Iron Man 3

Iron Man 3 - Dir. Shane Black (2013)

People always say, "Third time's the charm." However, that rule doesn't always apply to comic book movies. If a franchise is lucky enough to make it to a third outing, the filmmakers have forgotten what made the series successful in the first place. Superman 3, Spider-Man 3, and X-Men: The Last Stand are glaring examples while Batman Forever was the start of Batman's descent into campy nipple-dom. Christopher Nolan broke from the trend with The Dark Knight Rises and Marvel does the same with Iron Man 3.

Iron Man 3 opens in 1999 where the old, arrogant playboy Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) attends a conference in Switzerland. He parties with a pretty geneticist named Maya Hansen (Rebecca Hall) and ignores Aldrich Killian (Guy Pearce), a nerdy and lame-legged scientist. In present time, Stark should be standing on cloud nine. He helped fight off an alien invasion and he's now living together with Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow) in his cliff side Malibu mansion. Instead, Stark is suffering from insomnia and a newfound sense of inadequacy following the events of The Avengers. Next to the enormous green rage monster and the god of thunder, he's just a "man in a can." He suffers from anxiety attacks and takes refuge inside his Iron Man armor, which has become his high-tech security blanket. He spends sleepless nights tinkering in his workshop and building dozens of suits designed to deal with every danger he could possibly imagine.

Danger comes with a savagery Stark hasn't dealt with before as The Mandarin (Ben Kingsley), leader of the terrorist group, The Ten Rings, steps up his attacks on America. Meanwhile, Killian has remade himself as a suave, Richard Branson-looking entrepreneur. His think tank, A.I.M. (Advanced Idea Mechanics), has developed a super-soldier serum dubbed Extremis, which turns human beings into living bombs. When one of them goes off in front of Grauman's Chinese Theater, Stark brazenly issues a challenge to the Mandarin on live television. The bad guys respond by reducing his house to rubble and forces Stark to rely on more than just his suits.

Jon Favreau, who directed the previous Iron Man movies, returns as a producer and in the supporting role of bodyguard Happy Hogan. Favreau has passed the torch onto Shane Black whose career trajectory mirrors the troubles of Robert Downey Jr. and his onscreen alter ego. Black became one of the highest paid screenwriters in Hollywood off the back of his debut script Lethal Weapon. However, he became persona non grata after costly failures like The Last Boy Scout and The Long Kiss Goodnight. Black reappeared with his directorial debut, the neo-noir comedy Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, starring Downey. Their relationship would lead to Black serving as an unofficial consultant on Iron Man and Iron Man 2. Both Favreau and Downey credit Black with paralleling Tony Stark's moral quandaries with those of Robert Oppenheimer. Though Iron Man 3 is far and away Black's most daunting production yet, Marvel Studios has become enough of an efficient factory that it almost doesn't matter who is at the helm as long as they are halfway competent.

The look and feel of Iron Man 3 fits right into the merry Marvel method of movie making. It's slick without being overly stylish in a Michael Bay or Guy Ritchie sort of way. Iron Man 3 is more action packed than either of its predecessors. There's a thrilling sequence where Iron Man forms a human chain to rescue passengers sucked out of Air Force One. The climax features dozens of armored suits (including one of my favorites, the Silver Centurion) battling an army of Extremis powered soldiers on an offshore oil rig, a classic supervillain hideout. Stark's latest iteration, the Mark 42, can be remote controlled and donned in creative fashion.

The screenplay by Black and Drew Pearce consists of several Black trademarks such as the Christmas setting and a voiceover narration by Downey that stops and rewinds ala Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. Black's flair for witty banter is paired perfectly with Downey's penchant for off-the-cuff one-liners. Iron Man 2 was criticized for its preoccupation with building towards Avengers rather than telling a standalone story. That's been corrected here with a more focused sequel with only passing references to Thor and SHIELD. Everyone involved made a concerted effort to metaphorically return Tony Stark to the cave from the first film. Stark crash lands in rural Tennessee where he uses the tools at hand inside a ramshackle garage and befriends a doe-eyed, precocious boy named Harley (Ty Simpkins). This section of the film could have easily veered into mawkish Spielbergian territory, but the sentimentality is constantly undercut by Downey's irreverence. The script brings up the notion that we as individuals and as a nation have created our own enemies, but never digs deeper than surface level.

