mostaccioli

guess many here don't know the background of the mandrin which might explain why no uproar over how he gets treated in this movie. many got upset over darth vader and boba fett and how they got treated in the new star wars movies.

Supermallet

The reason we bitch about Darth Vader and Boba Fett is because those movies are shit. Iron Man 3 was really good, so I don't mind the change.

Jackskeleton

Yeah, it's like if the Joker in Batman gets revealed to just be some hired out birthday clown taking the fall for Harvey Dent or some other just introduced character in the film.



But you see, Tony made him wait on the roof... all by himself.

What a fucking waste of AIM. I didn't even get to see one guy in a giant yellow bee hive costume. For shame.

Extremis was used in such a silly and over the top manner and the flimsiness that all the units had in being torn apart was laughable. I get they were trying to show that Tony doesn't need the armor and he's really "Iron Man", but come on. they were being crushed apart like beer cans.


The ending was such a piece of shit to it though. No expansion on what happens next with the aftermath of Pepper getting injected. Oh, Tony can just drunkenly crank out a cure off screen. Why not. Such lazy writing in the epilogue. It was pretty clear they just couldn't tell if they wanted to tie a bow on this solo character marvel franchise or bite the bullet and get RDJ back for another with a truck full of cash again.

dave-o

It's no where near Indy 4 levels. I still walked out of it and felt I got my moneys worth. It was a fun ride, lots of action, some great lines, etc. I liked Pearce a lot and RDJ was hilarious. I just didn't like the plot and there was a lot of eye rolling and groaning level of stupidity...

Solid Snake

That's different. Fett and Vader are established characters in the medium. Mandarin is not and shouldn't be. He's an adaptation. Do I like the change to the character that I've loved for a long time? No. Do I think it ruins the movie? No.

You have to separate yourselves from the material and take the film for it's own. Each medium holds it's own. This film takes the source material and makes it it's own. Again. I don't like what they did to the character in the film. But it doesn't kill the portrayal of him in the film. I thought it was pretty damn good actually. I would have preferred him being the villain I love but he's not. Oh fucking well. It was a damn good movie.

Tarantino

Iron Man 2 & SM3 were equally terrible.

moviefan2k4

I was just really disheartened over how they treated the Mandarin. That character was supposed to be for Tony what Lex is to Superman, or the Joker is to Batman. He's the leader of the Ten Rings, and the mastermind behind Tony's capture in the first place. This villain was hyped up as the one who would bring Tony closer to death than anyone else...and they lied. Instead, we get Aldrich Killian and a ton of fire-consumed soldiers, which is cool and all...but the heart of the conflict was turned from a bright star into a black hole.

moviefan2k4

I didn't like the second for a long time, but it eventually grew on me. Now, I think its actually better than the third, in terms of the villains. "Spidey 3" was just overblown, and I blame Avi Arad for that.

Solid Snake

What you might like and what might be good can be two different things.

I don't like not having The Mandarin as I know him in a faithful adaptive form but it doesn't stop what we had in the film from being good. It worked for the film. I don't like it but it doesn't harm the film.

Again. We have to separate ourselves from the material.


-----

I got IM2 on BD a week ago. Mostly for the making of. But I saw the film again and I can see it's flaws but it actually holds up well as to being a good film. It's just that it's a bad film compared to the awesomeness of IM1.

fumanstan

That's why I can buy Galactus as a cloud.

Why So Blu?

I watched Iron Man 1 and 2 last night and it's pretty neat to see how subtle the uses of Ten Rings' organization are. All the while I'm thinking it was Killian all along, with exception to part two and Hammer. I think there's only one Ten Rings' scene in part 2 when that operative gives Ivan the info packet.

Why So Blu?

This Iron Man story arc is over. There is no expansion, because there is no story yet. I'm sure Disney is waiting for Monday morning for domestic totals before calling in RDJ for a meeting to negotiate new terms.

