REVIEW: Iron Man 3

Iron Man 3 (2013): Dir. Shane Black. Written by: Drew Pearce and Shane Black. Starring: Robert Downey Jr., Gwyneth Paltrow, Don Cheadle, Guy Pearce and Ben Kingsley. Rated PG-13 (Comic book explosions). Running time: 130 minutes.

2 ½ stars (out of four)

“You know who I am,” reads a name tag worn by multi-billionaire and generally charming egomaniac Tony Stark (played for a fourth time by Robert Downey Jr.) in Iron Man 3. After two Iron Man movies and last summer’s super-crossover mega-hit The Avengers, there will be few in the audience who do not already know this character.

This flippant, you-know-the-deal attitude runs throughout the film. The script, written by Drew Pearce and director Shane Black, takes a number of shortcuts, assuming (correctly) that we have seen enough superhero movies in the last ten years to fill in the blanks.

When an international terrorist known as The Mandarin (a bearded Ben Kingsley looking like Osama bin Laden) hijacks the nation’s TV stations, we only need to see a brief glimpse of viewers’ shocked reactions. The rest we can remember from when the Joker did the same in The Dark Knight. And when a brilliant geneticist named Aldrich Killian (Guy Pearce) begins talking about tampering with human DNA to enhance the body’s regenerative powers, we know to be suspicious of him after seeing the mad scientists in Batman Begins, Captain America and just about every Spider-Man movie.

We have also heard enough of those concisely worded nuggets of advice that were so eloquently doled out by Michael Caine’s Alfred in the Batman movies. So Iron Man 3 does not subject us to any more of those. In fact, the characters in this film are particularly dismissive of that sort of pithy, fortune cookie wisdom. (The movie even takes an unintentionally silly moment to decry the very existence of fortune cookies.)

Part of this resistance to flowery phrases and grand themes comes from the brazen playboy persona of Tony Stark, who has no patience for sentimentality. The rest is the result of this movie’s sheer laziness. Like most of the Marvel Avengers movies before it, Iron Man 3 is almost pompously devoid of any real substance. This light-as-popcorn approach has worked in the past, notably in the first two Iron Man movies, but it is becoming less effective. This movie cannot cover up its own hollowness.

And as for Tony Stark, Robert Downey Jr. is still the best part of this franchise but there are signs his shtick is getting old. We can predict the rhythms of his witty comebacks before he says them and his dialogue feels written when it used to feel ad-libbed. We do see a few new angles to the Tony Stark character – he has a terrifically badass moment of James Bond gadgetry wearing not a suit (iron or otherwise) but a black hoodie, and he even does a bit of Sherlock Holmes sleuthing (a role Robert Downey Jr. is very familiar with) – but little real character development. There is a sudden shift in the final scenes that tries to give the character an arc but it feels forced and I didn’t buy it.

So should you spend your money to see this movie in theaters? Marvel Studios has gone through a great deal of effort and untold millions in marketing to convince moviegoers that every film in the Avengers franchise is essential and should be watched in order. This is, however, little more than a way to hide the fact that these movies’ plots are virtually interchangeable, that they are derivative of one another, and are each wholly disposable entertainment.

This is not to say that Iron Man 3 is bad entertainment but that at this point in the series a critical review of it is less applicable than a Consumer Reports checklist:

Love Interest: Good. Pepper Potts, played by Gwyneth Paltrow, underused.

Villain(s): Fair. Mostly forgettable.

Sidekick: Poor. Colonel James Rhodes, played by Don Cheadle, underused and unimportant.

Humor: Good. Frequent and usually funny.

Action scenes: Fair. Muddled and difficult to follow but plentiful.

If you are shopping around for a decent superhero movie at an affordable price, Iron Man 3 is a solid option. If you are looking for a movie that surprises and engages, this is not your movie. This movie is… Well, you know what this movie is.

- Steve Avigliano, 5/6/13

REVIEW: The Dictator

The Dictator (2012): Dir. Larry Charles. Written by: Sacha Baron Cohen, Alec Berg, David Mandel and Jeff Schaffer. Starring: Sacha Baron Cohen, Anna Faris, Ben Kingsley and Jason Mantzoukas. Rated R (Cursing, racial slurs, masturbation, nudity, decapitation. All in good fun.) Running time: 83 minutes.

