Dark Knight Rises VS Iron Man 3....ugh

[MrPink]

Honestly where could they go with it? I think they did about as much with it as they could. I admire the fact that they were able to keep it secret. Laughed my ass off when it happened in the film and then laughed even more when I saw the fanboy meltdown on SHH. Well played, Mr. Black.

 

I suppose it's more that I associate the twist as the point where the movie loses its momentum. After that point, the Tony panic attack subplot is completely abandoned, Tony gets his suit back (which I understand...but I found his prior struggles to be more compelling), and the villain plot is revealed to be generally bonkers.

[Fancyarcher]

And a big win for Shane Black and those who appreciate a clever twist. Mandarin made total sense in IM3 context. "Fortune cookies. They sound chinese but they're US."

 

That works on multiple levels.

 

"Mandarin, cookie cutter comic book villain? That sounds chinese but that's US pulp creation from another time that create a one dimensional threat fanboys to rally against to divert their attention."

 

"Mandarin, Stark's nemesis? That sounds like Stark's greatest foe on paper but it is his negative doppelganger's dummy to divert his shifting attention post-Avengers from the real threat, highlighting how Stark is misguiding himself in a paranoid state of mind hiding behind dummies."

 

"Mandarin, big bad wolf of a clownish faux-Al Quaeda terrorist organization? That sounds like some oriental brown people terrorist fanatic but they're part of a scam to get the country in an endless War On Terror by the very same thatsell weapons and keeps US industry armements business boomin'"

 

So much more clever and controversial than TDKR.

 

Not clever just lame. TDKR twist actually works into the story in the long run. The Mandarin twist is just stupid, and the actual mandarin (Killian, if you can call him that) is even stupider and lamer.

 

I enjoyed a lot of things about Iron Man 3, but the villains were, way, way down the list.

Edited December 22, 2013 by Saintarcher

[redfirebird2008]

I suppose it's more that I associate the twist as the point where the movie loses its momentum. After that point, the Tony panic attack subplot is completely abandoned, Tony gets his suit back (which I understand...but I found his prior struggles to be more compelling), and the villain plot is revealed to be generally bonkers.

 

In terms of storytelling the Iron Man sequels have been a pretty big dud. Loved, loved, loved the first movie up until the Transformers-esque climax. Ever since then it's been downhill for the Iron Man franchise (excluding the Avengers, which was great). Tony Stark is a very interesting character, so it sucks that they haven't been able to take things in a more interesting direction so far.

[dashrendar44]

Mandarin twist is the most clever twist ever been put in a comic book movie. It's so meta-textual and unexpected in that movie especially coming off that turd IM2, it's brilliant.

 

Kudos for Black to have the balls to outright say "Listen up fanboys, that Mandarin's character you fondly cherish it sucks. It's a clown, a pawn, a strawman based on racist stereotype tapping into american fear and I'll tell you why and how it is relevant in today's world."

Edited December 22, 2013 by dashrendar44

[redfirebird2008]

Also kudos to Feige for signing off on it. He had to know there would be a shitstorm backlash.

[The Panda]

Iron Man 3 is the much better movie.

[Accursed Arachnid!™]

It's no contest, IMO. TDKR has so much more power and emotion. IM3 is entertaining as hell, but about as deep as tin foil.

 

Both endings are ridiculous though. A lot of SH films can't seem to end well in the 2010s. Why do they have to go all "Spider-Man 3" on us? TDKR with the nuke that apparently wasn't a nuke(since it went off over the bay but didn't kill Bats or spread radiation), IM3 with the gazillion Iron Robots(where were they when Tony's place was getting attacked?), TW with the Robo-Samurai Octogenarian and Thor 2 with the dimension jumping battle juxtaposed with really lame humor.

 

Is it really that hard to come up with a good explainable ending?

[redfirebird2008]

It's no contest, IMO. TDKR has so much more power and emotion. IM3 is entertaining as hell, but about as deep as tin foil.

 

Both endings are ridiculous though. A lot of SH films can't seem to end well in the 2010s. Why do they have to go all "Spider-Man 3" on us? TDKR with the nuke that apparently wasn't a nuke(since it went off over the bay but didn't kill Bats or spread radiation), IM3 with the gazillion Iron Robots(where were they when Tony's place was getting attacked?), TW with the Robo-Samurai Octogenarian and Thor 2 with the dimension jumping battle juxtaposed with really lame humor.

 

Is it really that hard to come up with a good explainable ending?

 

It isn't just the 2010's. The genre has a long history of messy 3rd acts. Even the grand daddy of them all, Superman: The Movie, has a very silly and messy third act.

[Heretic]

Im3 is good but tdkr is the best movie of the decade

[Heretic]

I liked the twist, and found IM3 thoroughly entertaining, whereas TDKR was a mess. So I pick IM3.

[ChD]

I didn't mind the twist that much, but I found the movie to be pretty dull... The Dark Knight Rises for me.

[Lordmandeep]

The Talia twist did diminish the bad ass nature of Bane.

 

Also he had a lame death. 

[Squaremaster316]

Let's see, Iron Man logic for a typical action scene:

 

 

Step 1: Give home address to international terrorist who is known for sneaking explosives into the most unlikely places

 

Step 2: Make no attempt to put up any sort of protection around or leave said address even when your girlfriend who you claim to be obsessed with protecting BLATANTLY SAYS you should be hightailing it out of there and how unbelievably stupid it is to not do so.

 

Step 3: Call upon consistently malfunctioning suit in place of 40 other fully functional suits.

 

Sidenote #1: I'm pretty sure heading into a stone wall at 80 miles per would cause his bones to shatter and internal organs to turn into a confection of chunky salsa, but nope, it just stuns Tony.

