, in pieces. It was easily the best
part of the movie--that's when his suit was crude and heavy. Not long after, he
made a suit--the weightless red and gold CGI--that was too shiny, too perfect;
it's just so hard to believe the bad guys would have any chance of winning. And
Robert Downey Jr.'s OK, but his snarky Tony Starks' badassness is more of good
guy badass, not bad badass. I'd say, it's more than two-thirds of a good movie,
with a fairly unconvincing final battle near the end.
I'd be happy to give this a plus for introducing the hot redhead undercover agent, even though for the most part it was like--what the fuck is going on?!--and that, not for a single frame did I ever thought that Mickey Rourke's Russian playboy-cum-wild orchid lover Whiplash, and his army of pixel soldiers, had any chance to beat Tony and his friend Rhodes (who underwent plastic surgery after the first movie), even when the pair are beyond being obviously outnumbered.
And finally, I'd take back the plus I gave above, for totally wasting the opportunity to make Natasha kick some serious ass, the way Josh Whedon did in the first Avengers movie.
 | |
| Seriously kicking some ass. |
Oh, by the way, the first two movies had really cool soundtracks, consist mainly of hard rock staples, prominently AC/DC--which was probably meant to imply that Starks isn't only billionaire playboy inventor but also metalhead who digs AC/DC, but probably not Black Sabbath. Therefore, he's also probably gay, or bisexual.
The third film, I liked better than the second for 1) screwing Marvel fanboys in the face, with Ben Kingsley's brilliant turn as the Mandarin; 2) the Christmastime-y story of a boy and his robot-friend; 3) a measure of buddy-cop comedy which (I'm not sure why) reminds me of Shane Black's quite funny Kiss Kiss Bang Bang; 4) and the sight of Starks' only suit getting low on battery, malfunctioning at crucial moments, or getting hit and blown to pieces. Everything was fairly OK and entertaining, except for (again) the unconvincing villains, whose head honcho used to built time machines before he met Starks. (Jeff Bridges' turn as the big bad bald bearded chin is still the best villain we had, in this currently longest running Marvel solo film series.) It was running pretty fine until the big finale when creator-playboy-billionaire decided that he'd just blew them up--his personal collection of flying CGI decepticons and his enemies. Just like in a Michael Bay movie, everything were blown to pieces--Starks' mansion, Starks' Transformer collection, everything. But despite all this, Starks feels fine about himself, because after all this time, he realized, HE is Iron Man. And nothing can take that away from him. Amen.
PS: John Favreau of Very Bad Things fame directed this film series.
Erratum: Shane Black directed the third movie.
PPS: Now I know why the third movie reminds me of Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. Because that movie also stars Downey Jr. and a guy who looks a lot like Guy Pearce--a fat version of Guy Pearce.
