Tin Can Alley

The third sequel in a movie franchise is seldom the charm.  They
are either big and ponderous (Matrix Revolutions), descend into
parady or camp (Superman III) or devolve into pure schlock
(Jaws 3D).  Iron Man 3 is none of these while possibly being all
of them.  In fact, IM3 plays like a third Robert Downey, Jr.
franchise, a third rail to his Iron Man and Sherlock Holmes
annunities - call this one Tin Can.

Jim Favreau, director of the first two Iron Man movies, looks like he
may have eaten his way out of that job as he reprises his role as a
corpulent Happy Hogan.  He is replaced by Shane Black, author of
the original Lethal Weapon movie.  In fact, IM3 plays more like the
fifth installment of Lethal Weapon than a sequel to IM2.  The villian
is a Euro-Trash industrialist (Guy Pearce) and the final
confrontation takes place on a dirty oil tanker with Downey
and Don Cheadle firing bullets instead of repulsor rays.

As I noted in my review of Iron Man 2, seldom has there been a
better match of actor and role than Downey and Tony Stark/Iron
Man.  The age old question: does the man make the suit or does the
suit make the man, applies to IM3 as Downey spends way too much
time out of his full metal jacket.

~(no)rave!

Iron Marvel

If Iron Man 2 is the first tent pole of the summer of 2010, Hollywood should sigh a huge sigh of relief.

Iron Man 2 may be the best movie sequel since James Cameron's Aliens. I would invoke The Godfather 2 - possibly the greatest movie sequel ever - but, like Aliens, Iron Man 2 is still fun, retaining all the chills, spills and thrills of the original while spiffing up the whole enterprise with some honest-to-goodness grown-up angst, and taking it up a notch.

There is so much that could have gone wrong with this sequel. Rushed into production after 1's surprising and unexpected success in 2008, Iron Man 2 is in theaters a scant two years later. To put this in perspective, The Dark Knight, the one billion dollar gorilla of the summer of 2008, won't be back in theaters until 2012. Usually, rushing an unscripted sequel to the box office this soon leads to Batman and Robin size debacles.

But such is not the case. Iron Man 2 snaps, crackles and pops with the ebullient insouciance that made 1 such an unexpected delight. Everything is better in 2. Mickey Rourke's Ivan Vanko is better than Jeff Bridges' Obadiah Stone, Don Cheadle is a significant upgrade in the James "Rhodey" Rhodes role, Sam Rockwell is his usual cock-squirrelly best as Justin Hammer (Solieri to Stark's Mozart) and there may not be a better melding of actor to character than Robert Downey, Jr. essaying his role as industrialist/bon vivant Tony Stark.

Unfortunately, while Scarlett Johansson scores as super-efficient Natalie Rushman/Romanoff, she is less effective in her Black Widow catsuit. Favreau and his team employ some funky special effects to augment her limited martial art skills and it is more disorienting than impressive. Yet, even this scene is saved by the visual and verbal quips frequently provided by writer Justin Theroux (Tropic Thunder).

It is action that sells this type of enterprise and the "two men enter one man leaves" ethos of the first Whiplash/Iron Man "cage match" and the War Machine/Iron Man clash-of-the-titans are visceral and brutal. The only thing better than the mano-a-mano is ol' Shellhead standing back-to-back with Rhodey as Danko and an army of war machines advance on them.

~rave!