Iron Man 3 (2013)

Iron Man 3 (2013)

starring Robert Downey, Jr., Gwynneth Paltrow, Don Cheadle, Guy Pearce

directed by Shane Black

130 minutes

Bern, Switzerland - 1999 - Tony Stark (Robert Downey, Jr.) is partying at a conference with Maya Hansen (Rebecca Hall), a scientist, when he is approached by Aldrich Killian (Guy Pearce), who tries to get Tony interested in his research project, Advanced Idea Mechanics (AIM). Tony blows him off. 

Malibu, California - 2013 - Killian resurfaces. He shows up at Pepper Potts' (Gwyneth Paltrow) office unexpectedly. He tries to get her interested in his latest project. She listens to his pitch, unlike Tony, but doesn't commit to anything. Happy Hogan follows one of Killian's bodyguards and gets badly injured in a blast. The Mandarin, the leader of a terrorist organization, takes responsibility for the bombing. Tony is asked by the press about the attack. He lashes out and tells the Mandarin via the press, what his home address is.

Tony is making plans to investigate the Mandarin when Maya Hansen shows up at his house. She wants to talk to him. Before the conversation can get very far three helicopters attack Tony and Pepper's home. Tony, Pepper, and Maya just barely escape but the house is demolished. Tony zooms out of there (once he knows that the two women are safe) in one of his suits of armor.

Ant-Man and the Wasp (2018)

Starring Paul Rudd, Evangeline Lilly, Michael Douglas
Directed by Peyton Reed

Scott Lang (Rudd) has been under house arrest for a couple years, ever since the end of Captain America: Civil War. He has had no contact with Hope Van Dyne (Lilly) or Hank Pym (Douglas). He has just three days to go until his sentence of house arrest will be over when he has a dream about Janet Van Dyne (Michelle Pfeiffer), Hope's mother.

Scott calls Hank Pym but no one answers. He leaves a message and then sits down to watch TV. He wakes up in a van with Hope. She is taking him to see Hank, her father. They want to know more about the dream he had. He tells them and they become convinced that Janet is still alive. They think that Janet placed a message in Scott's brain when he was in the Quantum Realm.

Avengers: Infinity War (2018)

Thanos the Titan comes looking for the Infinity Stones. It is all part of his plan to bring equilibrium to the universe by killing half of all living things. The Avengers are in possession of two of the Infinity Stones so naturally their paths have to cross. He gets one of the stones from Loki, before he kills him and Heimdall. Thor survives the encounter. Hulk, who is also with them, is sent back to Earth by a spell that Heimdall casts before Thanos can finish him off.

Dr. Strange is the next target. Thanos' minions are unable to retrieve the stone from the Eye of Agamotto so they take Dr. Strange and the Eye. Iron Man and Spider-Man unsuccessfully try to stop Thanos' troops from leaving with Dr. Strange but they do manage to infiltrate the spaceship.

Iron Man 2 (2010)

Starring Robert Downey Jr., Gwyneth Paltrow, Sam Rockwell, Scarlett Johansson, Don Cheadle, Mickey, Rourke
Directed by Jon Favreau

Tony Stark (Downey Jr.) and company are back for the second Iron Man movie in what eventually became known as the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Tony's solution for his heart problems is starting to fail him. Ivan Vanko (Rourke), a villain whose father was done wrong by Howard Stark (John Slattery), Tony's father, comes looking for revenge. Nick Fury and S.H.I.E.L.D. continue to try talking Tony into working with them. Col. James Rhodes (Cheadle), takes one of the suits that Tony has designed and turns it over to US Government.

Black Panther (2018)

I listened to and read a few reviews that were very light on spoilers but I avoided spoilers and podcasts that went in to spoilers about this movie as much as I could before seeing it tonight.

Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015)

I watched this movie in bits and pieces. I thouhgt it was much better than I was led to believe it would be. I think it comes from the same mold as many of the other Marvel Cinematic Universe movies.

