Wednesday, May 15, 2013

Molo at the Movies: Iron Man 3

 Look, if you are at all on the fence about Iron Man 3, then just get your ass off the couch and go see it. 


Otherwise you'll probably get caught up in Star Trek and Superman and Thor and Pacific Rim and Wolverine and Monsters Inc 3 and all the other summer blockbusters and let this one slip by.  Don't do that, this may well end up being the best popcorn movie of the summer.  


Then again, maybe not, this year looks about 100x better for action flicks than last year.  Iron Man 3 was a great way to start.  It's an enjoyable romp - dizzying, fun, clever at timesThe villains are strong, which seems to be such a hard thing to do these days, I mean when has there been a decent villain lately?  Loki?  Please.  The villains from the recent Bond flicks?  Meh....whatever happened to Hans Gruber?  Well, Ben Kingsley does a good job of it here - I don't want to give tooooooo much away, but he's quite amusing in his role, and Guy (cheekbones) Pearce is fairly decent himself.  Good villains are so important for a good action flick

Aside - remember Val Kilmer in The Saint?  I think Guy studied up on that flick for his initial scenes in IM3 - I swear I was looking at Simon Templar (had to look up that character name).  Come to think of it, both movies feature a super-attractive lady scientist with an amazing scientific, volatile,  breakthrough that is in danger of falling into the wrong hands....this movie actually owes a small debt to that fun late 90s flick...

Any who, where was I...Guy Pearce is such a strange actor, he's occasionally very excellent (Memento, The Proposition - man that is such a good movie) but I can't get a bead on him.  Is he going to be a good guy or a bad guy, or both, or just a side character actor?  No doubt that's why they cast him to this role...but I digress.

Back to the actual film -  There's a lot going on all the time w/out all that much really going on - Tony's dealing with post saving the world anxiety, the US is under serious terrorist bombing, people are blowing up, they painted Don Cheadle's suit all 'Merican....  It's kind of overwhelming in it's action sequences, but it is the good kind of overwhelming...although, I honestly found the 3D distracting.  I'm done with 3D, I don't like having to turn my head to see stuff on the side of the screen be in focus.  What's the point really?  Moving on...there's some fun dialog with a kid even thrown into this one.  The only bit that felt a bit forced is some of the Pepper/Tony drama about him withdrawing into his work instead of looking to her for support/what not...I mean it was fine and all, but you don't always have to really lay on these character lessons so thick, do you?  Look I'm talking around it a bit so as to not spoil the film entirely, so go ahead and ignore this, and we can talk about it another time, dear reader.  Point is they almost really really nailed it, and they did a valiant job, considering it's a Hollywood action summer blockbuster. 

 
Plus, Pepper kicks some serious ass at one point:





You had me at "that was really violent", Gwen.  

 Iron Man 3  3.5 Molos  2013 Directed by Shane Black, starring Robert Downey Jr, Gwyneth Paltrow, Don Cheadle, Guy Pearce, Sir Ben Kingsley, and lots of Iron Man suits.  And it's nice to see Jon Favreau of Swingers fame continue to get work. 


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And now, a running short list of all the films I have watched in 2013, new and old, ranked by their Molos (remember, the Molo Scale goes up to 5) 2013 films are highlighted in bold and there is a running top 10 list of 2013 at the bottom.    

The 2013 Molo List:







Hunger 4 Molos

Iron Man 3  3.5 Molos
Perks of Being a Wallflower 3.5 Molos



End of Watch 3.5 Molos


Dredd  3.5 Molos


The Sessions 3.5 Molos


Flight 3 Molos


Life of Pi  3 Molos

Searching for Sugarman 3 Molos


Mission Impossible-Ghost Protocol  3 Molos


Cosmopolis  2.5 Molos

Ted  2.5 Molos
Seven Psychopaths  2.5 Molos

Lawless 2 Molos


Little Birds  2 Molos

Arbitrage 2 Molos


Taken 2  1 Molo



Top 10 Best movies of this year (ever-changin):


#1  The Place Beyond the Pines

#2  Iron Man 3

#3  Evil Dead

#4 Jack Reacher (this is really just a placeholder, this movie was terrible!)

1 comment:

Dan O. said...

Not the best out of the trilogy, but at least better than the second. Then again, almost everything is. Good review Molo.