 

Sidenote #2: I'm also sure that pulling someone out from underneath tons of rock and metal AND underwater by their flesh and blood hand would result in a very messy situation for the victim.

 

Sidenote #3: Pepper leaning over the balcony while its collapsing and yet is somehow fine in the next scene.  There is no way she should have escaped/survived except that "the plot says so".

 

 

 

Action scene #2:

 

 

Step 1: SS agents, the most notoriously anal retentive officers on the planet, allow a fully weaponized death machine aboard AF1 without any sort of vocal or visual identification, even though its been shown in previous installments that suits can be hijacked.

 

Step 2: Replace bulletproof windows with easily shattered glass, thus making everyone think that the only difference between AF1 and a generic passenger plane from Air Nova is replacing air marshals with secret service agents.

 

Step 3: While you could very easily send each piece of the suit down to collect each falling passenger seeing as how they move much faster individually than when connected, why just do a ridiculously elaborate and time wasting measure that looks like a rejected stunt from a MarineLand show just so we can pull of a contrived twist to show Tony's not in the suit?

 

 

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder:

 

- Tony has been shown numerous times in previous installments to be close to death (The opening attack which resulted in his arc reactor, the escape scene, the removal of his reactor by Stane, the overloading of the large reactor during the climax, the blood poisoning, the bombs at the end of IM2)  and yet it's nearly getting killed in space that triggers PTSD?  Is getting killed by a freaky looking metal monkey somehow more traumatizing than getting blown up by a 15 foot hulking robot or atomized by a nuclear explosion? 

 

- Tony cures his PTSD by 'building something?'  What the hell do you call those 40+ suits he came up with?!?

 

 

 

- Tony's only disguise is a baseball cap and yet the only person that manages to recognize him in an entire town of hundreds is a news reporter?  He's an over the top glory hound and the most prolific figure on the planet who was famous for saving the world and yet no one except a reporter who's probably had to cover stories on him numerous times over the years recognizes him?

 

 

Twists:

 

The Mandarin twist seems to be focused on a lot in this film, possibly because it was the only twist that wasn't entirely predictable.

 

- Even if you've never seen The Incredibles, Killian being revealed to be a villain was entirely too contrived and coordinated. 

 

Ignoring the OTT Edward Nigma stereotype portrayed by Pearce, do you really expect a guy who was snubbed by Tony in the OPENING FLASHBACK of the film and then returns later on as a successful entrepreneur is only there so he can walk up to Tony, stick up his two middle fingers and say...

 

"Na-Na-Na-Na-Naaa-Na

I'm-a-big-suc-cess-now

Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!..."

 

in nothing more than a glorified cameo?

 

Also, pretty weak motivation to become a supervillain.

 

 

- Pepper survives the fall.  Yeah, because revealing that Extremis subjects are super powerful with various weaponized attacks is in no way going to be displayed by Pepper at some point during the climax of the film.

 

 

 

Misc:

 

- So Tony's suits are coded to him only, yet Pepper and Killian can wear them, no problem.

 

- Tony and Rhodey seem quite comfortable discussing classified information in a public bar.

 

- Tony's computer can reconstruct a crime scene that was never recorded by any device.

 

- Where was Shield during any of this?  Fury can shoot the breeze with Tony when he's pissing around with blood poisoning but can't send in a single agent to help when the PRESIDENT IS KIDNAPPED?

 

- Or, for that matter, where is that National Security that was all over the first Iron Man film?  Terrorist copters attack Tony's house and he ends up somewhere in the middle of Tennessee but no rescue is deployed at any time.

 

- Also,

 

WHERE THE MOD EDITING MOD EDIT WAS THIS GUY DURING ANY OF THIS!?!

 

- Extremis is apparently hot enough to melt steel but does no damaged to normal, everyday clothing.

 

Sidenote: In the Avengers, the IM suit can withstand lightning bolts which usually have an average temp range of about 53,000 degrees, yet here, it can't withstand temperatures lower than the sun (5,600 degrees)

 

 

And possibly the DUMBEST moment of the film, Tony blows up his suits...

 

 

Why?

 

 

Some ridiculously contrived moment of "SYMBOLISM" to show you don't need them?  Because it looked like you were pretty much a fish flopping outside of a bowl without them.  Hell, Pepper was the one who killed Killian with a piece of that tech!  Did aliens, superpowered beings and various other villains just vanish from existence?  What is the point of destroying an army of extremely useful robots? Just WHAT!?!?!

 

If this film wasn't associated with the Marvel conjoined universe and was just another alternate studio release like Daredevil and Ghost Rider, it would have been no better received than those contributions.

 

Edited December 23, 2013 by Squaremaster316

[redfirebird2008]

Squaremaster, same thing I said to Dash applies to you as well. If you hate IM3 so much, why waste your time ranting so much about it? Huge waste of energy. Life is too short for that. And there is always this...

 

[CoolioD1]

The Dark Rises Knight Rise

[baumer]

It's a push

 

Yep, both are 6/10 for me.  So there's no point in trying to say which one is better.

[baumer]

One of the best posts about the idiocy of IM3.  Well done Squaremaster!!

[Jack Nevada]

There are never enough ___vs. TDKR threads. 

[Jessie]

I liked Iron Man 3, it provided good intentional laughs and I though the script was actually quite smart. Who cares if the mandarin wasn't what we expected, get over it.TDKR I didn't like too much upon first viewing but it has grown on me and I loved Hardys Bane. Considering he was following Ledgers Joker, he still did a great job and Bane will still be an icon 20 years from now. These are both superhero movies and all but I must say, I couldn't decide which I liked more, they are completely different types of movies. I like my comic book movies gritty and light toned so both work well for me.

[Leyla]

Trevor wins this easily