I passed on it (until now) because I had heard a lot of negative things about it. I went back to watch it because of all the references to it in subsequent movies, most recently in Thor: Ragnarok but also in Captain America: Civil War. As a stand alone movie it probably isn't that great but it feels like an important piece of the puzzle. It features the first appearance of the Vision and Scarlet Witch. It is in this movie that Segovia is destroyed. Hulk disappears at the end of the movie not to return until Thor: Ragnarok. Thor takes off and similarly does not return until Thor: Ragnarok. Unlike some of the solo movies this feels much more like an important chapter in the overarching story.

There are some holes in the plot, which allow the Avengers to get some moments away from action. The romance between Natasha and Bruce seemed to come out of nowhere. This is not a perfect movie but for the most part I enjoyed it.

Thor: Ragnarok (2017)

Thor and Loki, with a little help from Dr. Strange, locate Odin just before he passes away. Why he passes wasn't clear to me but he seemed to be ready to go. Thor's older sister, Hela, shows up soon thereafter. Thor and Loki try to fight her but she is way too powerful for them. She destroys Thor's hammer, Mjolnir. Loki tries recalling them to Asgard but something goes wrong. Hela makes it back to Asgard. Thor and Loki wind up halfway across the universe.

Thor is captured by a woman who (later turns out to be an Asgardian, Valkyrie) and sells him to the Grandmaster, the ruler of the planet. He is forced to fight the Grandmaster's champion who turns out to be the Hulk. Thor is happy to see the green behemoth but Hulk does not recognize him. Eventually Thor gets Hulk to change back to his human form, with a lot of help from a recording of Black Widow. Bruce Banner remembers who he is but can't remember the last two years since the end of Age of Ultron. I really need to see that movie. Even if it wasn't very good it will help to fill in some gaps.

Thor, Valkyrie (whom he has finally convinced to join him), and Banner steal the Grandmaster's personal spaceship. They fly back to Asgard to battle Hela and her zombie army. Loki comes back with some other inhabitants of the planet and joins the fight against Hela.

There's more to this story, like Heimdall and Executioner but their parts seem a little more tangential to the main story.

I thought there were a few too many jokes early on. There was a little too much of a lot of things. The movie probably should have been longer or broken into a couple films. It felt like I was supposed to care about Odin's passing but it all happened so fast that I didn't feel anything at all. Jeff Goldblum was great as the Grandmaster. I'm not sure how faithful his representation of the character was to the comic book version but I liked the movie version. He reminded be a little bit of Aku from Samurai Jack. Gladiatorial contest made me think of Samurai Jack 2.03 (Jack and the Smackback).

On the whole I liked this movie but I think that Captain America: Civil War is still the high water mark for me.

Doctor Strange (2016)

Stephen Strange is a gifted neurosurgeon whose hands are damaged in a car accident. In a desperate attempt he travels to Tibet in the hopes of finding something there to restore his damaged hands. Stephen arrives in Katmandu, meets the Ancient One, Mordo, and Wong, and starts training. He seems to learn the mystic arts extremely fast and soon joins the battle against the rogue Kaecilius who seeks to open a pathway between the Dark Dimension and Earth.

The special effects are quite beautiful. The movie, especially the final battle leaves something to be desired. There were parts that just made no sense and left me scratching my head. I understand that this is magic and not everything is going to make sense but still. There were battle scenes that were hard to follow because it was unclear what exactly was happening as the world tilted this way and that.

I'm not sure why they chose to have a Caucasian woman play the role of the Ancient One, instead of an Asian man, which is what the character was in the comic books. Tilda Swinton did a decent job but her performance wasn't so great that it made me forget the fact that the character wasn't supposed to be white.

Some of the movie felt like set up for stuff to come down the road. The turning of Mordo at the end of the movie, in the end credits scene didn't feel earned. He was obviously bothered by the reveal that the Ancient One had kept herself alive using energy from the Dark Dimension, but that doesn't fully explain why he would all of a sudden decide to switch sides. Yes, there was an explanation given but it just didn't feel earned.

The fight between Dr. Strange and Dormammu at the end of the movie was unsatisfying. I understand that Strange was able to manipulate time but how was he able to bring himself back after Dormammu killed him each time. That felt a bit too simple. Honestly, the fights with Kaecilius were more exciting than the one with Dormammu.

