Fortune Cookie

Yeah finally Japan is doing something good! Iron Man 3 opens right on time like the rest of the world. It's the first movie for Marvel Cinematic Universe Phase Two and it's also the first movie after the hit The Avengers. RDJ is back, Gwyneth is back, Don Cheadle is back, but now it's Shane Black at the helm, writing and directing Tony Stark's latest outing. Shane Black previously written and directed Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, a nice, funny film starring RDJ and Val Kilmer. The cast is added with the super talented Guy Pearce and Academy Award winner Ben Kingsley. What more can you ask? The trailers were great and it's one of the must-see films of the summer. I have to remind you that this review will contain massive spoilers, and if you haven't watched it, I'd suggest you re-visit this after you watched the film.

Set after the events in The Avengers, a new terrorist called The Mandarin threatens America and eventually put Tony Stark's best friend/bodyguard Happy Hogan in harm's way. After personally challenged The Mandarin for a fight, Tony himself was attacked by The Mandarin, resulting in his destruction of his house. Tony tries to find The Mandarin and defeat him and also protect Pepper, however there was another person who also seek to attack Tony, Aldrich Killian, head of the organization AIM.

My feelings were mixed during and after watching the film. In some points, the movie went off the rails and became a little too talky with unimportant exchanges of one-liners and jokes. But on the action parts, it was more than satisfying. It was bombastic. Also, my other complaint was the presence of the Extremis super humans. It betrayed the whole gritty, down-to-earth tone of the first two films (not The Avengers, that's different). Don't get me wrong, Extremis was cool but idk, the way it was pictured in the film may be the thing. Actually, I could still suspend the disbelief about the whole Extremis thing, until [spoiler alert] Aldrich Killian breathes fire, like a freakin dragon. My feeling when I saw that was like when I saw the Isabel Lucas character in Transformers 2 was a Decepticon--like 'what the helllll'. And The Mandarin was completely misused and underused. The plot twist on The Mandarin was awful. But Ben Kingsley is wonderful, his Mandarin-speech pattern is so authentic that it is ripe for parody, like Bane's. Also what are Aldrich Killian's motives to be the bad guy? At least with the bird-loving Whiplash we know something. However I would like to point out that this movie focuses more on Tony Stark and it is great. It's great to see the other side of Tony Stark. And finally Robert Downey Jr. do some real acting in for his portrayal of Tony Stark. I'd like to clarify that that was a compliment because Robert Downey Jr is Tony Stark, not acts as Tony Stark. And a little note to Marvel Studios and Kevin Feige, don't you dare recast Tony Stark should RDJ chooses to stop doing Iron Man movies.

Also, the visual effects are great, Brian Tyler's music was nice and it was fitting to the tone of the film. I'd still say that Ramin Djawadi's score for the first Iron Man is the best but to have the same suite for this film would be wrong. Shane Black's screenplay is good but he abused his typical jokes and it became silly. You may argue, but this is my opinion, like in The Avengers, it used too much jokes that, for me, doesn't fit for the film. This is an emotional, character-defining film for Tony Stark's adventure, but the jokes undone that. Nevertheless, the cast is great and it's fun to see Gwyneth Paltrow's Pepper Potts kick some ass--(although in my brother's opinion, too much ass). The great scenes that are worth mentioning are the three big action scenes, the house-destroying, the mid-air rescue and the climactic battle. But the ending may surprise you and leave you wondering. There's also an after-credits scene that's just not that important for the continuation of Phase Two, but just fun. And there's also the magnificent trailer for Thor: The Dark World. I would also love to see the Chinese version of this film because there's no big China-related reference other than the Chinese Theatre or fortune cookies. It isn't right to say that this film is incredible, it isn't right also to say that this film sucks. It has its moments. Mixed feelings for this film. Iron Man 3: rated 3/4