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: Prometheus

Prometheus (2012): Dir. Ridley Scott. Written by: Jon Spaihts and Damon Lindelof. Starring: Noomi Rapace, Michael Fassbender, Guy Pearce, Idris Elba, Logan Marshall-Green and Charlize Theron. Rated R (Graphic violence and the appropriate swearing for such occasions). Running time: 124 minutes.

3 stars (out of four)

In Prometheus, scientists land on a breathtaking world many millions of miles from Earth and, as is often the case, some pretty horrible things are waiting for them there.

A kind-of-sort-of prequel to the Alien films, Prometheus reveals its relation to those movies only loosely at first, mostly by borrowing their imagery and visual style, and builds a new mythology meant to coexist with the already established franchise. Knowledge of how all these parts from various films fit together is inessential to enjoying this one though and, at any rate, the mythology may or may not be too important. This is a straightforward sci-fi thriller wrapped in lofty ideas and a complex plot but its pleasures are relatively simple.

Onscreen text informs us the year is 2093 and that a crew of seventeen is onboard the spaceship Prometheus heading toward an undisclosed location. If you’ve seen movies like this before, not the least of which being the Alien films, you will recognize that seventeen is a large number of characters and that something bad will surely happen to at least a few (and quite probably many more) of them before the movie is over. Your intuitive suspicions will be reinforced when you learn that only a handful of these characters get substantial scenes and more than one of the supporting players are outright jerks. I trust you see where this is going.

Among the main characters are Elizabeth (Noomi Rapace) and Charlie (Logan Marshall-Green), archaeologists who discover a pattern in several otherwise unrelated cave paintings across the Earth. The pattern points to a distant galaxy where, they believe, they will find the intelligent beings that created humans some millennia ago. An aged billionaire (Guy Pearce underneath a lot of makeup) agrees to fund a mission that will send them and a crew of technicians and scientists to that galaxy (specifically one moon in that galaxy) to see if they can make contact. Leading them is an icy corporate overseer, Meredith (Charlize Theron).

Also onboard is David (Michael Fassbender), an artificial intelligence robot. While the crew slept in a cryogenic stasis for two years en route to their destination, David was awake, studying human culture (old movies, mostly) and learning ancient languages so that he may hopefully translate an alien-human conversation should there be one.

Noomi Rapace, the original girl with the dragon tattoo, is an intensely focused and amazingly resourceful heroine and Charlize Theron’s cold, calculating performance is a welcome reprieve from all the shouting she did in Snow White (I swear I could hear her in the theater next door). Logan Marshall-Green is a likable actor, though I don’t buy the character’s flippancy in the face of such monumental discoveries (or maybe Mr. Marshall-Green is just too ruggedly handsome to convincingly play a scientist). As the ship’s gruff captain, Idris Elba is a delightfully charismatic presence. It says something about a person when, after being cryogenically frozen for two years, the first thing he does is smoke a cigarette.

Michael Fassbender, however, steals the show. His tone of voice and facial tics always seem on the verge of showing emotions aside from the polite conviviality David has been programmed to convey. In a subtle way then, Mr. Fassbender’s performance gives depth to ideas the script only dances around regarding the extent of David’s humanity. We watch his reactions closely: Was that menace in his voice, or just the unsympathetic reasoning of a computer?

The script, written by Jon Spaihts and Damon Lindelof, introduces a lot of enticing mysteries, including David, who seems to know something the other don’t. There is also the far grander question which Elizabeth and Charlie intend to ask when they meet their makers-in-question: If aliens created humans, for what purpose did they do it? And why leave clues in the cave paintings? The film gets a lot of mileage out of dangling these mysteries in front of us, though I am not sure they all get resolved in satisfying ways. Prometheus cares about its existential intrigue only so far and then it cares about the more obvious joy of watching humans get murdered by creepy-crawlies.

The score by Marc Streitenfeld creates a majestic mood as the scientists explore the alien moon and its runes, rightly characterizing their discoveries as the greatest in mankind’s history. But the characters don’t always see it this way. They’re too busy endangering their lives in all sorts of reckless ways. In their version of Earth circa 2093 are there no horror movies to teach them that they should never reach out and touch, much less taunt, an unidentified tentacle?

Prometheus is not without its sophistications, however. It is marvelous to look out and boasts one of the best production designs in a movie in perhaps years. Director Ridley Scott, who also made the first Alien, adds splashes of color to his earlier film’s rusty palette; consoles in the ship’s sleek interior light up yellow and purple.

There is also a wonderful attention to detail. Hours after waking from their two-year slumber the crew dons their spacesuits for the first time and their movements are understandably clumsy. When they try to cram into a small rover, their large helmets bump up against each other. Not many movies include moments like that.