On the whole not a bad movie but it doesn't compare favorably in my book to most of the other Marvel films. It left me feeling let down even though there were somethings that I liked about it

Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)

Peter Parker's life gets a much more thorough spotlight in this movie that it did in Captain America: Civil War. The focus is split between his life fighting crime as Spider-Man and his time as a high school student.

Peter gets a sidekick in the form of Ned his nerdy. heavyset classmate who finds out early on that Peter is also Spider-Man. Ned wants Peter to use his super-hero identity to make them popular at school. Peter is a little too busy being Spider-Man to do that.

Peter has a crush on one of his classmates, Liz. The problem is that he keeps running off to fight criminals as Spider-Man: at her party, at the academic decathlon, at the dance. In the comic books there is (or at least was) a character named Liz Allen. She was similar in that she was someone whom Peter had a crush on but whom he felt was way out of his league. The Liz in the movie is clearly modeled after the character in the comic books in that way but there is at least one way that she is significantly different in the movie.

The main bad guy is played by Michael Keaton. He is a man with a salvage business that gets its government contract pulled away from it by the Department of Damage Control. He and some of his employees use the technology which they have already salvaged (but not turned over to the government) to start another line of business making high tech weapons that they sell to criminals. He is the main bad guy but he doesn't have any quality scenes with the hero until the third act.

There are a number of little cameos that were fun to see. Donald Glover (Community) shows up as the criminal who wants to buy a gun but whom the bad guys try to up-sell a much more powerful weapon. Captain America shows up in a few PSA videos that Peter and his classmates are forced to watch. Martin Starr (Freaks and Geeks) shows up as the coach for the academic decathlon team.

I enjoyed Peter's attempts to master the suits full capabilities once he had unlocked them after Ned disabled the Training Wheels app in the suit. I couldn't place the actress who was the voice of the suit when I was watching the movie. It was Jennifer Connelly.

On the whole I really liked this movie. My only real complaint is that some two of the fight scenes that took place at night were very dark. It was very difficult to tell what exactly was happening.

Iron Man (2008)

Act I: Tony Stark (Robert Downey, Jr.) get kidnapped while in Afghanistan. He is badly injured. There is damage to his heart. The Ten Rings, the group holding him, orders him to build them weapons. They are already using weapons built by his company but they want something bigger and better. Instead he builds a device to keep himself from dying and then builds an armored suit to help him escape.

Act II: Back from Afghanistan Tony starts working on a much improved version of the suit he built while in captivity. The original was left behind in his rush to escape. After completing the suit he flies back to Afghanistan and does his best to take down the Ten Rings. Unfortunately he sustains some damage and is unable to complete the job.

Act III: Obadiah Stane (Jeff Bridges), his business partner of sorts, gets his hands on the original suit and makes some serious improvements to it. Stane is the one who was selling arms to the Ten Rings. Eventually there is a showdown between Tony and Stane.

There are a number of characters that I didn't mention in the 3 act description above, the most important of them are Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow) and Phil Coulson (Clark Gregg). Both play pivotal roles in third act.

I saw this movie in the theater when it was first released. This may be the first time I've watched it in its entirety since then. It totally holds up. I have no complaints about plot holes. It isn't perfect but it works for me.

Captain America: Civil War (2016)

I saw this for the first time in the theater. I just finished watching it for the second time, this time on Netflix. In between I re-watched Captain America: The Winter Soldier which makes considerably more sense now that I understand that it is the middle act of a longer story.

I know that a lot of people prefer the previous Captain America movie but this one is my favorite so far. I'm probably missing something because I have yet to see Avengers: Age of Ultron which (I believe) introduced Vision and Scarlet Witch and probably the villain in this installment, Helmut Zemo. That said I didn't feel like I was missing much but hopefully one day, when it is available on one of the streaming services for a reasonable price I will probably watch it.

This movie builds off the ones that came before it, especially the two aforementioned  movies. It also pulls Ant Man into the larger story, introduces Black Panther, and hints at the Vision's growing attachment to Wanda Maximoff (aka the Scarlet Witch). The plot revolves around Bucky aka the Winter Soldier. He disappeared at the end of the previous Captain America movie. In this one he gets framed for an act of terrorism which kills among other T'Chaka, the ruler of Wakanda and father of the Black Panther.