Tony can crank out inventions drunk and sober or have you already forgotten:

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Joe Schmoe

Saw it last night in 3D. 2 stars at best. Easily the worst Iron Man movie IMHO. I hope there isn't a 4th Iron Man. I enjoyed the character in The Avengers and hope he appears in The Avengers 2, but then I hope they're done. In fact, I hope he dies or at least retires in The Avengers 2.

First the good. The film had a lot of laughs, and it certainly had a lot of action. The destruction of a certain well-known building was cool, and up to that point I enjoyed the movie.

Now the bad. After the scene described above, the movie dragged a bit for me. Tony spent too much time out of the suit for my taste, and he ended up going on the offensive as Tony Stark the Man, which bored me. He spent more time separated from Pepper than I would have liked, so there weren't many scenes with them trading playful barbs back and forth like in the original (or even their brief hilarious scene together in The Avengers). I didn't buy the whole idea of Exremis (or whatever it's called), and much of the success of the story depends on the audience accepting it. I could have accepted some formula or substance that re-generates tissue but not one that also makes people glow like embers and capable of burning skin and shooting flames out their mouth.

Tony's innovations have also become unbelievable. His inventions have always been cool even though many of them don't exist in our world today, and in the earlier films I accepted them as part of the premise. After all, he's Iron Man. But now with the character's 4th appearance, they've evolved to a point that just seems too far-fetched to accept. Maybe some day we'll have self-propelled pieces of armor that can fly and locate a soldier when he extends his arm, as well as affix themselves to the correct parts of the soldier's body, but right now we have nothing like that... nor do we have entire suits of armor that fly on their own and wrap themselves around a body when they come into contact with a person in mid air. I know it's a comic-book movie, but I thought the earlier films did a better job balancing reality and fantasy.

While I watched this film, I wondered why the military hadn't already replicated Iron Patriot's suit so they could have an army of Iron Men. After all, Rhodes delivered the suit to the military in Iron Man 2. Haven't they been studying it so they could build more of them? Apparently not because in this film they relied on Rhodes' suit alone for protection in Tony Stark's absence.

I've certainly seen worse movies than this one, but this was a big disappointment nonetheless. Here's how I rank the films in the Avengers universe so far:

The Avengers
Iron Man
Iron Man 2
Thor
Captain America: The First Avenger
Iron Man 3
The Incredible Hulk

At least I got to see trailers I hadn't seen before for Man of Steel and Star Trek Into Darkness as well as the trailer for Thor: The Dark World. They all look good.

bluetoast

Not a fan of this outing, but I did appreciate seeing Miguel Ferrer getting a high profile role, however small. Starks's one liners were good. I still like part 1 the best, this is on par with 2 for me.

Jackskeleton

Mental note - Do not tell someone you'll meet them up at the roof to discuss business together on New Years fucking eve and stand them up or else you'll have someone who will take The Dude's money and kidnap you, creating you into Iron Man and then fuck with you in through some Russian bird talking dude before attempting to kill you - but at the same time needing you alive to perfect your weaponized tech you got together with a one night stand of his to perfect...


In fact, the ten rings organization being in the first two films as a little dropped easter egg only further make the reveal even more annoying. As it implies that all of this was the mastermind of some revenge of the nerd. Killian's whole motivation and his actions through this film seemed to based on a shaky foundation to begin with.

What was the point of going to Pepper? To steal her away? He still needed Tony even though he attempted to kill him multiple times - which made no sense.



This. This right fucking here.

Also, no one complain about how they converted Deadpool into the Marvel Movies, it's simply their take on him and everyone should be okay with it....

dsa_shea

They got their take on The Mandarin pretty close to right until they thought it would be fun to screw the fans in the ass with no lube.

Why So Blu?

That's because Wolverine Origins and Fantastic Four were piece of shit films that were only made worse by the way those characters were portrayed. For those that hated IM3 it's like they're saying (the majority) I loved it, with the exception of how the Mandarin was portrayed.