Prometheus is tense and exciting enough that you do not mind that it neglects to answer every question it raises (or even most of them), at least not until you are well on your way out of the theater and discussing it. The elaborate backstory ends up being a little beside the point and I wonder why it was included if it was to be left undeveloped. There will probably be a second film that addresses the unsolved mysteries but am I the only one who wishes movies would just stand on their own without always setting themselves up for a sequel?

- Steve Avigliano, 6/11/12

REVIEW: The King's Speech

The King's Speech (2010): Dir. Tom Hooper. Written by: David Seidler. Starring: Colin Firth, Geoffrey Rush, Helena Bonham Carter, Michael Gambon and Guy Pearce. Rated R (some language). Running time: 111 minutes.

3 ½ stars (out of four)

Prince Albert of York (played by Colin Firth) has a problem. As the second son to King George V, he is called upon to make the occasional public speech, but a crippling stammer leaves him silent behind the microphone, struggling to get his words out. The recent invention of radio allows his public speaking failures to be broadcast to an entire nation. At one point in The King’s Speech, George V remarks how earlier kings had it easy. All they had to do was stand still and look good for their portrait. In 1925 (when the film begins), however, radio was a revolutionary modern invention that forced politicians and royalty alike into a new realm of public attention.

The King’s Speech captures a society that is still adjusting to its newfound modernity. Coming into the 20^th Century, the British monarchy had more symbolic power than it did political. Britain’s kings were expected to simply give voice to the nation’s people, leaving the actual politicking to the Prime Minister. Such expectations are understandably daunting for Prince Albert considering his speech impediment. The film dramatizes Albert’s ascension to King (when he becomes known as George VI) and focuses on his struggle to overcome his stammer.

King George V (Michael Gambon) has no patience for his son’s disability and though he knows Albert is the more capable of his two sons, he fails to understand what holds him back. The rightful heir is David (Guy Pearce), but the firstborn’s cavalier attitude and infamous womanizing make him a less than ideal candidate for the throne. This puts pressure on Albert to be ready should his brother step down from the responsibility.

A king with a stammer, however, is no king at all and so Albert’s wife (Helena Bonham Carter) takes him to a number of correctional doctors, all of who are unable to help. Then she discovers the Australian speech specialist Lionel Logue (Geoffrey Rush), who takes a more Freudian approach to Albert’s condition by treating it as a mental impediment. Logue’s unconventional treatment is met at first with resistance, but a friendship and an understanding soon forms between the two men.
In some ways, the film is reminiscent of the excellent 2006 film The Queen, which also examined a brief period in the life of a British monarch. Both films touch on larger themes of leadership and British nationalism by focusing on a ruler’s struggle with their public persona.

As in The Queen (whose star Helen Mirren won a deserved Oscar), at the center of The King’s Speech is an excellent peformance. Two, actually. Colin Firth gives a superb performance as the soon-to-be King by humanizing him. His recreation of the stammer is entirely convincing, but his performance goes deeper than this. The stammer is a key to the character’s emotional life. Watch how he not only shuts down in public speeches, but in private conversations with his father and older brother too. We see how he is a good man at heart capable of great leadership if only he can overcome his anxieties.

Geoffrey Rush is wonderful as well and his playful take on Lionel gives the film much of its lighthearted tone. The scenes between Albert and Lionel are a joy to watch and director Tom Hooper wisely gives the two actors the time and space to stretch out and develop their characters’ relationship. In one scene, Lionel pushes Albert and asks him to vent his anger. The slew of profanities that fly out of Albert's mouth make for one of the film’s funniest and surprisingly touching moments.

Also good is Helena Bonham Carter, whose performance may get overshadowed by those of her co-stars. In the role of Albert’s supportive wife, she lends a tender, warm-hearted performance to the film and while her scenes with Firth are not as noteworthy as those between him and Rush, they give the film an emotional core.

Shot largely on location, The King’s Speech is also beautiful to look at. The spacious, luxurious halls of castles and cathedrals fill the screen and cinematographer Danny Cohen shoots the film’s regal locales with their awe-inspiring size and grandeur in mind. Hooper uses these settings to heighten the pressures put on Albert, who is more at home in smaller, cozier rooms. We can understand how the pressure put on him must feel when he’s positioned at the bottom of a frame that captures a vast and expansive ballroom.

The King’s Speech questions what it means to be a leader and brings up historical themes of British nationalism but never pushes these larger ideas too hard. This is an enjoyable, often humorous character-driven film that, like all good biographical films, transcends the facts and tells a human story, an exceedingly charming one at that.

- Steve Avigliano, 1/02/11