The Avengers are ordered to stay on the sidelines but Captain America cannot resist stepping in to help his childhood friend. Cap quickly discovers that the Black Panther is pursuing Bucky. He gets some help from Falcon and Agent 13. Iron Man is ordered to bring in the renegade superheroes which leads to him recruiting Spider-Man to help his side and a big superhero on superhero brawl at an airport in Germany.

The way it is all arranged is quite delicious. Mixed in with everything else is the fact that Bucky's brainwashing at the hands of Hydra is still in place. Helmut Zemo, the man who framed him, uses the Hydra instructions codes to force him to fight his friends. Zemo's next trick is to get the heroes to turn on one another once again after he reveals that Bucky murdered Tony Stark's parents when he was brainwashed years ago.

All in all a very satisfying movie. It felt a bit more like an Avengers movie than a Captain America movie but that didn't bother me. All in all I thought it was a great chapter in the series of Marvel movies and my favorite chapter so far.

Ant-Man (2015)

Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) has just been released from prison. He tries to go straight but after getting fired because he is an ex-con he agrees to help Luis (Michael Pena) and his gang break into the home of a rich man. The house they break into belongs to Hank Pym (Michael Douglas), the inventor of Pym Particles, who was once the superhero known as Ant-Man. Lang breaks into the vault in Pym's basement but there isn't any money there, just the Ant-Man costume.

Pym and his daughter Hope (Evangeline Lilly) recruit Lang to become the new Ant-Man. They need his help to take on Darren Cross (Corey Stoll), Pym's evil protege, who is trying to replicate his mentor's technology and sell it to the highest bidder.

Overall a decent movie. The special effects were good. I liked the premise and the flashbacks to Pym's time as the original Ant-Man. My problem with the movie, mostly the ending, is that everything happened way too quickly.

If it wasn't for the humor I probably wouldn't have enjoyed the movie as much as I did. The humor was much better than the action. Both Rudd and Pena were very funny.

I had a hard time buying that Paxton (Bobby Carnivale), the cop who is married to Lang's ex-wife, would change his mind about Lang that quickly near the end of the movie without some hesitation.

I was disappointed that they teased us with the appearance of the original Wasp (Janet van Dyne) and then didn't have her show up again. According to Pym she is gone but I've got a feeling she will be back, probably in the next movie, Ant-Man and the Wasp, which isn't due to be released until 2018.

Captain America: Civil War (2016)

- my favorite of the Cap films; right up there with the first Avengers movie

- great mix of action, humor, and character development

- enjoyed all the fight scenes although I wish they didn't speed them up quite so much

- I thought the opening was in Wakanda and so I was a bit disappointed when Black Panther didn't show up until a little after that was over

- there's a moment in the part when they are chasing Bucky that he grabs a guy's motorcycle as he is going past that was very cool

- Spider-Man was great; I forgot he was in the movie and when Tony Stark went to recruit him I ws confused at first

- Ant-Man was also a lot of fun; and funny

- I have a few nitpicks

- Black Panther seemed a bit like the mystical black person, a lot of the character seemed to be in the tone of voice and the accent the character was using

- the escape at the end was all off camera, WTF?!

- there was a bit of bait and switch with the super-soldiers at the end; it looked like Cap and Bucky were headed for a big fight but Zemo had killed them before they arrived; although I was a bit relieved because I worried that it would be a fight with basically no-name, no-stake baddies

- I didn't think the movie was too long; it needed the character moments in the third act between Tony, Steve, Bucky, and T'Challa

- Don Cheadle wasn't in this movie very much; quite often you just heard his voice because he was in the armor; there was more than one time when both he and Tony were in armor and Tony took his helmet off but Jim did not

Guardians of the Galaxy (2014)

- murky for much of the movie; 3-D?
- pacing was kind of nuts; too much happening too quickly for me to get emotionally invested in it
- too gimmicky
- too much joking around, I expected something a little more serious; every scene involved jokes and wisecracks
- lacking in balance
- I would have preferred a movie that was more tightly focused and didn't have quite so wide a scope
- I was confused for much of the movie if there even was a plot
- it might have worked if these characters had been previously established, like the Avengers
- overall if was just too fast, everything happened way too fast