Don Cheadle's Rhodey (remade as the Iron Patriot) is sidelined for most of the movie and Rebecca Hall is wasted a bit in the underwritten role of Maya Hansen. On the other hand, Gwyneth Paltrow gets the chance to become more than just Stark's sounding board. Pepper Potts is thrown into the action frequently and even puts on the armor for a brief moment. Yes, she plays the damsel in distress, but she also gets to do some saving of her own. Perhaps, the most intriguing character in the threequel is Iron Man's arch-nemesis, the Mandarin. A yellow peril villain in the vein of Fu Manchu, Mandarin has been updated and re-imagined as an uber-terrorist appropriating an iconography of infamy. He's Castro, bin Laden, Qaddafi, Genghis Khan, and Colonel Kurtz all rolled into one. Sir Ben Kingsley portrays the Mandarin in unique fashion with a booming and authoritarian staccato; all accentuated by ominously constructed video threats. However, a twist to the character will have comic book fans launching into conniption fits.

Iron Man 3 not only kicks off the summer blockbuster season, it's the beginning of Marvel Studios' Phase 2 and the course will be exciting judging by the early results. Other comic book threequels suffer from being over long and burdened with too many characters, but Iron Man 3 never feels bloated and moves at a quick clip. This is a fun and vibrant tentpole release bolstered by an exceptionally heroic score from Brian Tyler, one of the best done for Marvel Studios. A return to form for the Iron Man series and a worthy successor to The Avengers.

Rating: **** (*****)

Talk To Me

Talk To Me - Dir. Kasi Lemmons (2007)

Talk To Me is loosely based on the true life story of Ralph Waldo "Petey" Greene, a disc jockey during the 60´s and 70´s who some have called one of the original "shock jocks." However, to label Greene as such would be an oversimplification of the man and his life´s work. Greene was born in Washington DC and grew up in the predominantly black Georgetown. After dropping out of high school, Greene joined the Army and served in the Korean War before being discharged for drug use. He was sentenced to ten years in prison for armed robbery in 1960. While serving out his time, Greene doing announcements over the PA system and played records sent to him by his grandmother. This would lead him on the path to becoming a disc jockey, television personality, and outspoken rights activist.

The film begins with Dewey Hughes (Chiwetel Ejiofor), the programming director for the DC radio station WOL-AM, visiting his brother, Milo (Mike Epps), at Lorton Reformatory where he´s serving a life sentence. Their visit is less than cordial as Dewey really wants nothing to do with his brother and only visits as a promise to their mother. Milo has mentioned his brother to Petey (Don Cheadle) who wants a job at Dewey´s station. The fact that he´s in prison is only a minor challenge. Sure enough, Petey wins over the warden and time off for good behavior after talking down an inmate about to commit suicide. Turns out, Petey actually spent six months trying to convince the man to go through with his plan.

Fresh out of the joint, Petey strolls on into the WOL offices expecting a job handed to him on a silver plate. Instead, his brash behavior and colorful language mortify Dewey and enrage the station owner, E.G. Sonderling (Martin Sheen). Thrown out of the building, Petey calls Dewey a sell-out and gathers a group of protestors outside the lobby. Nicknamed derisively by Petey as Mr. Tibbs, Dewey puts him in his place during a game of pool as he reveals that he too grew up in the projects and never forgot where he came from. Dewey convinces a reluctant Sonderling to put Petey on the air only to fire him a scant few minutes later after Petey calls Barry Gordy, the head of Motown Records, a pimp. Petey & Dewey lock Sonderling in his office the following morning and sneak into the broadcast booth. When the station´s phone lines are flooded with calls, Sonderling agrees to hire Petey on a full-time basis, but with some reservations.

