Iron Man 3 - One for the Junk Pile

Arguably the worst of the MCU films, Iron Man 3 (although I find it more watchable than, Spider Man Far From Home) left a lot to be desired, and as we got the "twist" in the film, it wasn't a thrill, it was a direct shot to the unarmored iron balls.

When it was announced that Ben Kingsley had been cast and it appeared that he was playing the Mandarin, I was thrilled, this is one of the greatest actors of the last century.  Then I saw the movie and felt like chucking my large Sprite at the screen.

For the longest time, the Mandarin has been one of Stark's greatest enemies, now it seemed that they were dialing it up to 11 by making him a terrorist leader as well as everything else he's supposed to be, but just another angry CEO... didn't we do that with Obie and Hammer?  This was the opportunity of a real hardcore Ironman villain, and Marvel failed big time.

The one good thing I'll say about the film is that it was still a lot of the nuts & bolts Ironman and not that nanotech nonsense they would later use to screw up the character more.

It started off great, the video threats from the supposed Mandarin, matching up with a lot of the way terrorists like to operate, it was a change for him, but it was okay, kinda matched up with reality a bit more, I could live with that.  Using human bombs that could go off and walk away, VERY COOL, could leave those investigating it fooled for who knows how long, no evidence.  

Stark meets this really cool kid in Tennessee, a kid with some of the same talents as Stark, nice appeal to younger audiences but not to over-cutsie as Disney products tend to overdue it, it was working so far.

This could have let up to an even better Shang-Chi if the real 10 Rings had been in play, like the Mandarin used in the comic.  At Mandarins defeat the rings could have gone to Shang-Chi's father, and we could have seen that unfold in their film.

But the moment we learned that the Kingsley character not only wasn't the Mandarin but just an actor, the film died, right then, it was over and not worth another kernal of popcorn, and it was such a bad choice it took credibility from the entire MCU.  If they were willing to make a decision this bad on an Iron Man movie, what else might they severely screw up?!?

I'm not a fan of Guy Pearce anyway, I'm not impressed with his acting and can't understand how anyone is, he comes off as slimey from the first second, even when he's not trying to.

Let's hope that Shane Black just goes away and doesn't return to the MCU anytime ... at all, the writing was terrible and the direction was abysmal.  Let him go make B-level action flicks with Z-list actors where he belongs.

In the end, this was just a really bad addition to the MCU and probably shouldn't have been done if they weren't going to do it right.

Overall this film gets half a star, but for a single film, it gets none, it was just a mistake, plain and simple.

This film will forever be in the ranks of Indiana Jones 4 and the Star Wars sequels of, WHAT THE HELL WERE THEY THINKING!?!

 

MRM : Iron Man 2 aka, Tony's Ego part 2

Marvel doubled down with the 2nd installment of the MCU as Iron Man 2 took to the screen.  Looking back from today, we realize that the MCU isn't what we thought it was back then, so much centers around or leads back to, Tony Stark.

We start the film with Tonys tribute to Tonys ego, his resurrection of the Stark Expo, a whole year of it, or it was supposed to have gone on for a year... we never found out if they tried to finish it or not.

On his way out, a cameo by the always hot, Kate Mara, who serves Tony with an order to appear before the senate armed services committee hearing, which turns into a fun scene of Tony (Robert Downey Jr) making complete fools out of Senator Stern (Garry Shandling, who later turns out to be part of Hydra) and a political committee attempting to forcibly take the "Iron Man weapon" from him.  He also makes a fool out of fellow billionaire/designer (not really hard to do with this guy) Justin Hammer (Sam Rockwell).

Another film where the Stark family history comes back biting, this time in the form of the son of a man who helped Howard Stark (John Slattery) design the arc reactor and then was shuffled off to Siberia to keep him from the world, never sharing a penny for his work and creations.

Ivan Vanko, the supervillain known as, Whiplash (Mickey Rourke, who should have won the Oscar for, The Wrestler) is the son of Starks former scientist and is out to avenge what was done to him, in a vodka fueled rage.

Back in his hotrod workshop, we find out that Stark is being poisoned by the cell in his chest that is keeping him alive and that the use of the Iron Man suit only makes it worse, but he does everything to keep it to himself, and he turns control of Stark Industries over to Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow).

This film introduces Natasha Romanoff, aka The Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) as part of Stark Industries staff, he first scene in a funny bit with the films director, Jon Favreau, in his role as, Happy Hogan.

Tony, Pepper, Happy and Natasha travel to Monaco, where Elon Musk makes a cameo, Tony then subs himself in for his own Formula 1 driver, but the race is interrupted by Whiplash.  In another of the moments that is the way Iron Man should be, we see Tony change into the suit via a special briefcase, again the nuts & bolts of the suit being far better than the weak and lazy writing with "nanotech".

It's here that the MCU touches, ever so briefly, on one of the biggest parts of Tony's past, his alcoholism, as was featured in the comics in the 1970s, but came to help define and humble the character, this version could use some humility, they didn’t take this part seriously enough at all.

During one of Starks benders, he throws a massive party as his mansion and uses the Iron Man armor to blow up water melons.  James "Roadie" Rhodes (Don Cheadle) steps in and takes one of Tony's Iron Man suits.

Nick Fury (Samuel L Jackson) and Black Widow stage an intervention in a donut shop, where Widow sticks Tony with a sirum that helps to curb the effects of the paldium poisoning, for now.

