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Iron Man 3
Phew, so, yesterday I did an art show (it went well; there was a good turnout and I shared a table with the ever-awesome ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
ellenmillion) and then somehow got talked into going to the 9:45 showing of Iron Man 3 with some friends. At one point I was wondering what the hell I had been thinking, because I was exhausted and hungry and my feet hurt, and mostly I just wanted to go home and decompress. I figured there was about a 50-50 chance that as soon as I got settled in a dark theatre seat, I'd fall asleep. But ... IRON MAN!
So, I think it says a lot about the movie that despite being completely exhausted, and despite the person in the row behind us throwing up in the middle of the movie (which, just, EW ... actually, I am still not quite over the "ew" of that), I was captivated from beginning to end, and not even remotely tempted to fall asleep!
♥ ♥ ♥ THIS MOVIE!!! ♥ ♥ ♥
I think I loved it almost as much as Avengers, which up to now was my high-water mark for superhero movies. I suppose that I won't know 'til a rewatch or two whether it's actually that good or if I was just a particularly receptive audience, but as far as hitting as many of my narrative kinks as possible, this movie basically blew my expectations out of the water -- and I went in expecting to enjoy it, because everything I've been hearing about it has been very good!
SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEE. SO MUCH SQUEE. I am not sure where to begin, because I basically loved everything about the movie, and the few things that didn't quite work for me were minor enough not to overshadow the EVERYTHING ELSE.
Since this is my journal and I can be a completely biased shipper if I want to, I will flail about Tony/Pepper mostly! ... because I have adored them as a couple ever since the first movie -- as much as I know there are power dynamic issues with this, I have a real thing for "Girl Friday" relationships -- and I am so, so, so contented and satisfied and delighted with everything about how their relationship has ultimately developed, and how things worked out in this movie. I was so nervous when the early trailers started showing up that they were going to screw up Tony/Pepper, or kill her, or something equally awful. But then I saw a picture on Tumblr of the scene in which she protects Tony wearing the Iron Man armor -- the one real spoiler that I had accidentally been spoiled for -- and I went "OOH" and was ever so hopeful that Pepper would get to be badass and brave.
♥ AND SHE DID! ♥
But ... ever so much more than that! I have SO MUCH love for the way that the initial power imbalance between Tony and Pepper has (over the course of the three movies) become a relationship of equals, and I love the level of intimacy that they've developed, their playfulness and casual comfort with each other and unshakable loyalty. I love how this movie flipflops multiple times between him saving her and her saving him. I love how her initial jealousy of his old girlfriend fades as soon as shit gets real; she rescues Maya and works smoothly with her, and have I mentioned that romantic rivals working together rather than competing is one of my big buttons too? I love that Tony calls her "honey" without really thinking about it. I love how her death, the slow-mo fall into the inferno, is played out in classic "hero's girlfriend dies to spur him to greater heights" fashion -- and then THAT IS TOTALLY NOT WHAT HAPPENS AT ALL, in any way! ... I love that Tony, though clearly grieving and furious, does not become reckless and self-destructive and flail helplessly at the bad guy, but keeps fighting to win and fighting to live; he's devastated but he's not just going to disintegrate into a helpless puddle without Pepper, and her death is not going to be the catalyst for some kind of major transformation. And, okay, as soon as she dropped into the fire it was abundantly clear how things were going to go from there (... let's see, she's shot up with something that gives her fire superpowers and then falls into a fire, HOW COULD THIS POSSIBLY END???) but I have an ENORMOUS narrative kink for "presumed dead person comes back at a critical moment to save grieving loved one's life" and then, just, that whole scene, with Pepper badassing to protect Tony and then being afraid to let him touch her because she didn't want to burn him -- EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE. I want to watch that scene eleven billion more times. ♥ ♥ ♥
In addition to loving the Tony/Pepper arc with the burning fire of a thousand suns of shippy character love, I also adore it so much on a meta level, and Tony and Pepper's individual character arcs too. It's all been about growing into themselves as people, not "fixing" each other but becoming mature, independent, capable people, each on their own. Growing into their own skins and their own roles in the world. Becoming individuals who can relate to each other as total equals, in every way now, with Pepper being the one to deliver the coup de grace in the final fight with the bad guy -- she is not just a match for him intellectually but in physical badassery and superhero-ness too. And yet, the movie wasn't really about that, just like the movie wasn't really about Tony's mental health issues -- it all just kind of happened in the background, and was gloriously low-key and nothing is truly fixed and yet everything is going to be okay.
And so there is all that, and there's also EVERYTHING ELSE!