Petey becomes the talk of the town, but his career takes a real jumpstart after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. Seeing the city torn about by fires and riots, Petey returns to the station to plead for peace. Dewey sees big things in Petey´s future and they leave behind their tiny radio booth for the stand-up circuit and televised talk shows. It is at this point where the film makes a veers away from being a fascinating biopic to a becoming a tired fable about fame and celebrity. Petey becomes uncomfortable with the sudden attention and being pigeon holed as simply a stand-up comic. Dewey is oblivious and like a beauty pageant mother, pushes on, living out his own dreams through Petey. The tension between the two comes to a head as Petey walks off in the middle of an appearance on the Tonight Show. We watch as the pair goes their separate ways and eventually reconcile after years of estrangement. It´s a story that has been played out on the screen many times before, the recent Dreamgirls comes to mind.

Even with a lackluster second half, Talk To Me is worthy of a recommend thanks to an all-around strong cast. As Petey Greene, Don Cheadle easily conveys the bluster and swagger of his character, but it´s during the quieter, introspective moments that he truly shines. The movie starts off strong in the first half introducing us to its subject and using the radio booth as a microcosm of one of the most turbulent times in American history. However, it strays too far once it turns into a story about the downfall of a star.

Rating: **

Brooklyn's Finest

Brooklyn's Finest - Dir. Antoine Fuqua (2010)


Director Antoine Fuqua began his career by helming music videos for artists such as Prince, Usher, and Coolio. He graduated to feature filmmaking with Chow Yun-Fat’s debut in Hollywood, The Replacement Killers. Fuqua scored big with the gritty cop drama, Training Day, which was bolstered by an Oscar-winning performance from Denzel Washington as the dirty cop to end all dirty cops. Fuqua returns to the urban drama with Brooklyn’s Finest, featuring three separate storylines set in the projects of Brownsville in Brooklyn, New York.

Fuqua reunites with Training Day star Ethan Hawke for the first storyline. Hawke is Det. Sal Procida who finds an honest cop’s salary isn’t covering the bills. He’s got three kids, a pregnant wife (Lili Taylor) with asthma and twins on the way, and a house that’s too small with mold in the walls. In order to make ends meet, Sal has been taking money from drug busts. When we first meet him, he puts a bullet into the head of one criminal before robbing him.

Don Cheadle is Det. Clarence “Tango” Butler, an undercover cop who’s been out in the field too long. All he wants is a cushy desk job and a chance to get his live back. That chance may come when Tango’s old friend, Casanova “Caz” Phillips (Wesley Snipes), is released from prison. The feds and Tango’s C.O. want him to set Caz up in a sting operation so they can boot him back to the penitentiary for no other reason than he’d be a big bust. Tango is deeply conflicted as Caz had saved his life and genuinely seems to want to go straight.

Richard Gere is Eddie Dugan, a uniformed cop and veteran on the force. He’s led an unremarkable career and is only days away from retirement. He finds solace at the bottom of a whiskey bottle and in the arms of a prostitute (Shannon Kane) who is the furthest thing from Julia Roberts. The brass wants Eddie to mentor a few rookies and he’s reluctant about it. Eddie’s advice to his first rookie is ”…eyes open and keep walking.” The rookie is disgusted with Eddie’s utter apathy to the job, but Eddie has absolutely no desire to be a hero.

The cast also includes Will Patton as Tango’s commanding officer, Ellen Barkin as a federal agent, Brian F. O’Byrne as Sal’s partner, and The Wire’s Michael K. Williams as one of Caz’s partners in crime. The screenplay was penned by first-timer Michael C. Martin who was a train conductor for the New York subway. He was still working his day job up until a week before shooting.

There have been quite a lot of these multi-tiered pictures in recent years. Crash, Syriana, and Babel are probably the most high-profile while other films like The Air I Breathe, Powder Blue, Crossing Over, and The Burning Plain failed to garner similar critical acclaim. Brooklyn’s Finest will likely fall into the latter category.

Brooklyn’s Finest is essentially a collection of nearly every cop movie cliché. At first glance, the only thing missing is the perpetually angry police captain. We have world weary cops, religiously conflicted cops, dirty cops, clean cops, experienced cops, rookie cops, etc. The film lacks any sort of nuances or deeper layers. The stories run parallel to each other though Fuqua and Martin toss in a few obligatory scenes where the characters bump into each other, both figuratively and literally. All three plot threads build to a contrived conclusion in which the trio of main characters arrives in the same neighborhood at the same time to meet their fates.

