Gilded promises were waved in front of my eyes through the constant flow of trailers. A new, action oriented director to hopefully inject the spark I've not experienced from high budget comic book films (I mean comic books are pretty heavy on the character development; I want to see the action, previously reliant on the reader's imagination, come to life in my movies). An adapted version of the Extremis storyline, one of the best in the Iron Man comics and certainly my favourite in which the line between biology and technology is erased, something I hope to see by the end of my lifetime.1 And finally to top it off, the Mandarin...ah the Mandarin, but more on that later.
I saw Iron Man 3 in the BFI IMAX on the Friday after a week of stressful second year medical exams, having booked them around two months in advance for 10 people.2 I'm becoming very picky with the IMAX and unless I get the best possible seats available I'm generally very unhappy.3 Also, call me picky but the Digital Remastering on non IMAX films looks a bit grainy and generally lacking in colour to my eyes, something I noticed in the Hobbit as well. I was genuinely very stressed going into the movie as I had broken my one rule4, around half the party had arrived late effectively locking themselves out of the auditorium and the ticket machines at the IMAX had churned out all 30 tickets I had booked with them. But that's enough info about my feelings, I want to talk about the movie.
It was a good movie to watch. Fun and funny, a great film to watch for leisure and an effective way to pass a couple of hours of time....for the average film-goer, not for the amateur comic book aficionado, Iron Man fanboy and critical (often controversial) film watcher I consider myself to be. Sometimes the film just watched horribly, like a 5.0 imdb film. The script didn't click and the editing seemed low quality, but these incidents were few and far between and I attribute it to an inexperienced director. Scarcity of action is not always a negative, again looking at Iron Man which had I'd say about 4 real action pieces, all which sated the audience's appetite. However, if you're going to swap out Jon Favreau for Shane Black of Lethal Weapon and increase the budget riding on the success of The 'billion-dollar' Avengers, I want to see more action and less fluff.5
I felt that considering the strength of the source material, what they did with the Extremis story line was inexcusable. For the sake of saving everybody's time I'm just going to reel off the changes they made that I disliked:
- Maya Hansen, creator of extremis and major player in the comics was made into a nobody. She did nothing at all and then they killed her for no reason.
- For a movie that seemed to want to focus on humour they really jumped the gun on removing Sal Kennedy
- Giving him psychokinetic control of his armour without going through the extremis process (Why??)
- Making Aldritch Killian a bad guy (curveball: I actually really liked this) Edit: But making him the main bad guy...Nah
- "Operation Clean Slate" WHAT THE (FUCKING) FUCK?!
I also think that making Pepper Potts Tony's girlfriend was a bad idea. Iron Man had an amazing on screen chemistry between Stark and Potts6 which was effectively held back by them being in a relationship in 2, 3 and the Avengers. The three way romantic friction that should have existed between Hansen, Potts and Stark just didn't play out like it should have. Also giving her extremis and then just magically taking it away in the epilogue? Sloppy writing.
Phew this is getting big. It feels like I'm writing an essay on the subject. This was all just floating around in my head post Iron Man 3, but now it's time for the part that makes me want to scream and tear all my hair out. Just watch this trailer:
Phew this is getting big. It feels like I'm writing an essay on the subject. This was all just floating around in my head post Iron Man 3, but now it's time for the part that makes me want to scream and tear all my hair out. Just watch this trailer:
That was the first look we got at Iron Man 3. Note the dark music, grim themes, the Mandarin, it just looked incredible. People went straight to the comments and said this was going to be a copy of The Dark Knight Rises (Shut UP).7 All that excitement and build-up. This was it, Iron Man's major fight, going toe to toe with his arch-nemesis and he didn't even know it. When what they had done dawned on me, I laughed. I laughed because it was funny and unexpected and brave of them to attempt. But most of all I laughed because that was when my love for the Marvel Cinematic Universe was torn from me. And it's probably going to scar.8
I really have exhausted myself with this post. I honestly can't think of anything else to write. I think that's a good thing? It means I won't have to think about hating Iron Man while I slog on with bloody Science and Patient (urgh). Truth is if they do make this the last one (which is possible considering the ending and the salary fiasco that's going on) I would be incredibly disappointed that they left it like they did. OK you called my bluff, I'm going to go see Thor 2 and Captain America 2 and Hulk 2 and I'd sacrifice my first born to go to the premiere of The Avengers 2 (THANOS!), but please please please Marvel, don't disappoint me again.
Join us next time on Journey to the Center of the Samick whenever I can be arsed to write another one.
P.S. They're called the Argonauts you ingrate.
1 Who knows, maybe I'll get involved with some research project that will be directly involved with making this a reality↩
2 £120!!!! I mean come on Sanchit it was supposed to be a small group↩
3 This required a whole day of constant refreshing for Star Trek and Man of Steel but I did get some fairly good seats.↩
4 Always, and I mean ALWAYS go to the toilet before the cinema. Created circa. Pirates of the Caribbean 3.↩
5 ac-tion, /ˈakSHən/ , noun: the ass kicking of enemies by Tony Stark or Colonel 'Rhodey' Rhodes enclosed in an armored, powered exo-skeleton, ideally brand new in features and function, both of which are specified to some extent. ↩
6 The 2008 film captured the Stark-Potts relationship perfectly. The super intelligent, womanizing yet lonely Stark and his assistant who cares for him but can't keep up with his speeding intellect. On screen this was achieved because Downey Jr. kept improvising and deviating from the script leaving Paltrow flustered. Brilliant.↩
7 No seriously shut up. You were wrong and always will be wrong. Kindly take your head out of Batman's arse.↩
8 MCU Hatred Syndrome: Treat with a direct dose of Civil War and wean on Iron Man v4 and hope that the next one won't be so bad.↩
No comments:
Post a Comment