3 stars (out of four)

General Admiral Hafez Aladeen, the autocrat at the center of Sacha Baron Cohen’s new satire The Dictator, is a type of ruler in increasingly short supply of late. His idols, and perhaps former poker buddies, include Saddam Hussein, Muammar Gaddafi and, of course, Kim Jong-il, to whom this film is lovingly dedicated. These are men who led grand lives of opulence, occasionally stepping out onto the balconies of their shimmering gold palaces to address the famished, oppressed people of their nation and reassure them that the country is in good hands. When Aladeen delivers one such speech to announce that development of weapons-grade uranium is almost complete (to be used for medical purposes, naturally), he can barely keep a straight face.

The same would not be said of Sacha Baron Cohen, the prankster who gave us Brüno, Borat and Da Ali G Show, and master of keeping a straight face. His Aladeen is a ravenous egomaniac whose hatred of the West is matched only by his antisemitism, yet – and this is one of the great pleasures of Mr. Baron Cohen’s comedies – no matter how despicable the character, we can’t help but wind up rooting for him. When Aladeen’s dictatorship faces the threat of becoming a democracy, I’ll be damned if I didn’t find myself hoping he makes it to the UN building in time to declare continued tyranny over his country.

That country is the fictional Wadiya, which we briefly see on a map, its borders cleverly drawn in along the North African coast. The threat of democracy comes from his top political advisor and uncle Tamir (Ben Kingsley, believe it or not, in a fine straight man performance). Aladeen unwittingly finds himself in that capitalist hellhole, the United States, forced to wander the streets of New York as an average American.

How and why this happens I will not say – the other great pleasure of this movie is the breakneck speed at which it races through a dozen or more crazy ideas and twists – except that he meets a young woman from Brooklyn, Zoey (a very funny Anna Faris), who agrees to take him in. Zoey is a Vegan and a feminist who runs an organic grocery store and is on hand to politely correct Aladeen’s political incorrectness.

You might say Sacha Baron Cohen walks a fine line with his movies but the more accurate description would be that he stomps all over that line until it is no longer visible or relevant. He blends smart commentary with crude shock gags and the style works for him. His satire rarely digs deeper than a few barbed one-liners, which may be a wise move. The hypocrisy of dictators is an easy target and he knows it, so he uses his tougher, political jabs sparingly. The remainder of The Dictator is spent on broader, mostly raunchy comedy.

In this area, Mr. Baron Cohen and his creative team are old hands. Director Larry Charles, who helmed Brüno and Borat, is a Seinfeld alum, and co-writers Alec Berg, David Mandel and Jeff Schaffer are all writers or producers for Curb Your Enthusiasm, among other TV shows. They ensure that The Dictator has a satisfying laugh quotient: there are a few belly laughs, at least two outrageous gross-out gags, and plenty of chuckles and grins scattered throughout. It helps too to have cameos from John C. Reilly, Chris Parnell, Fred Armisen and many other comedians. Jason Mantzoukas, as Aladeen's weapons developer, has some funny scenes too opposite Sacha Baron Cohen.

The movie is nice and short, leaving little room to stall or get dull. One gets the impression Mr. Baron Cohen and Mr. Charles made a three-hour movie and cut it down to the best possible 83 minutes (credit should also be given here to editors Greg Hayden and Eric Kissack). No doubt there will be some good deleted scenes on the DVD.

For his next movie, I might like to see Sacha Baron Cohen try something new. If The Dictator does break away from the mockumentary format of Brüno and Borat, it is still made from the same DNA as those films. For now, however, this movie allows him to continue to do what he does so well: dig his teeth into a hot button topic with reckless abandon and let loose a lovably horrible (or is horribly lovable?) character to wreak havoc on our collective sense of decency. And that is a very good thing.