Brooklyn’s Finest treads into more than familiar territory. The acting is strong and the most interesting scenes feature the always-dependable Don Cheadle and Wesley Snipes who play well off each other. Snipes hasn’t starred in a theatrical release since Blade: Trinity and this is a welcome return. It is unfortunate the material is so weak and formulaic.

Rating: **

Iron Man 2

Iron Man 2 - Dir. Jon Favreau (2010)


”If you make God bleed, people will cease to believe in him. There will be blood in the water and the sharks will come. All I have to do is sit here and watch as the world consumes you.”

Iron Man was never Marvel’s premiere superhero on the comic book page, but on the big screen he’s their centerpiece. 2008’s Iron Man was a rousing success and set the foundation for creating a singular cinematic universe where Marvel’s heroes exist side-by-side. As with the majority of sequels, Iron Man 2 ups the ante with more action, more FX, and more characters as Marvel Studios marches ever closer to the magnum opus of The Avengers.

Set a mere six months after the original film, Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) is riding high on a wave of newfound fame as Iron Man. He’s more than eager to feed our ultra-modern society’s hunger for celebrity. He stages the Stark Expo, an elaborate science fair, appearing in front of thousands of adoring fans and backed up by a bevy of gorgeous Ironette dancers. But, underneath that flippant, care-free demeanor, all is not well in the House of Stark.

The power core within Tony Stark’s chest is keeping his heart pumping, but is also poisoning his blood, the toxicity levels increasing with each usage of the Iron Man armor. A government subcommittee headed up by the officious Sen. Stern (Garry Shandling) demand that Stark turn over the Iron Man technology to them. Meanwhile, in Russia, a downtrodden physicist named Ivan Vanko (Mickey Rourke) builds his own miniaturized reactor feeding energy into a pair of tendrils. Turns out, Vanko’s father Anton helped Tony’s father, Howard (John Slattery), build the original Arc reactor before being deported back to Russia to live and die in abject poverty.

Vanko fails to kill Stark on a Monaco racetrack, but manages to attract the attention of rival industrialist Justin Hammer (Sam Rockwell). Hammer desperately wants to be Tony Stark, except he lacks the smarts. So he hires Vanko to build him an army of armored warriors and make Iron Man “look like an antique.” Taking hits on all sides, Tony shirks responsibility, handing the company over to Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow) and finding solace at the bottom of a bottle. After Tony shows up drunk in full armor at his birthday party, his best friend Rhodey (Don Cheadle) steals the Mark II suit and turns it over to the military. Fanboys will giggle with glee as it’s pimped out with an arsenal of weapons into War Machine.

Bolstering this cavalcade of characters is Scarlett Johansson as Tony’s new personal assistant who is actually an undercover SHIELD agent. Fans will know her as the Black Widow. Scarlett busts out an array of MMA and Lucha Libre maneuvers while almost busting out of her skin-tight leather leotards. Samuel L. Jackson’s Nick Fury (who first appeared in a post-credits scene in the preceding film) gets a meatier role as does director Jon Favreau as Tony’s driver/bodyguard Happy Hogan.

Clark Gregg returns as SHIELD Agent Coulson as do Leslie Bibb as reporter Christine Everhart and Paul Bettany as the voice of Tony’s artificial intelligence, JARVIS. Kate Mara makes a one scene appearance as a federal marshal and not as Bethany Cabe as previously rumored. Plus, there’s the obligatory cameo by Stan Lee (one of the best yet).

An ensemble of A-list actors were gathered together for the Iron Man and Iron Man 2 is no different. Mickey Rourke already looks like a comic book character so casting him as Ivan Vanko (a combination of supervillains Whiplash and Crimson Dynamo) was a no-brainer. A tried and true method actor, Rourke researched his role by visiting a Russian gulag and speaking with gangsters and criminals. As Vanko, he’s covered in tattoos and sports a shit-eating grin full of gold teeth. He just may be the most bad-ass physicist to walk the planet. Yes, even more than Stephen Hawking.

