Iron Man 3

Starting out the Summer on a disappointing note is Iron Man 3, a film, which similar to the main character's suit, falls apart more often then it needs to.

The old gang is still here. Robert Downey is still smartassing his way to victory as Tony Stark/Iron Man, Don Cheadle is always by his side as Colonel James Rhodes, and Gwyneth Paltrow as Pepper, Stark's damsel in distress girlfriend. All three of these actors do the best with the little creativity in the material that they're given. A third paycheck was the clear and only motivation to come back for this.

The newbies.....don't fare as well. The villains this time are about as interesting as watching paint dry. Ben Kingsley plays "The Mandarin", a terrorist who proclaims he really isn't a terrorist, displaying all his acts for the world to see. Sadly his character is about as menacing as a trip to the dentist, there's no intrigue or menace in his delivery or his lines, and a late plot twist shoots for cheap laughs but just ends up feeling cheap.

Guy Pearce doesn't fare much better. He plays Aldrich Killian, a scientist whose bitter that Tony Stark didn't have a meeting with him on the roof years before (no joke), and now he's bent on destroying the world by implanting devices that turn humans into machines that just look like humans. His character feels dull as dirt and the later scenes with the transformations the humanoids make look terribly cartoonish. It's strange how some scenes in the movie look like they cost a million dollars to make and the rest look like child's play

And the less said about Rebecca Hall's "Am I good or bad or good pretending to be bad whose really good" character, the better.

Iron Man 3 just feels so threadbare in terms of plot and pacing, by the end you feel it's like pulling teeth just to see the end credits roll. Humor has been removed, the fun feels forced, and keeping this movie going for 130 minutes just feels like punishment for the eyes and attention span. Add in a terribly bland final battle and a conclusion that feels like a total cop-out, and you have a movie that was bound for destruction. Time to hang up your suit, Tony.

1/4