- Steve Avigliano, 5/21/12

REVIEW: Hugo

Hugo (2011): Dir. Martin Scorsese. Written by: John Logan. Based on The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick. Starring: Asa Butterfield, Ben Kingsley, Sacha Baron Cohen, Chloë Grace Moretz, Ray Winstone, Jude Law, Emily Mortimer, Christopher Lee, Richard Griffiths and Frances de la Tour. Rated PG. Running time: 127 minutes.

3 stars (out of four)

Director Martin Scorsese’s first foray into 3D, Hugo, appears on first glance to be a Spielbergian piece of family entertainment about an orphaned boy’s adventures in a 1930s Paris train station. The film, adapted from Brain Selznick’s award-winning book, The Invention of Hugo Cabret, is curiously both more than that first impression suggests and somehow a little less.

We first see Hugo Cabret (Asa Butterfield) as he peers out at the station’s busy lobby from behind the face of a large clock. Through flashbacks we learn he is the son of a watchmaker (Jude Law in a brief cameo) who taught his son all about the inner workings of timepieces. Prior to his father’s death, the two were repairing an automaton, a small robotic man of extraordinarily intricate design Hugo’s father picked up at a museum. The machine is missing a crucial piece – a heart-shaped key – that Hugo’s father has drawn for reference in a small notebook Hugo later inherits.

Hugo then comes under the dubious care of his uncle (Ray Winstone in an even briefer cameo), a drunk who repairs the train station’s clocks and disappears almost as soon as he adopts the poor boy. This leaves Hugo to roam the station alone, dodging the watchful eyes of Inspector Gustav (Sacha Baron Cohen), who has made it his purpose in life to catch stray orphans in the station and ship them off to some nondescript Dickensian nightmare or another.

Inspector Gustav is unaware, however, of the many ventilator ducts and behind-the-wall passageways Hugo calls home. From these hidden vantage points, Hugo safely observes the station’s population below him. (Richard Griffiths, Christopher Lee, Emily Mortimer and Frances de la Tour each have a few scenes apiece as various proprietors in the station.) But it is Ben Kingsley as the owner of a toy shop who Hugo is most interested in and vice versa.

Hugo has been stealing toys from the shop not to play with but to disassemble for parts. When Papa Georgie, as his goddaughter Isabelle (Chloë Grace Moretz) calls him, catches Hugo red-handed, a mysterious and pensive look crosses the old man’s face at the sight of Hugo’s notebook. Does this look signify some mystery for Hugo and new friend Isabelle to solve? Some past secret from Hugo’s or Papa George’s life? A hint at the cause of Hugo’s father’s untimely death?

The mystery, without giving away too much, turns out to be a lesson in film history, which, I must say, I wasn’t expecting. That is not to say the film loses any of its charm as Martin Scorsese pays tribute to the silent era of cinema – these scenes are as visually inventive and whimsical as anything else in the film – but I wonder: To what degree will the film’s younger audience appreciate this sudden turn? Hugo is a bit overlong, especially considering that it is being marketed as a family adventure, and by its second half its gradual pacing begins to feel like the film is dragging its heels.

This is no fault of Hugo’s young stars though, who carry the film nicely. Asa Butterfield is a strong and amiable lead and Chloë Grace Moretz shows her range as the plucky bookworm. The adults stand by to support them and Sacha Baron Cohen’s comic timing looks to have cross-generational appeal (to both older and younger audiences than his typically raunchy, scatological characters attract).

The film’s 3D gives a number of shots an added layer of wonder but Hugo’s most visually appealing qualities – its muted colors, its meticulous set design – do not need the effect; they are enchanting enough on their own. So while Martin Scorsese’s first use of 3D is well executed, I cannot say it was worth adding $5 to the ticket price. This continues to be 3D’s biggest drawback. I’m willing to remain open to each filmmaker’s take on the technology but not at these prices.

Mr. Scorsese looks to be on-board with it though. By evoking the dazzling imagination and visuals of cinema’s earliest works, he argues that the movies have always been about the spectacle of technological innovation. I wonder if the film might have been more effective had it gone even bigger – more magic! more mystery! – and if it had more of its director’s characteristic vigor and energy. In its quiet way though, the film ever so gently reminds us of the movies’ ability to inspire wonder and to invent.

- Steve Avigliano, 12/1/11