- All the little funny/cute/nifty character moments that made it feel about as real and grounded as a superhero movie could feel: the snarky goons guarding Tony, the banter with the kid, that scene where Tony summons his armor at a critical moment in the battle and it slams into the girder behind him and falls apart ... this was one of the things that was so much fun about watching it in a theatre with a really invested audience, too, because the whole audience would crack up laughing at all the right moments, and that was great!
- The reversal of expectation with the Mandarin, which was brilliant and awesome and so very, very meta.
- Maybe I am just easy to surprise, but I found the whole movie very twisty and unexpected! The movie throws a lot of characters at you in the beginning, and with most of them, it's impossible to tell if they're good guys or bad guys or major players or bit players -- I loved that so much! And it kept starting to go to the cliche places with the plot, and then would twist away at the last minute and go somewhere else: the movie looks like it's going to set up a big Tony Gets His Mojo Back arc, and then doesn't go there; it looks like it's going to play up the Tony-as-father-figure angle with the kid and then Tony ends up relating to the kid exactly like another bratty 12-year-old instead; Maya's betrayals within betrayals; the thing I already mentioned with Pepper's "motivational" "death" -- and so on.
- Everything with Rhodey! But, as much as I adored every scene he was in, I think perhaps my favorite bit was where he and Tony are sneaking around on the oil derrick, and Rhodey is trying to give him proper commando instructions, and Tony just doesn't really know how to follow them -- which really brought home, I think, the difference in their skill sets, and how Rhodey is so much more competent than Tony at commando-type stuff, because he's been trained at it and Tony is basically just an ordinary guy (well, okay, an ordinary super-rich genius; whatever) who is almost entirely self-taught when it comes to fighting and general heroing.
- In fact, I loved how the whole movie was kind of ... I don't know if "deconstructive" is the word I want, but it was very, very un-superheroey for a superhero movie (but in a good way!). Tony spends most of the movie depowered, having panic attacks and getting beat up; he loses almost every fight he's in; and at the end, the day is won through teamwork rather than a one-on-one, hero vs. villain solo fight. (I LOVE TEAMWORK FIGHTS! ♥)
- And of course the final scene after the credits is pure adorableness AND it connects to the narrative structure of the movie as a whole, rather than just being tacked on as the after-the-credit scenes often are! (Although my face-blindness is such that I asked my husband after the movie, "That guy Tony was talking to at the end ... were we supposed to know who that was?" and he told me and then I went "OH" and suddenly that scene became a thousand times more adorable.)
Basically I REALLY REALLY LOVE THIS MOVIE A LOT. ♥ I am TOTALLY buying this one when it's available on DVD!
ETA: Another thing I hadn't realized until I ran across someone on Tumblr talking about it: not only does Tony not have the narratively-expected hulking-out-with-rage reaction to Pepper's death, but the person who does have that reaction? Pepper! When she's protecting Tony at the end! Oh, movie, just when I thought I could not love you more. ♥
ellenmillion) and then somehow got talked into going to the 9:45 showing of Iron Man 3 with some friends. At one point I was wondering what the hell I had been thinking, because I was exhausted and hungry and my feet hurt, and mostly I just wanted to go home and decompress. I figured there was about a 50-50 chance that as soon as I got settled in a dark theatre seat, I'd fall asleep. But ... IRON MAN!So, I think it says a lot about the movie that despite being completely exhausted, and despite the person in the row behind us throwing up in the middle of the movie (which, just, EW ... actually, I am still not quite over the "ew" of that), I was captivated from beginning to end, and not even remotely tempted to fall asleep!
♥ ♥ ♥ THIS MOVIE!!! ♥ ♥ ♥
I think I loved it almost as much as Avengers, which up to now was my high-water mark for superhero movies. I suppose that I won't know 'til a rewatch or two whether it's actually that good or if I was just a particularly receptive audience, but as far as hitting as many of my narrative kinks as possible, this movie basically blew my expectations out of the water -- and I went in expecting to enjoy it, because everything I've been hearing about it has been very good!
SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEE. SO MUCH SQUEE. I am not sure where to begin, because I basically loved everything about the movie, and the few things that didn't quite work for me were minor enough not to overshadow the EVERYTHING ELSE.
Since this is my journal and I can be a completely biased shipper if I want to, I will flail about Tony/Pepper mostly! ... because I have adored them as a couple ever since the first movie -- as much as I know there are power dynamic issues with this, I have a real thing for "Girl Friday" relationships -- and I am so, so, so contented and satisfied and delighted with everything about how their relationship has ultimately developed, and how things worked out in this movie. I was so nervous when the early trailers started showing up that they were going to screw up Tony/Pepper, or kill her, or something equally awful. But then I saw a picture on Tumblr of the scene in which she protects Tony wearing the Iron Man armor -- the one real spoiler that I had accidentally been spoiled for -- and I went "OOH" and was ever so hopeful that Pepper would get to be badass and brave.
