Fri, May 03, 2013

: Ironman 3

Surprisingly decent sequel. I wasn’t impressed with the second movie, but I liked this one.

The plot is odd — a strange terrorist is setting off random explosions all over the world that turn out to be caused by human bombs — and Tony Stark pits himself against the man. Once he’s a target, Tony has his house blown up and a threat to Pepper Potts, so he retaliates. It’s all very silly and the “science” is ridiculous (and never really explained: I never did understand how human bodies that can heat up to 3000 degrees Celsius somehow never the burn the clothes off the actors). Tony’s suits have new gadgets and have been improved so that he can control each suit part (which all fly on their own) with his thoughts… yeah, right.

But the plots in this kind of action fare are always absurd; what makes this work is the human element, and here the movie shines. Tony’s his snarky self, and the supporting cast is terrific (particularly Ben Kingsley in a fabulous over-the-top role).

But my favorite moment and what made the movie for me was Tony’s interaction with a little boy he meets. The two are great foils, very similar in personality despite a 40-year age difference. The dialog was superb, with Tony all smarmy and the boy sneaky. A perfect example is one scene where Tony’s going to drive off and leave the boy and the boy gets all teary-eyed and sympathetic. Tony glares at him and says, “You’re trying to guilt trip me.” The boy shivers and hugs himself and says, “I’m cold,” in a perfect lost-orphan way. Tony drives off anyway and the boy, after a heartbeat, shrugs and says, “It was worth a try.”

There’s tons of humor and the action’s decent (though pretty silly). The climax is over-the-top, as you’d expect (the bad guy dies at least three times), but there’s enough other stuff going on that it’s at least interesting.

Overall, it’s a big-budget action sequel, but in those terms, it’s not bad, and much better than I expected.

Topic: [/movie]

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