Iron Man 3 Movie Review

This review is coming about a week late. I've been pretty busy in the past week. I hope by the time I finish writing this review,  some of you are still in interested in hearing my thoughts on the film. As I have said, I really liked the first two films of this franchise. If there is one word I would use to describe the films, it would be fun. There's just something about Iron Man that is really fun. It's very cartoony and comic-booky. I think most of the Avengers films have been like this. But I think Iron Man is the most fun of the heroes. I like it when it feels like a comic book comes to life and it is action-packed, light-hearted and funny.

Another thing I really like about the first two films is I think they do a good job of balancing the fun and excitement with emotions. Something I always say I look for in movies is trying to find the gospel in a film. What are they teaching? Is there anything that can be connected to biblical or spiritual themes. I am not saying that they intentionally do that. But it's fun for me to try to find that. In the first two movies there were things that did stick out to me. The whole idea of Iron Man putting on a suit of armor and fighting for good, meanwhile trying to be more selfless and less self-absorbed is something I can connect to what Christians go through. I talked a lot about this in my Iron Man movie review. In the Bible we are called to put on the Armor of God and fight for God's good. Iron Man literally puts on a suit of armor and fights for the good of others. So I really like that analogy.

In Iron Man 2, there is a part where Tony Stark is watching a clip of his father talking to the camera. He says something along the lines of, "Tony, you might not be old enough to understand this, but I've created all this stuff." (You see the models of everything his dad wants to build). He continues saying something like, "I've built all this for you. One day you will be able to work all of this, and when you do, you will change the world. What is and always will be my greatest creation is you." Why don't you go ahead and check that clip out?

I remember sitting in that movie theater as a sophomore in high school getting chills. I thought about how this is like God talking to us. God has created the world, and he has put us all here on earth. He has said we are his greatest creation. And we are to continue his work in our every day lives. God can use us to change the world, with everything he has given to us, and he can work through us.

So yeah, basically that's the type of stuff I love to look for in movies. And I feel like you can find that pretty good in superhero films because they focus a lot on saving people, character development and more. There's more to it than just an action movie. Something I was thinking about doing for a future blog in the summer is writing about all the spiritual and biblical themes in the Batman movies. Maybe I'll do that. We'll see.

Something that was disappointing for me was that Iron Man 3 was so different from the first two movies. I expected it to be different considering Jon Favreau wasn't directing it (he directed the first two). But I didn't think it would be this different. Shane Black brought a very different style to this film. This Iron Man was darker and less fun. More serious. It still is funny. Yes, the humor in the film is pretty good. You would think that in a movie that is more serious, there might be a good amount of emotion and bigger themes in it. I didn't think there was. So it took me a while to digest this film and form an opinion on it because it was so different. There's still a part of me right now that is upset with the way it was.

This was a good movie though. The action is pretty sick. Like I said, the humor is good. And I think the story is good too. What is the exact plot? Well the film opens with a flashback to 1999. Tony Stark is at a New Year's Eve party in Switzerland. Tony is getting on an elevator with scientist Maya Hansen, played by Rebecca Hall. That is something else about this movie, Rebecca Hall is really good. She's someone I've looked at as underrated, not a lot of people know about her. I first saw her in The Town and then Everything Must Go. She's a great actress. So on the elevator, a nerdy-looking guy by the name of Aldrich Killian wants to talk to Tony about something sciency that doesn't make a whole lot of sense or mean much to us. He also seems to be a big fan of Stark. Stark tells him he will meet him at the roof in 15-20 minutes, something he really has no intentions of doing. Killian is standing on the roof and eventually realizes Stark isn't coming. When I saw this, I knew this was going to be important. It brought back memories to "Incrediboy" in Disney Pixar's The Incredibles. I just had a feeling this guy was going to come back and do something big later, and likely be the antagonist otherwise they wouldn't show this.

So fast forward to the present, and Tony Stark is struggling from the events in The Avengers. He can't sleep at night and he continues to build more Iron Man suits. This bothers his girlfriend, Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow). Basically there's a lot that is going on. A lot of different plot points. It will take me too long to cover them all, you probably don't want this article to drag on very long, and I shouldn't give away too much. Long story short is Tony Stark's house is destroyed and ends up in the middle of Tennessee, in the cold winter, with nothing but his suit, which is out of power. He's stripped of everything he has. He meets an eight year-old kid that helps him. This isn't a bad plot.

One thing I will say is there is a big twist in this movie that is completely inaccurate to the comics. This is something that will upset big comic fans. Did it enhance the story? Maybe. But I think there's another way they could have done it. I don't want to spoil anything.

So as I said, there's a lot going on in this. There was a lot going on in another third film of a superhero franchise.... Spider-Man 3. That film had too much going on it which made it somewhat of a mess. It might not be as bad as everyone says it is, but it was a disappointment of a film. I feared that Iron Man 3 might have too much going on in it, and suffer as a result. But it didn't. They did a great job of working all these different things in to the story, without it becoming a mess. It was well-balanced and well-told.

Really my problems with the film were stated earlier. I wish it was more fun, but that's more of a preference than something that makes a movie good or bad. It might not be a huge thing, but it might have been nice if they had included at least one AC/DC song in it. Maybe? Something my friend said as we got out of the theater was, "It's not Iron Man without AC/DC, therefore I want my money back." I wouldn't go that far, but it would have been nice to have at least a little bit more of the same style as the earlier movies, even if it just meant including an AC/DC song. Maybe Shane Black wanted to break away from the earlier movies, so that he could get more credit for making the movie the way he wanted it to be made. Maybe he was afraid people would call him unoriginal. I don't know. I think I would have liked this movie more if it stuck to its original style. It just didn't feel as much like an Iron Man movie. But again, that doesn't make it a bad movie.

My other problems were as I stated before, the lack of emotion. While there wasn't a lot going on, there wasn't a lot of depth to this film. The Batman movies are known for being darker superhero movies, and maybe that's what this film was trying to be like. But those films are deep and thought-provoking, which this film was not. At least not in my eyes.

So was this a good movie? Yes. I did like this movie. Maybe it's something I need to watch again to form a stronger opinion of it. However, this wasn't my favorite film of the franchise, which is something I heard a lot of people saying. My favorite will always be the first one. Was this better than the second one? 95% of people will say yes, based on how many people disliked the second one, and this one seems to be getting a lot of praise. But if you were to ask me which I prefer, I don't know what I would say. Maybe I'm giving the second one too much credit, or I'm being too hard on this one. I just didn't think this was as great as everyone said it was. This article is kind of like me talking about why Iron Man 1 was better than 3. But that doesn't mean it wasn't good. If I had to rate it out of ten, it'd be somewhere between a 7-8 out of 10. I think I should see this film again though before I immediately write it off or anything. It's just so different and it was harder for me to enjoy it because it was so different.

So yeah, I guess that should just about do it for my Iron Man 3 review. If you have any more questions about this movie, post them in the comments. I'm still getting used to writing these reviews and I don't know how much I should recap and leave ambiguous. I also don't know how much or what to talk about in these movies, so really I'm still getting used to writing these. I hope they aren't too bad though. And I hope I am improving. Did you see Iron Man 3? What did you think of it? What is your favorite Iron Man film? Comment below and let me know. Or let me hear your thoughts on my Facebook fan page or on Twitter @vellvita7. As always, thanks for reading!