♥ AND SHE DID! ♥
But ... ever so much more than that! I have SO MUCH love for the way that the initial power imbalance between Tony and Pepper has (over the course of the three movies) become a relationship of equals, and I love the level of intimacy that they've developed, their playfulness and casual comfort with each other and unshakable loyalty. I love how this movie flipflops multiple times between him saving her and her saving him. I love how her initial jealousy of his old girlfriend fades as soon as shit gets real; she rescues Maya and works smoothly with her, and have I mentioned that romantic rivals working together rather than competing is one of my big buttons too? I love that Tony calls her "honey" without really thinking about it. I love how her death, the slow-mo fall into the inferno, is played out in classic "hero's girlfriend dies to spur him to greater heights" fashion -- and then THAT IS TOTALLY NOT WHAT HAPPENS AT ALL, in any way! ... I love that Tony, though clearly grieving and furious, does not become reckless and self-destructive and flail helplessly at the bad guy, but keeps fighting to win and fighting to live; he's devastated but he's not just going to disintegrate into a helpless puddle without Pepper, and her death is not going to be the catalyst for some kind of major transformation. And, okay, as soon as she dropped into the fire it was abundantly clear how things were going to go from there (... let's see, she's shot up with something that gives her fire superpowers and then falls into a fire, HOW COULD THIS POSSIBLY END???) but I have an ENORMOUS narrative kink for "presumed dead person comes back at a critical moment to save grieving loved one's life" and then, just, that whole scene, with Pepper badassing to protect Tony and then being afraid to let him touch her because she didn't want to burn him -- EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE. I want to watch that scene eleven billion more times. ♥ ♥ ♥
In addition to loving the Tony/Pepper arc with the burning fire of a thousand suns of shippy character love, I also adore it so much on a meta level, and Tony and Pepper's individual character arcs too. It's all been about growing into themselves as people, not "fixing" each other but becoming mature, independent, capable people, each on their own. Growing into their own skins and their own roles in the world. Becoming individuals who can relate to each other as total equals, in every way now, with Pepper being the one to deliver the coup de grace in the final fight with the bad guy -- she is not just a match for him intellectually but in physical badassery and superhero-ness too. And yet, the movie wasn't really about that, just like the movie wasn't really about Tony's mental health issues -- it all just kind of happened in the background, and was gloriously low-key and nothing is truly fixed and yet everything is going to be okay.
And so there is all that, and there's also EVERYTHING ELSE!
- All the little funny/cute/nifty character moments that made it feel about as real and grounded as a superhero movie could feel: the snarky goons guarding Tony, the banter with the kid, that scene where Tony summons his armor at a critical moment in the battle and it slams into the girder behind him and falls apart ... this was one of the things that was so much fun about watching it in a theatre with a really invested audience, too, because the whole audience would crack up laughing at all the right moments, and that was great!
- The reversal of expectation with the Mandarin, which was brilliant and awesome and so very, very meta.
- Maybe I am just easy to surprise, but I found the whole movie very twisty and unexpected! The movie throws a lot of characters at you in the beginning, and with most of them, it's impossible to tell if they're good guys or bad guys or major players or bit players -- I loved that so much! And it kept starting to go to the cliche places with the plot, and then would twist away at the last minute and go somewhere else: the movie looks like it's going to set up a big Tony Gets His Mojo Back arc, and then doesn't go there; it looks like it's going to play up the Tony-as-father-figure angle with the kid and then Tony ends up relating to the kid exactly like another bratty 12-year-old instead; Maya's betrayals within betrayals; the thing I already mentioned with Pepper's "motivational" "death" -- and so on.
- Everything with Rhodey! But, as much as I adored every scene he was in, I think perhaps my favorite bit was where he and Tony are sneaking around on the oil derrick, and Rhodey is trying to give him proper commando instructions, and Tony just doesn't really know how to follow them -- which really brought home, I think, the difference in their skill sets, and how Rhodey is so much more competent than Tony at commando-type stuff, because he's been trained at it and Tony is basically just an ordinary guy (well, okay, an ordinary super-rich genius; whatever) who is almost entirely self-taught when it comes to fighting and general heroing.