Sam Rockwell, who was once in the running to play Tony Stark, is another welcome addition. A master of the art of the smarmy, Rockwell absolutely excels as the underhanded Hammer. He’s one of the few actors who can go tit-for-tat with both Downey and Rourke. Also thrown into the mix is Don Cheadle, replacing Terrence Howard amidst rumors of dissention on the set and an escalating salary. Cheadle fits seamlessly into the cast, confronting Tony at the senate hearing with the meta-textual line, ”I’m here now. Deal with it and move on.”

The excellent performances are not just due to a talented cast, but also to a talented director. As a writer/director/actor, Favreau cut his teeth on the independent film Swingers, which he starred in and wrote. Owning to those indie roots, he knows the importance of story and characters above all else. Favreau has also cited Robert Altman as an influence for giving his actors free reign to improvise during filming. The improvisation is never more evident than in the Howard Hawksian interplay between Tony and Pepper. That freedom has allowed Robert Downey Jr. to bring Tony Stark to life as a deep and fully realized character. He’s also kept Favreau and screenwriter Justin Theroux on their toes with both men having to rewrite the script on the fly throughout production. Theroux is also an actor turned writer. He made a memorable appearance playing a filmmaker in David Lynch’s mindbender Mulholland Drive. He also co-wrote Tropic Thunder which impressed Downey enough to bring him on to the sequel.

The use of such a multitude of actors and characters may be a little worrisome. The downfall of many superhero sequels (Spider-Man 3, X-Men: The Last Stand) is throwing in too many characters and too many plotlines. Thankfully, Iron Man 2 isn’t muddied up by an unwieldy amount of personalities. Each character and subplot is melded into the central narrative and converges towards the climax and resolution. They do not all get the appropriate screen time they deserve, but it works. Well, for the most part…

If Iron Man 2 has any faults, they lie in the saggy middle section. After a rousing racetrack battle between Iron Man and Vanko, the film pumps on the brakes for the second act. Tony alienates those around him while dealing with his illness and issues with his later father who appears in vintage film reels like a hybrid of Howard Hughes and Walt Disney. Whenever superhero sequels come along, those involve always mention how the second movie will be even better because they’ve gotten the origin story “out of the way.” However, Iron Man deftly weaved the origin story into the picture thus making the hero’s journey of Tony Stark making it every bit as important as the action scenes. With the origin out of the way, it seems the filmmakers were unclear as to where to go with Tony Stark. The second act of the sequel treads familiar territory as Tony works in his lab while his enemies scheme behind his back. It unfolds a little too much like the original film.

Favreau may not have the greatest command over action, but what he does here gets the job done. For a big-budget spectacle, Iron Man 2 is surprisingly light on action with only three major set pieces in the film. The opening fight on the racetrack is pulled off well and the final showdown is a wondrous multi-tiered battle with a picture perfect melding of practical and CG effects. The only drawbacks with each sequence are the anti-climactic endings. They build and build then fizzle out at the finish. Iron Man has yet to face a foe that is on equal footing. I suppose we have to wait for inevitable debut of arch-nemesis, the Mandarin, in Iron Man 3 to finally find someone who can really menace our hero.

Iron Man is the crown jewel of the Marvel movie oeuvre. Along with The Dark Knight, it made 2008 the pinnacle year for the comic book movie. If it is all downhill from there, Iron Man 2 makes sure it isn’t a steep drop, but a slight stumble. By the lofty standards of the original film, the sequel doesn’t quite live up to its predecessor. Iron Man 2 feels more like a stepping stone to further the Marvel’s movie universe (which I’ll spoil below) rather than a film to stand on its own. However, it’s still damned good entertainment. Damn, damn good entertainment.

Rating; *** ½

WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD!

Want to find out what all that talk about New Mexico meant? Stick around until after the credits for a glimpse of Mjolnir, the mighty hammer of Thor.

There are more Easter Eggs to be found in Iron Man 2. The most obvious is the appearance of an incomplete version of Captain America’s shield which could be glimpsed very briefly in the first film.

Look closely at the news report Tony Stark is watching in the SHIELD briefing room. It’s the same report from The Incredible Hulk following his clash with the army on the college campus. Even better, re-watch Hulk and you’ll notice the reporter mentions something about thunderstorms. Hmm…