Iron
Man 3: **/*****, or 5/10
Most
disappointing of the Marvel Studios movies so far. Shane Black (Kiss
Kiss Bang Bang) took over the director's chair from Jon Favreau
who did the first two installments. Maybe it's Black's tendency to go
over the top a bit too far, maybe the writers and producers just got
terribly lazy in the creative process after the sucess of the
predecessors, but Iron Man 3 proves a dud. Tony Stark finally
has found a decent equilibrium between his eccentric playboy life and
his public role as the armored superhero Iron Man, but soon his world
is turned upside down after he deliberately picks a fight with the
vicious terrorist leader Mandarin (“played by Sir Ben Kingsley”) who
wounded his former bodyguard Happy (still performed by Favreau himself at
least). The Mandarin comes down hard on Tony, destroying his mansion
and seemingly obliterating his various armors. With only his wit, his
engineering skills, his insufferable character flaws – he was never
more irritating than he is here – and the aid of some kid in a
shack, he soon turns the tables and confronts his new nemesis and his
silly army of exploding people, only to find out the situation is not
what it appeared to be, as the Mandarin is just a fraud (way to ruin
a classic bad guy, Marvel!). Another adversary, A.I.M. leader
Aldrich Killian (Guy Pearce) is behind it all, out to revenge himself
on Stark, literally for making him cry ten years earlier (now that's
what I call a solid motivation for aiming to conquer the world!).
During the film's climactic showdown, Tony can fortunately count on
his girlfriend Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow) to save his ass, plus
he had another 40 armors inexplicably hidden up his sleeve. Iron
Man 3 pretentiously delves into semi-philosophical territory when
it keeps asking whether the suit makes the man or vice versa, but the
fact is we simply don't care. All we knew was that Robert Downey Jr.
made Iron Man and now sloppy writing has allowed him to be unmade,
for which Downey reportedly received the sum of 50 million (!)
dollars, probably for looking the other way as it happened. At least Stark is basically still the same after four films,
as it was clear what audiences wanted and expected from the get-go.
The same can't be said for the Mandarin, whose presence was alluded
to in the prevous two Iron Man films, but all of a sudden
proves to be someone else entirely halfway through the film. Don't trust the trailers for this
film that insinuated that we were in for a major epic villain played
by Kingsley, since that's all a lie and you'll end up disappointed. Blame it on the Chinese
involvement, as Iron Man 3 was co-produced with Chinese
studios to cut costs (Downey's salary had to come from somewhere
after all). And in such a case, you simply can't afford to have a
Chinese villain claiming to be after the destruction of western
civilization. Interestingly enough, the Chinese market received a
slightly different cut of the film including scenes not seen in the
regular version, to make it even more attractive for Chinese
audiences. Iron Man 3 bodes ill for the rest of Marvel's Phase
2, but there's gotta be better upcoming movies to make up for this
huge letdown. Ant-Man maybe?
The
Great Gatsby: ***/*****, or 7/10
Another
visual feast by Baz Lurhmann (Moulin Rouge, Australia).
The fifth version of the classic book by F. Scott Fitzgerald, and
definitely the most extravagant, as we would have expected from
Luhrmann, who always tends to lavishly overstylize his films. This is
his first foray into the realm of 3D, and fortunately it's a
successful one at that. From a narrative viewpoint, the movie
predictably feels less intriguing. In the early Roaring Twenties, war
veteran Nick Carraway (a rather dull Tobey Maguire, as is the norm)
moves to Long Island, next door to a giant mansion belonging to the
seemingly incredibly wealthy but enigmatic Jay Gatsby (Leonardo
DiCaprio, another one of his hugely rich and influential but
emotionally tormented big screen souls). Drawn to the unreal world of
fabulous upperclass decadence, Carraway soon gets his taste of high
society as he attends one of Gatsby's unbelievably amazing parties.
Gatsby soon purposefully reveals himself to Nick and recruits him to
arrange a meeting between himself and Nick's attractive cousin Daisy
(Carey Mulligan), a long lost love of Gatsby from before the Great
War whom he lost contact with and who has since gone on to marry a
rich but quite dislikeable land owner (Joel Edgerton). Hoping to
respark their love thanks to Nick's involvement bridging their past,
Gatsby and Daisy soon reunite and haphazardly start an affair that
can only end in tragedy. But despite his attempts to basically bang a
married girl, you hope Gatsby succeeds as he is a sympathetic
character, once a boy who came from nothing but worked himself up to
incredulous heights, while still favoring the lower class folks who
live decent lives worth living, instead of engaging in the monotony
of endless partying. Gatsby appears to make a stand for the poor,
hard working labourers with his understanding attitude and actions,
which can only lead to his downfall from the rich ruling classes and
their corrupting power over everything and everyone. But what a
downfall it is, shot with such dynamic vibrancy and wild colour
schemes, presented in three jaw-droppingly beautiful dimensions!
Nevertheless the blatant melodrama at the core is hard to be
effectively sugarcoated, even in Luhrmann's elaborate ways. The
Great Gatsby emulates its titular character, in the sense that
it's packed with bombastic bravoura and laced with visual flair
throughout, detracting you from the lack of a refined, satisfactory
plot, which is notably absent if you care to see beneath the mask of
its sensational appearance. Beneath the surface it's all fairly
hollow, but not without a certain charm. This movie is a feast to
behold as much as the parties it depicts would no doubt be a thrill
to attend, but ultimately, it proves a fairly forgetful experience in
the long run. And so Hollywood can keep remaking Fitzgerald's novel
once every few decades to ever more spectacular results.
