Film Review | Iron Man 3 (2013)

Iron Man 3 sits in a unique, perhaps unenviable, position in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The first Marvel franchise to release a third installment (whilst Captain America and Thor gear up for their first sequels and Hulk waits for yet another reboot with Ruffalo in the role), Iron Man 3 is not only a sequel to the previous two Iron Man films but also to last year's critical and commercial favourite Avengers Assemble. It's also the first film in "Phase 2" of Marvel Studios' establishment of their Cinematic Universe, "Phase 1" having been wrapped up through the previously mentioned assembling of The Avengers. Robert Downey Jr.'s fourth outing as Tony Stark therefore had a huge amount of expectations to meet from several different angles.

There's plenty here to like, thanks in part to the elements already firmly established through the original film and its sequel, as well as Avengers Assemble. Downey Jr. is once again strong as Tony Stark providing a pleasing centre for everything else to orbit around. Gwyneth Paltrow returning as Pepper Potts also does well, although her relationship with Tony doesn't go anywhere new and the character doesn't get much of interest to do until towards the very end of the film. Don Cheadle is another welcome familiar face as Rhodey, although his role here never goes beyond a combination of plot device and foil-cum-sidekick to Downey Jr.'s Stark.

New additions to the cast also vary in their success. Guy Pearce crafts potentially the most successful villain of the series in Aldrich Killian, with Ben Kingsley also doing well as mysterious Osama Bin Laden-a-like The Mandarin, delivering a mid-story twist about which the less you know before watching the better. Less successful is Rebecca Hall as Dr. Maya Hansen, who is given precisely nothing interesting to do after the first ten minutes of the film; and Stephanie Szostak and James Badge Dale as two of Killian's subordinates, delivering well in the action stakes but whose villainous motivation is decidedly unclear.

Shane Black takes over directorial duties of the franchise from Jon Favreau, as well as co-writing the screenplay with Drew Pearce, and on the whole does well. This is a notably darker and more stripped down Iron Man movie to what we've seen before. We see Tony at his most vulnerable since he was imprisoned in a cave in the first installment, which provides some fresh moments of humanity for Downey Jr. to explore within the character but also makes this at times the least humorous entry into the franchise yet. Despite being roughly the same length as the previous two Iron Man films (and a good fifteen minutes shorter than Avengers Assemble) Black does feel as though he's padding things out at times here during the film's second act, especially after the film's pacy opening. The way in which Black moves the character of Tony Stark on in the film's final moments also feels a little too underdeveloped, almost like an afterthought, to resonate as much as it should.

In the end, Iron Man 3 is a mixture of successful and less successful elements, evening out into an enjoyable but flawed action film. For a third entry into the series it holds up perfectly well, certainly better than many threequels in other film series, but also feels as though it doesn't really move the franchise as a whole on to bigger and better things like it could have. Yes, there are some things that are done better here than they have been done previously, but there's also too much that feels like it's just been allowed to trundle along as it always has. Maybe it's because it's the first Marvel film to follow Joss Whedon's multi-superhero spectacular, but Iron Man 3 feels good - occasionally very good - but never great.

7/10

Film Review | Sherlock Holmes: A Game Of Shadows (2011)

In 2009's Sherlock Holmes, Guy Ritchie delivered a flawed but enjoyable new take on one of British literature's most loved characters. Whilst the film was far from perfect, it felt like a solid platform upon which to launch future installments in a new franchise where the faults could be remedied and the successful elements - not least the central performance from Robert Downey Jr. - could be capitalised upon. Unfortunately, Sherlock Holmes: A Game Of Shadows almost comprehensively fails to do that.

The film catches up with Holmes (Downey Jr.) investigating links between a series of crimes across Europe and Professor James Moriarty (Jared Harris) following the tip he received from Irene Adler (Rachel McAdams) at the end of the first film. Watson (Jude Law) meanwhile is preparing to marry his fiancée Mary (Kelly Reilly), but soon becomes embroiled in Holmes and Moriarty's game of cat and mouse.

Downey Jr. as Holmes again delivers the strongest performance here, slipping comfortably back into the mannerisms and personality he successfully established in Sherlock Holmes. It's unfortunate that Holmes this time is regularly written as self-parodical of the character Downey Jr. created, adopting a series of ridiculous and entirely unconvincing disguises throughout the film and transforming the character from manic genius to harebrained clown. Law too falls back into the character of Watson comfortably, but suffers from sharing less screen time with Holmes than in the first film and feeling like a half-hearted straight man to Holmes' fool when he does.

