For The Fan Presents: Iron Man 3 Movie

For The Fan Presents:

Iron Man 3:Review

*WARNING* SPOILERS IN THIS REVIEW

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Director: Shane Black

Writer: Drew Pearce

Starring: Robert Downey Jr., Guy Pearce, Gwyneth Paltrow, Done Cheadle, Ben Kigsley, Paul Bettany, Rebecca Hall

Plot: When Tony Stark's world is torn apart by a formidable terrorist called the Mandarin, he starts an odyssey of rebuilding and retribution

Hello! And thank you so much for checking out the first of VERY many "For The Fan" Reviews! Just a quick little background on what FTF is about! For The Fan Reviews are going to be reviews on anything that I happen to read, watch, or listen to! This includes but is not limited to; Comics, Music, Movies, TV Shows, etc. Pretty much anything that interests me! It is review FOR THE FANS, FROM A FAN! So let's start this off with one of the most anticipated movie's of the summer, yupp you guessed it! Iron Man 3!

To start with, let me just say I was looking forward to Iron Man 3 since they first released that the "Mandarin" was going to be in it. Simply because the Mandarin is the biggest villain that Iron Man has, so right of the bat you would expect it to be great. Then I found out that director Shane Black was both directing and writing this film which made me think, "well if he's both writing and directing this movie it's like his baby and he's going to be sure it's good." About a week before I saw the film I heard that it was going to be based on the extremis comic story line.. When I heard this I thought "okay.. This is going to be one crazy movie." 

Iron Man 3 was an attempt to make Tony Stark seem as though he is like everyone else in the world(which they could have easily done before by making his alcoholism more of key role in the films) by giving him extreme anxiety attacks due to the recent New York battle that he was involved in with The Avengers. This I think is actually a really good reason for Tony to have these anxiety attacks. I mean come on, he went into a worm hole and fell out for goodness sakes! I would have anxiety attacks after that as well! So far you guys are probably thinking that I absolutely loved this film.. Well I didn't. Other than Marvel finally grounding their "playboy philanthropist" I was kind of disappointed. It seemed as though every other line out of Tony's mouth was some smart ass comment. In some situations it was hilarious, but in most it felt way over done and un needed. 

The first appearance of the Mandarin came about 15-20 minutes into the film and I must say, they did an amazing job of making him a more of a "modern day villain" but could they have thought of doing it in more of an original way? A terrorist? Really? And a middle eastern terrorist none the less. Not to mention his rings weren't even magic! And it turned out that he was just an actor for the minor Iron Man villain "Nitro."(was NOT shown in the trailer, they did a great job of keeping it a secret.) It felt as if they switched the roles of Nitro and Mandarin in this film.. Back to their adaptation of the Mandarin for a second. I can look past him not having his magic powers like what he had in comics, which made me sad by the way, and I could look past that he would only appear in hacked television streams, but I really couldn't look past the fact they made the Mandarin a drunk street actor. No seriously! They made the villain of the Mandarin a drunk that Nitro just found on the street! Stupid? I thought so.. Acting wise, Ben Kingsley was absolutely perfect. I was more disappointed in the writing than anything else.

The next character I want to talk about is Nitro, or as he is called in the movie "Aldrich Killian." They don't even mention him as Nitro by the way, but if you're familiar with the comics you would know right off the bat, that is who he was. We first see Killian in the opening scene of the film which is a flashback Stark has of a new years eve party back in 1999. When Stark is attempting to get into an elevator, a very nerdy/pathetic looking man approaches him with the idea for a company named "A.I.M." The idea behind A.I.M according to Killian, was to upgrade the human DNA and "the perfect human."  A.I.M ends up producing the "extremis" DNA with the help of Tony Stark's business partner/current lover Maya Hanson. Hanson was currently working on a way to regrow limbs. In the comics the "extremis" was essentially the same exact thing that made Steve Rogers into the super soldier, Captain America. In Iron Man 3, the extremis was an orange syrim that made people become like a super soldier, and explode.. Yes, I said it, EXPLODE. There was something wrong with the syrim created by Hanson and Killian that caused people to explode if their body didn't accept the new DNA. Interesting right?

Now, how the hell do The Mandarin, and Killian tie in together so far? Well, about 3/4 into the movie we find out that the Mandarin is just an actor, not a real terrorist like the movie had portrayed so far(mentioned earlier as well.) It turns out that Killian is the man behind the Mandarin. He needed a face to distract the world while he attempted to make A.I.M and the extremis the next big thing. 

Probably the number 1 issue I had with the film was that the final fight scene felt EXACTLY the same as the climatic scene from Iron Man 2. The number 2 issue I had with the film was that War Machine, was turned into the "iron patriot", who is supposed to be Norman Osborne by the way(fuck you sony!). Also, the same thing happens to Rhodey in the third installment that happened in the second film. Yupp! He gets tricked into losing his armor.... AGAIN. The final issue I had with the film was every fight scene felt like a Michael Bay film. It was just explosion, after explosion, CGI non stop.. It got very old very quick

Overall I did enjoy Iron Man 3. I had a lot of fun watching it and think that the average person will absolutely love it. As much as I absolutely hate CGI, it was beautifully done and looked, for the most part real. I give this film a 3.7 out of 5. It was good, but definitely could have been a lot better. I think it was the writing that hurt this film. Shane Black should really just stick to directing.

Cons: Bad writing, cheesy fight scene's, re-used theme's from the last film, strayed to far away from original comics, failed attempt to make magical super villain "modern"

Pros: Great directing, Great acting, AMAZING twist, and the CGI didn't 100% piss me off

Rating: 3.7/5

Article by Matt Skajem