IRON MAN 3

ATTENTION! SPOILERS

As the weather gets warmer, so too, does the cinema heat up with the summer blockbusters. The Iron Man movies seem to be the lead into those (in Japan at least anyway) and get me in the mood for the films to come.

Admittedly, I often overlooked Iron Man 3 because I am anticipating Man Of Steel so much, but I'm always keen to see Robert Downey Jr perform.

So, Tony Stark is having PTSD after the events of the Avengers, when a mysterious villain appears, named The Mandarin. His men injure one of Tony's friends, which then sets Iron Man into action, declaring revenge on him. 

That's the most basic of a plot discription, only because there's not a lot else to the film. There seems to be a lot of filler, with at least a third of the film centering on what should be a sub plot, which sees Tony being helped with his demons by a little boy. Hmn... This is one of my concerns. 

 The film is really unbalanced. For example, Tony in one of the opening scenes, is trying to configure a remote control activated suit, where a bit of slapstick mayhem ensues, next scene; someone is crucified and set on fire.

 No doubt, they are pushing this film to be more child friendly and seriously trying to push the toys. The climax had me rolling my eyes with the amount of Iron Man suits they bring in for battle. I wouldn't mind, but each one was given about 3 seconds of screen time each. Wasteful. It was also stretched out too long. How many times can you bring a villain back from the dead? He's not the fucking Terminator.

The twist, which reveals the Mandarin to be not who he is has been done before in Batman Begins, which did it better. Here, it was just played for laughs and, admittedly, it was funny, but it felt cheap.

They really underused the Iron Patriot and his introduction in the film was SO weak. He literally just walks casually into shot while someone else is talking. You'd think they'd make his entrance more grandiose.

Another big problem for me was this... Where the fuck was Nick Fury? Or the Hulk? Hawkeye, Black Widow, shit -- even Captain America. Seriously, you have your little spandex boyband, not one of them could spare a day to give you a hand? Have to call bullshit on that.

Biggest complaint though, more for self indulgent reasons than poor choice filmmaking is... WHERE THE FUCK IS AC/DC THE SOUNDTRACK? Really, that band's music is a signature for this series of films, yet there is not one track in ear shot. That doesn't sit right with me. Although, the Iron Man 3 theme is pretty kick ass. 

Despite all this, there is a lot of fun to be had. Performances are good, there's some genuinely funny stuff, I always like to hear Paul Bettany as Jarvis, Gwyneth is gorgeous as always and she gets a really well deserved moment at the climax of the film that made me fall for her even more. 

The post credit scene was a bit wanky for my liking, but all in all

THREE FUCKS

LORDS OF SALEM

First of all, there's nothing scary about a bunch of naked old bitches, sorry, witches, cackling and spurting out a bunch of fucking nonsense about worshipping Lucifer and rejecting Christ and on and on. That opening made me tune out immediately. Yawn.

Now, I like Rob Zombie, I like his music, I like his art stuff & I quite like about half of his film work. So, I stuck with it.

The story is about a local radio DJ Heidi, played by Zombie's wife. (Hmn.) who recieves a mysterious wooden box, containing a vinyl record, from what she assumes to be a band, called The Lords Of Salem. She plays the record, it sounds weird (Its a pretty awesome little tune, thought I.) and from there on she starts getting creepy visions, which grow more bizarre and more real each time.

The film's actors are alright, but there are far too many cameos which take you out of the film. I really dislike cameos, unless its done in a smart way. To be fair, the cameos here were not as dumb as the Franco Nero one in Django Unchained, its just that there were too many in here.

You'll notice rips from Rosemary's Baby, the Shining & of course The Exorcist, which would be ok if they'd expanded on them.

The freaky imagery is hit and miss. Some of it works, a LOT of it doesn't. Can't blame a guy for trying though.
Musical stabs. Goddamn, I'm sick of those. Y'know, the sudden "shock" music you get to instigate a jump scare out of you. That does not work unless you are an eleven year old girl. It's a shame they used that here because the suspenseful stuff had me going. It's just like a disappointing punchline.

For the most part, I like how the movie is shot. Rob Zombie does know how to set up the camera and some of the stuff in here is really cool. I like his corridor tracking shots, they made me feel uneasy.

Pacing is an issue here. I find that slow burning horror films are often the best ones, I mentioned The Shining & Rosemary's Baby earlier, but also Don't Look Now is a perfect example of the slow burning horror film. Here though, Zombie's film wanders aimlessly at points and a scene will climax with a weird, freaky image, that has nothing to do with anything else thats gone on before (& no pay off later.)

This is one you should check out though, I do think a lot of people will enjoy this. It's got a feel of a cult film and fans of Zombie's are sure to enjoy at least aspects of it.

For me though, it just needed a stronger narrative and some proper character development, as none of the characters here have any depth.

TWO FUCKS