Agent of SHIELD, Phil Coulson is assigned to babysit Stark as he's locked in his mansion to review a bunch of his dad's old work and movies from his version of the Stark Expo.  It's in these films that we hear Howard Stark's comment, "all things are possible through technology", and Marvel seems to want that to be their new motto over the classic, With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility, because hey, who should be or needs to be when your a, playboy-billionaire-philanthorpist... right?

Coulson leaves to "take care of something more important in the southwest (the discovery of Thor's hammer), Tony takes off to tell Pepper happy birthday and apologize.  While in his old office he gets a revelation while looking at the old scale model of his dad's Stark Expo.

To cure himself and to defeat Danko, Tony must fulfil his fathers dream, that he didn't have the technology back in his day.

Justin Hammer frees Danko and gets him to work on his own line of iron men, but Danko has a different plan.  The final battle is a pretty good one, although Whiplash being regulated to just another battle suit seems to be a slap to the classic villain.

Overall, the movie is really a lot about Tony's ego and little to do with the Avengers and/or the MCU, except to introduce Black Widow (which they could have done with her own movie) and War Machine... oh, and we also see Tony save a young Peter Parker at the Stark Expo (which the kids identity was thrown in LONG after the films release).  As far as an Iron Man adventure, it was too much Stark and not enough Iron Man, they could have done better.  It gets 🌟 and a half stars out of five, just because Scarlett Johansson looked so good in that suit.  The film is mainly about pushing the, "all things are possible through technology" 💩 than anything else... but the third film is even worse, but we'll get to that...

 

MRM : Iron Man (2008) aka, Tony’s Ego Part 1

 

In the actual kickoff of the MCU, we get, at least through our worlds timeline, Tony’s Ego : Part One…. I mean, Iron Man!

Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr) is pushed as the MCU's "golden boy" instead of Captain America so that Hollywood can push the, "all things are possible through technology" 💩

We start with Stark's motorcade being attacked with an IED in the Middle East, then flashback 36 hours to give everyone an idea of Tony's "priorities" in life, like sleeping with hot reporters, or gambling while he's supposed to be at company functions.

Here, we're introduced to James "Roadie" Rhodes (Terrence Howard) who is Tony's old friend and military connection, Happy Hogan (Jon Favreau) who is Tony's butler/top guy, and Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow) who is Tony's secretary/handler.

Then back to real time, after showing off his latest weapon system, The Jericho, the motorcade is attacked and Stark is injured, then put back together in the cave/stronghold of a terrorist group so he can build a Jericho system for them.  instead, he builds what is known in the MCU as the, Mark I suit, a crude version of Iron Man that look a lot like the comics early rendition of the character that he uses to escape his captors.

When he returns to civilization (nice product placement, Burger King, although I don't remember the stores doing anything around the film, at all) he decides that mass weapons manufacturing isn't his thing anymore (in a VERY public press conference, where we first meet, Agent Coulson).  Back at the mansion we see Tony & Pepper have a funny buy crazy moment of, Operation, when she helps him change out the reactor in his chest. 😆  It was good he interrupted her when he did as she was wasting her time with that screaming idiot and stock market wanna-be analyst, Jim Cramer.

He then goes on to design the, Mark II suit, gold and hotrod red (introducing us to JARVIS) and starts his campaign against terrorists that are using his weapons against innocents.  In one fight he's pursued by American fighter jets and has to admit to Roadie that it's him in the armor.

One of the major mistakes of the film is them acting as if they don't have the name, SHIELD in place yet, when in other films we know that it's been in use for decades, going back and watching this, it makes Coulson really look bad, and he's one guy they shouldn't do that to.

In a bid to overthrow the company, it turns out that his number two guy, Obediah Stain (Jeff Bridges, who is awesome, too bad they killed him off) was behind the attack on Tony in the Middle East, he wants to take control of the company so he can keep supplying weapons to whoever has the money, no matter who they are used against.  In that, he takes the reactor from Stark's chest to power his own version of the Mark I, best known in the comics as, Iron Monger.

Of course Tony wins the day & saves the girl, finally realizing that Pepper Potts is the one for him, as he announces to the world, "I am Iron Man."

The post credit scene of Tony and Nick Fury would be the kickoff of the MCU, but really could have/should have been done a bit different with Fury trying to knock down Tony's ego a bit more by telling him that  he's not the only super hero in the world, but since he's Tony Stark he has to do things in public instead of under the radar like "the others".  

Overall it's a pretty good super hero film and origin story for the modern age.

The best part of this movie, is that it's the nuts & bolts Iron Man, the way it should be, the real machine work, clockwork style, not the weak and foolish "nanotech" nonsense they go for in later films.  Seeing that first time he locks on the armor to go after the bad guys and first "super hero landing" is really a great thing!!!

The use of classic rock, namely AC/DC is incredible and greatly helps in connecting the different generations of fans for the comic books and the new films.

Robert Downey Jr is perfect for the role, he comes off as a spoiled brat billionaire playboy, that you want to cheer for but also wouldn't mind slapping the hell out of here and there.  Downey really put his life back together after years of substance abuse, he now uses his role to help people, especially kids needing prosthetics, he's turned into a real life hero.

For the film alone, it get's 🌟🌟 and a half stars but for the kickoff of the MCU, just one, Cap should have been the focus, that  isn't about Downey or Favreau, it's about Marvel's mistake.

I'm always sorry we never got to see this model of the the Iron Man armor from the late early 70's, it's an obvious punchline just waiting to happen, as Tony could call this one, his Horny Armor 😆 given the look of the helmet...  But, there are several versions of the armor that I wish we could have seen.