Elsewhere, the casting is a mixed bag. The biggest improvement from the first film is the reduction of McAdams' role as Irene Adler to not much more than a cameo. Noomi Rapace replaces McAdams as the film's main female character, and is much stronger than her predecessor at the points when she is given something to do. Jared Harris as Moriarty does well enough, but feels somewhat forgettable considering he is playing Holmes' archenemy. Stephen Fry as Mycroft Holmes, Sherlock's older brother, is sure to raise a smile in his first scene despite the fact that he is essentially playing the character as himself; the appeal is short-lived however as it's clear the plot has nothing of worth for Fry's character to do, epitomised in a scene between Mycroft and Mary which Fry inexplicably delivers naked. Pointless and unfunny.

The action scenes that irked in the first film are more overblown here to the point of overindulgence. Each sequence essentially comes across as an excuse for Ritchie to include bigger and more powerful guns than were seen in the last point of action. The excessive use of slow motion, particularly in one scene towards the end of the second act, is also distracting and just serves to make the film come across as lacking in craft or depth.

Whilst the story here is arguably stronger than that seen in the first film, the cinematic execution of A Game Of Shadows makes it considerably less enjoyable than Sherlock Holmes. Despite setting up several elements with which he could run and make a sequel superior to the original, Ritchie instead squanders most of the potential held and creates a film which is sometimes no better than the first, but more often inferior. The biggest failing of A Game Of Shadows, however, is that it manages to take a literary character known for his ingenious intellect and churn out a film which regularly feels really quite brainless.

4/10

Film Review | Sherlock Holmes (2009)

The first ten years of the 21st Century will almost certainly be seen in cinema as the decade of the reboot. I've written at length about the importance of hitting the reset button for both the Batman and James Bond franchises, but Arthur Conan Doyle's consulting detective was a less obvious and, perhaps, less urgent candidate for rebooting. Add in the fact that the man behind the reboot is Guy Ritchie, a director known for British gangster flicks rather than adaptations of Victorian literature, and all of a sudden 2009's Sherlock Holmes becomes a more intriguing and unpredictable creature.

Ritchie's film sees the titular detective (Robert Downey Jr.) and his friend and partner Dr. John Watson (Jude Law) assist the police in arresting Lord Blackwood (Mark Strong) for a series of murders. However, when Blackwood appears to have risen from the grave after being hanged for his crimes, Holmes and Watson's  investigations take a more sinister and supernatural turn.

It's clear from the very start that Ritchie's vision for his version of Conan Doyle's detective is quite far removed from the deerstalker wearing gent of past incarnations. Downey Jr. makes his Holmes an alluring and unconventional take on the character; whilst it never feels as though he quite fits the role as perfectly as he does Tony Stark in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, his performance in the role is compelling and strong throughout. Law also does well as Watson, again going against the stereotypical depiction of the character and instead playing things much closer to Conan Doyle's source material, focusing on Watson's status as a war veteran to generate the character's temperament and physicality. Whilst his turn is pleasing, Law is most entertaining when sharing the screen with Downey Jr., which thankfully for him takes in the vast majority of his scenes.

Elsewhere the casting is less successful. Rachel McAdams as Holmes' shady love interest Irene Adler never convinces, having neither the chemistry with Downey Jr. nor the presence on screen to make her character entertaining, mysterious or, at some points, necessary. Mark Strong is fine, but never receives enough screen time to make Lord Blackwood anything more than a scowling villain. Eddie Marsan also does well as Inspector Lestrade, but again the character just receives too little development to give the actor a chance to genuinely impress.

The film's plot, not taken directly from any of Conan Doyle's stories but instead inspired by elements from several of his works, engages well enough throughout, but suffers from a final act that can't quite live up to the mystery generated before it and a climax that underwhelms. The action elements throughout the film also jar too much with the detective story into which they have been placed. An underground bareknuckle fight Holmes takes part in early on in the film works well, revealing elements of the detective's character cleverly and enjoyably. Other sequences that see Holmes and Watson brawling with various baddies through Victorian London are uninspired, adding nothing to the story and feeling as though they are only there because director Ritchie doesn't know how else to link his film together.

Sherlock Holmes ends up, at least in part, as a wasted opportunity. There are several elements here that reboot the character and universe of Holmes incredibly well, led by a robust and compelling performance from Downey Jr. But there are also too many areas in which the film falls short or misfires to judge it as a true success. What we're left with is a good film that entertains well enough, but also feels as though it doesn't do enough with the ideas it has and the rich literary source material from which it takes inspiration.  But there's enough here to launch the franchise, with future installments having the potential to remedy the less successful elements and create something genuinely pleasing.

6/10

Film Review | Avengers Assemble (2012)

Definitely a candidate for "film with most prequels", Avengers Assemble (or simply The Avengers if you don't live in the UK, apparently retitled to distinguish it from the less-than-reviled unrelated 1998 film starring Ralph Fiennes and Uma Thurman) had an awful lot of build-up, anticipation and hype to live up to. There were any number of ways the film could have misfired, and should it do so it could have been a fatal blow for Marvel Studios, as pretty much all of their recent output has been building up to this one film. