Movie Review: Iron Man 3

Marvel's attempt to recreate its interconnected universe on film has officially paid off.

"Iron Man 3" is a lot more organized than its predecessor, and a lot less cheesy than its predecessor. If anything, "Iron Man 3" is cheesy on purpose. While the director/writer team of Jon Favreau and Justin Theroux that made up "Iron Man 2" is certainly a talented one, Shane Black brings back everything that was great about the original "Iron Man," plus everything that makes his take on the action genre so unique.

"Iron Man 3" begins with a confession and then a flashback to 1999. During that time, Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) is still the same womanizing, partying genius, except with a better heart. The key information here is that brilliant scientist Maya Hansen (Rebecca Hall) and her boss Aldrich Killian (Guy Pearce) work on a special experiment that could eventually help humans grow body parts back. It is a nice touch for the third "Iron Man" movie, as this series explores people using technology to exceed their life expectancy.

Movie Review: Cowboys & Aliens

A lot of unusual things happen to the unassuming western folk of "Cowboys & Aliens." Mainly, aliens land on earth. Yet, nobody seems to react to it. In fact, these people don't react to anything at all. Is this a movie, or an assembly of cardboard cutouts?

"Cowboys & Aliens" has a cast of cutouts that includes some of Hollywood's best action stars being reduced of their charms and talents. Daniel Craig plays a cutout named Jake Lonergan, a wanted man who wakes up one morning with a mysterious metal band around his arm and blurry memories that might involve aliens.

As he tries to piece this puzzle together, he wanders into town and captures the attention of the townspeople by standing up to the local rough-and-tumble outlaw, Percy Dolarhyde (Paul Dano), who thinks he owns everything. Among the other people in town include the timid doctor (Sam Rockwell), and the token hot lady (Olivia Wilde). After Percy's father Woodrow (Harrison Ford) rides into town, a series of "flying machines" begin attacking and what is deemed by the priest as "demons" is most certainly an extraterrestrial attack. Now, everyone must unite and fight for the future of humanity.

Where exactly did "Cowboys & Aliens" go wrong? In too many places to even keep count. With Jon Favreau at the helm, his direction feels more like it did in the second "Iron Man" as opposed to the original. That is, it feels like he started directing an action sequence and then halfway through it, gave up. As a director, Favreau hasn't yet gotten to the stage where he can phone it in, and still pull it off. No, that takes many more years of experience.

"Cowboys & Aliens" was penned by "Lost"co-creator Damon Lindelof. It contains all of the intrigue of "Lost" without an of the wonder. If you are trying to put us into a time where the idea of life outside of earth is as foreign as the idea of cell phones, you must also put the audience into that sense of wonderment. Instead, all anyone can feel the whole time is, oh they are being attacked by evil aliens from space. Where is the film's extra hook to really surprise us; where is the film's polar bear in the jungle? How can we expect to take an alien species seriously when their spaceship looks like Squidward's house?

The cutouts of "Cowboys & Aliens" consist mainly of a series of western archetypes. There is the young outlaw who's seen too little, the old outlaw who's seen too much, the knowledgeable doctor who can't defend himself, the old coot with no teeth, and the guy who has to march down the town's streets and yell about how he gets free drinks because he owns this town. None of the characters turn into anything above those stereotypes. I don't blame this on the actors as much as I do on the writers.

The actors do the best they can, which is really all an actor can do with weak material. Craig, who has deservedly become the new face of James Bond, seems to struggle with his American accent. It doesn't even come close to sounding like a grisled outlaw, it sounds more like an English guy trying to sound American. Besides the Bond movies, he should just stick to playing badass Jews from now on.

Harrison Ford, meanwhile, was the person I was most excited to see and yet, he doesn't bring any of the typical Ford charm to his performance. Ford has played Cowboys before, in varying forms (Han Solo; Indiana Jones), yet Woodrow carries no outlaw spirit. He seems less angry about the aliens he has to fight and more angry that he is involved in this movie. He never even seems too concerned about the missing son that he is fighting the whole movie to get back. Shocking, as Ford is usually a master at yelling about missing family members.

I will say this, though: the closest the film ever comes to an actual human interaction is the scene in which Ford gives a young boy his knife. It is never very well explained, but these two characters are the only ones in the film that ever seem to have any chemistry. The fact that nothing is ever done with this represents all of the film's underutilized potential.

"Cowboys & Aliens" strives to combine two genres that have been combined many times over, with much better results. In fact, the sci-fi western has been considered a genre for decades already, ever since "Star Wars" first came out in 1977. "Cowboys & Aliens" tries to fall under this genre, but it never makes these two very different genres seamlessly blend. The point of "Star Wars" was that if it took place in the Old West, it basically could have been "The Searchers." I don't even know what "Cowboys & Aliens" could have been. All I know is that it really made me want to keep watching "Firefly," the TV series that did exactly what "Cowboys & Aliens" wanted to do, but in a much more exciting and coherent fashion.

The worst part of "Cowboys & Aliens" is that it isn't very fun. I appreciate that Favreau wanted to tackle this story in a serious manner, but he takes the idea of straight-faced a step too far. Even Leone's great western opuses had a sense of humor about themselves.

As for the sci-fi part of the film, the aliens feel less like an enemy, and more like a plot device. The aliens in the film look like those from "District 9," but with way less personality. The reason why the aliens are here at this very moment remains totally unexplained. Even though "Super 8" somewhat failed in that respect, at least they tried to make us understand its creature.

Amongst the seriousness, the makers of "Cowboys & Aliens" forgot that this is a summer blockbuster, and blockbusters can be both smart and serious while providing entertainment. This isn't entertainment, this starring blankly at a bunch of preposterous characters and situations. Westerns are supposed to be slow, not boring.

Movie Review: Iron Man 2

I might've enjoyed watching the superhero genre be mercilessly mocked in "Kick-Ass," but I'm no hater. I've been anticipating "Iron Man 2" ever since the moment the first movie ended. This one comes with some minor disappointments and a few major promises. While I can certainly recommend "Iron Man 2," there isn't enough to truly give it flat out praise.

"Iron Man 2" leaves off directly where the first one left off, with weapons connoisseur Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) admitting to the media that he's Iron Man. The world has changed since then. Thanks to Stark's design, the world is now safer. For now at least. The movie catches Stark at something of a crossroads in his life: he's more successful than ever, yet the same technology that's kept him alive is now turning against him. He becomes more and more narcissistic than ever.

While Stark remains in denial that the Iron Man technology can ever be doubled, someone looks to do just that. There's Justin Hammer (Sam Rockwell), an even more smug version of Stark who's looking for a job in the Pentagon, and psychotic Russian physicist Ivan Vanko (Mickey Rourke) who's seeking revenge on Stark for past injustice.

One thing I must hand it to director Jon Favreau for doing is putting his own comedy background into an action film. His natural eye for comedy always adds a good extra entertainment value to the "Iron Man" films. The brand of humor he incorporates here probably wouldn't be a good fit for a Batman or Spider-Man film. However, this particular story involves a character who's CEO of one of the biggest companies in the world, yet he's still willing to call a senator a jackass.

In Favreau's strength, unfortunately, lies his weakness. While he knows his way around humor, he just couldn't quite nail a lot of the action here. Strangely though, he seemed to know what he was doing in the first movie. In "Iron Man," some of the war sequences had an odd sense of realism while the scenes where Stark was just mastering his suit were sometime even quite graceful. Here, much of the action was either too silly to take seriously or too quick to ever appreciate. I call it the "Quantum of Solace" complex: a sequel to a great action film which looses hold of the great action of the original.

Take for example, the final battle. I'll do my best to spare the details. What I will say is that for a battle built up so much, in a location so tight, it turns out to be a major letdown. It's as if the whole scene, the whole plot line, was simply to end with a giant laugh.

One of the main factors that keeps "Iron Man 2" from falling apart is its superb cast. Downey is almost too perfect for the part. Only a free spirit like him could portray a free spirit like Tony Stark. But unlike the first film, "Iron Man 2" adds a level of emotional vulnerability to Stark. He's certainly not the Messiah he once thought he was. Downey manages to balance that fine line, without turning Stark into a total contradiction.

Then there are a few supporting actors truly worthy of recognition. While this film suffers from a loss of The Dude, it makes up for it with the presence of Mickey Rourke. Call it a stretch, but his performance reminded me somewhat of The Joker with more motivation. He always seemed to take such ease in being such a psychopath. While I can sometimes be annoyed by too much backstory for a villain, here it's used simply to show motivation rather than to create unnecessary sympathy.

But I digress. Rourke shows here why he's such a great actor. He is an actor who needs no direction. All he needs is a character description, and he makes it into his own (his odd relationship to his bird was all his idea). The only problem is that Rourke is given such limited screen time. Maybe with a little more freedom, and a little more time, Ivan Vanko would've been even more of a villain to remember.

Yet another scene stealer is the even better Sam Rockwell. He taps into all the anger, frustration, and even dark comedy that define his other performances (especially in "Moon"). His character differs from most other villains of superhero mythology because he doesn't achieve evil through highly advanced weapons or murder. Rather, he is so creepy because he's such an egomaniac that he will resort to literally any means to get to the top. View him as a much less intelligent version of Hans Landa.

While the cast is sprawling, one problem is that many are either underutilized, or are just plain useless. No offense at all to Gwyneth Paltrow, but her performance mainly consists of her yelling "Stop!" and "Don't!" at Tony. While Scarlett Johansson's Natalie Rushman certainly has a little more purpose than that, her role in the film would've been better in another sequel.

Again, "Iron Man 2" is a film I can recommend, but only give slight praise to. It can be hard to give a movie a passing grade for entertainment value alone, but "Iron Man 2" manages to deliver a solid two hours that never has a dull moment. Yet, with the high standard set by recent comic book films ("Spider-Man 2," "X-Men," "The Dark Knight," "Sin City"), "Iron Man 2" could've been a lot more. And with the extreme likelihood of a third film, Favreau and the "Iron Man" crew should stick to the factors that made the first film great rather than the ones that made the sequel decently mediocre.