- In fact, I loved how the whole movie was kind of ... I don't know if "deconstructive" is the word I want, but it was very, very un-superheroey for a superhero movie (but in a good way!). Tony spends most of the movie depowered, having panic attacks and getting beat up; he loses almost every fight he's in; and at the end, the day is won through teamwork rather than a one-on-one, hero vs. villain solo fight. (I LOVE TEAMWORK FIGHTS! ♥)
- And of course the final scene after the credits is pure adorableness AND it connects to the narrative structure of the movie as a whole, rather than just being tacked on as the after-the-credit scenes often are! (Although my face-blindness is such that I asked my husband after the movie, "That guy Tony was talking to at the end ... were we supposed to know who that was?" and he told me and then I went "OH" and suddenly that scene became a thousand times more adorable.)
Basically I REALLY REALLY LOVE THIS MOVIE A LOT. ♥ I am TOTALLY buying this one when it's available on DVD!
ETA: Another thing I hadn't realized until I ran across someone on Tumblr talking about it: not only does Tony not have the narratively-expected hulking-out-with-rage reaction to Pepper's death, but the person who does have that reaction? Pepper! When she's protecting Tony at the end! Oh, movie, just when I thought I could not love you more. ♥
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The snarky bad guys were awesome, especially the one that threw up his hands and said his co-workers were weird and he high tailed it out of there. So much awesome!
This movie had layers. I also loved that it took teamwork to win the day, and seeing that Tony really didn't have any commando training.
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I wasn't sure how I felt about Pepper/Tony at the end of the first movie, and I spent most of The Avengers terrified that they were going to go the usual route, and have them break up over something so that Tony would end up alone (as superheroes tend to be). I was delighted when that didn't happen, and in this movie, their relationship is so adorable--it's awesome that they're equal, and that Tony doesn't really blink at the fact that Pepper runs his company, that they don't spend every waking moment together--they're glad when they're together but they each have a life and a job, and they don't hesitate to speak their minds when they think the other one needs to hear a hard truth.
(And like you, I loved that he didn't come apart at Pepper's "death" but kept on fighting).
♥
The Mandarin thing had me laughing for five minutes (I really, really, really wasn't expecting that, though I'm not surprised, considering this is Shane Black--the two snarking bad guys guarding Tony really reminded me of a scene in Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, come to think of it.) As did Iron Man saving all the people falling from the plane, only to be hit by a truck. And Tony wearing the armor but not able to fly, having to take down stairs in a clumsy, noisy way.
And I loved it that the movie wasn't a classical superhero movie where the man has to learn how to be a superhero again; here, the superhero has to learn how to be a man, and to use what he has always done best--his ability to think and build things, which is precisely what saved him in the first movie when he was captured. That, and teamwork--something Tony had a hard time accepting in the second movie, and in The Avengers--though he was getting better at the end of the latter.
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YES! I love that their relationship is not the only important thing in their lives. They are very important to each other, but they're also whole people on their own, and that's one of the main things that makes the relationship work. And yeah, part of that is that Tony doesn't go to pieces at Pepper's death, which is what we're sort of subconsciously primed to expect him to do -- because that's the action movie cliche, and because it was implied earlier that this was how things were going to go. ... Except it's NOT how things go, because he's not that emotionally fragile, even if he kind of thinks he is.
I actually had no idea who Shane Black is until I looked up his writing credits and went, oh wow! He wrote a bunch of my favorite action movies back when I was a teenager. I also read this older interview with him and it's basically a point-by-point list of most of the things that made this movie so good (reversals of expectation, having characters screw up and be awkward, making every action scene count, etc). He definitely knows his stuff and has a great sense of dramatic pacing. :D
And I loved it that the movie wasn't a classical superhero movie where the man has to learn how to be a superhero again; here, the superhero has to learn how to be a man, and to use what he has always done best--his ability to think and build things, which is precisely what saved him in the first movie when he was captured.
Oh, yes, that's a great way to put it! I think in general, one of the things that made this movie work so well is that Tony's so powerless throughout most of it -- not in the sense of being weak or helpless, but he doesn't have his armor and he's beat up and struggling with emotional issues. And at a lot of the critical moments, he whiffs it -- he gets hit by a truck, his armor fails to come when he calls it, he tells Pepper to trust him and then drops her. The whole thing is an uphill struggle all the way, not just because he's Tony Stark and his own worst enemy, but more than that: because he's human, and humans mess up and miscalculate and make mistakes. It makes the movie feel very grounded and real. He's not a superhuman figure who will inevitably win; he's a regular guy who has no combat training and is basically a self-taught vigilante, and he puts on a brave front but deep down he's insecure and scared and keeps messing up at key moments. (Oh Tony. *hugs him*)
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