Robert Downey Jr. returns as adorable bad boy Tony Stark in the third, presumably final solo film about Marvel Comics’ Iron Man. The first film kicked off the current run of (mostly) enjoyable Marvel movies, after some letdowns in the form of X3, Spider-Man 3, the Fantastic Four and so on. The first Iron Man film proved that with the right cast and script and attitude, the public will embrace a character they don’t necessarily know as well as, say, Superman. The second Iron Man film proved that Downey was not enough.
The third is not as fresh and invigorating as the first – how could it be, really? – but it is a definite improvement over the second. Nor is it anywhere near as exciting as the Avengers film, which it references regularly, so if you are one of the few people on the planet who missed it, you might want to check it out first.
Some minor spoilers may follow, so be warned:
I had mixed feelings about this film by the end. There are some very fun moments, especially during the action set pieces, and Downey is on his game throughout. I also enjoyed how the plot is, in a way, a poke in the eye to The Dark Knight Rises, with Ben Kingsley’s Mandarin seeming at first to be an analogue for Bane’s weirdly-accented terrorist. The true villain is Guy Pearce as the chief of AIM (who are, disappointingly, not wearing yellow hazmat suits); he has developed a bioweapon called Extremis that allows people to become undetectable living bombs, detonating themselves at key moments.
When one of the bombs hurts a friend, the American public is eager for Tony Stark to strike back at the terrorists, and he obliges by challenging the Mandarin on camera. The Mandarin replies by sending some of his people to destroy Tony’s Malibu home, leading to a long middle sequence of rebuilding and investigating.
It is that middle where the film loses its way a bit. Tony befriends a young boy outside of Nashville, shares some ham-handed insights on absent fathers and standing up for yourself, and learns to cope with the post-traumatic stress that has dogged him since The Avengers. Meanwhile, I was checking my watch, and I don’t wear a watch.
On the bright side, the finish of Iron Man Three (and I’m not being cute by spelling it out that way; that’s how it is spelled in the titles) is stronger than the finish of Iron Man 1 or 2, both of which were clunky and confused. The conceit of Tony being able to control his suits remotely, and depend on Jarvis for situational awareness and quick changes, is used to good effect. I enjoyed seeing a swarm of different suits designed for different jobs.
But, on a less bright side, when the credits rolled and turned into a kind of victory lap for the series, I realized that the ensuing montage of clips was more engaging and energetic than most of the previous two hours. So, while Iron Man Three is certainly not the letdown that other third instalments have been from Marvel, it is something of a limp to the finish.
Lizzy Caplan and Alison Brie star as screwed-up sisters in this sort-of-romantic sort-of-comedy. After Sarah (Caplan) refuses an embarrassing public marriage proposal from her musician boyfriend Kevin (Geoffrey Arend), her rebound with incredibly nice guy Johnathan (Mark Webber) throws a wrench into the wedding plans being made by Beth (Brie) and Kevin’s bandmate and best friend Andrew (Martin Starr). Caplan is a cartoonist whose artwork is a dead ringer for that of Jeffrey Brown, who has a writing credit on the film that he shares with the screenwriter and director, Michael Mohan.
Mia (Jane Levy, Suburgatory) is a troubled teen who wants to kick her narcotics habit, but she has failed before and her friends fear that she will again. They enlist the help of her brother David (Shiloh Fernandez), who has been absent for a while but is determined to help his sister, even if it means locking her in a creepy old cabin belonging to their family somewhere in the Michigan woods.
Mia Wasikowska (Jane Eyre) stars as India, a girl who loses her beloved father (Dermot Mulroney) in a car accident on her 18th birthday. Her mother (Nicole Kidman) is comforted by the sudden arrival of uncle Charlie (Matthew Goode), who has never visited before. Charlie is charistmatic and a little creepy, much like India herself. Both of them are able to hear sounds from much further away than other people, and see things from very far away as well.
Emily, a woman with a history of mental illness (Rooney Mara) nervously welcomes her husband (Channing Tatum) home after his release from prison. Her anxiety about their future grows until she impulsively drives her car into the wall of a parking garage. The hospital assigns a young psychologist called Banks (Jude Law) to assess her fitness for release. He agrees to let her go home after she claims that she just had a bad moment, that she has had therapy before and is willing to do it again. She becomes his patient and reports that her former therapist (Catherine Zeta-Jones) had successfully treated her with antidepressant medications. 
There used to be an expression that flew around in the early days of the internet, especially when it came to file sharing: “information wants to be free.” This is, of course, a stupid thing to say for many reasons, not least of which that it’s a personification; information doesn’t “want” anything. It is not sentient. It simply exists.
I was primarily interested in this film due to the involvement of Guillermo Del Toro, but came away from it pretty underwhelmed. Mama is a pretty ordinary ghost story, a sort of fusion of the type commonly made in the 70s and the J-horror ghost stories that Hollywood embraced for a while a decade ago. It is the tale of two young girls who are taken to a cabin in the middle of nowhere by their father, who is on the run after a killing spree at his office. He has already killed his wife and is about to shoot one of his daughters when something yanks him into the air and breaks his neck, saving the girls’ lives. 
I was surprised to learn after watching Quentin Tarantino’s latest love letter to genre film that Certain Media Outlets are describing it as controversial, disrespectful, and so on. The usual reason cited for this controversy is Tarantino’s use of the n-word, and while I realize that is a sensitive word not to be used lightly, I can hardly imagine a more appropriate place to use it than in a film full of racists, about an exceptional man who uses his skills to kill a bunch of white men to rescue his wife. Jamie Foxx has a perfect deadpan as he summarizes the movie as Django: “getting paid to kill white people; what’s not to like?”