It went from being a great film to a very good film by those estimations unlike your examples that went from being awful to god-awful.

Supermallet

The butthurt is strong in this thread.

I will say that the epilogue did feel rushed. It would have been more interesting to have Pepper still be changed by the Extremis in the next film, instead of just waving a magic wand. But that's a small gripe.

Jackskeleton

All this time I was getting PTSD from New York and the fear of who knows what could come through that worm hole next? Well, let me self destruct the remaining 38 suits that helped protect the world from that threat.
Oh yeah, you remember Happy, our first director, he's cool now and he even got him some Downtown Abbey action.
And pepper's dna structure changed? Oh, I fixed it. Same with that sharpnel. Cause while I liked being a human battery and providing a cheap constant power source to humanity, I'll just chuck it into the ocean.
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fumanstan

Even though I gave the movie a very positive review, the more I think about it the more I think the movie will suffer a bit on repeat viewings. I'd be able to accept the Mandarin diversion if Killian was a more menacing threat, but in the end he's just a mad scientist out for revenge and not far from the combination of Hammer/Vanko from Iron Man 2.

I never really felt the weight of Stark's struggle being Iron Man, which makes the abrupt ending with Pepper and removal of the reactor a bit more disappointing and anti-climactic.

For what it's worth, both the reviewer score and audience score isn't far off from Iron Man 2 on Rotten Tomatoes now.

Why So Blu?

Hmmm, sounds like you hated the Mandarin change and now you're nitpicking the rest of the film. I bet that if the Mandarin was handled like in the comics you would be saying it was the best film of the bunch.

Jackskeleton

^Nah, Mandarin change was the tip of the ice burg of this shit sandwich.

Here's a hint, Iron Man 3 was a piece of shit as well.

I still don't get the motivation behind Killian and his flip flopping on what exactly he wanted to do. Kill Tony or have him work on perfecting extremis. Cause it seemed to change every 5 minutes between going to his company to try to get Stark industry on the job of perfecting it to blowing his place up to having his extremis hit squad teleport around the world doing their bidding in trying to kill him again. only to offer him a job.

The presidential angle was so crammed in there that it felt really terrible and while I get going back to the smaller stage, their approach to making a presidential threat like that makes you wonder what the fuck happened to this larger Marvel world they just created.

I by no means liked IM2's avenger lite story angle, but taking the president has Cap or even Nick Fury not pay notice? Come on now. No me chingas.

Also, I hate Christmas movies that come out in May. Especially when you go from Los Angeles to bum-fuck U.S. and then Florida. It's jarring.

You want to play the love angle of Pepper and Tony being strained because they don't understand each other, thus you flip their roles of Tony being without the suit for the majority of the film and Pepper stepping in his shoes to have the power? Well attempt to do it better than that. You must have been distracted by her abs to notice how forced that whole shit was.

Why So Blu?

You're new to Shane Black's films then. ALL his flicks take place during Christmas.

Dr. DVD

I don't think the reactor is gone for good, he still has the one in New York.

FWIW, I think this movie is getting a bit too much praise due to it being so much better than IM2 and taking a fresh approach. What has been done with that approach seems to be raising eyebrows.

As I have stated earlier, I didn't mind what they did with Mandarin, it's just how they approached it. If he had been a front for Killian but still all of the bad ass we were lead to believe, I wouldn't have a problem. If he had been fake but still a formidable opponent, I could handle that. It's the need to basically take the character beyond a fake and make him a farce. I still hold out hope that it turns out that Killian stole the Mandarin name from somewhere else and we find the real one is in league with Thanos who has gifted him the real "ten rings" .

EDIT: I think it's interesting we've come this far without anyone saying: "Why didn't Tony call the Avengers to help him?"

Dr. DVD

Don't think Monster Squad and Last Boy Scout did.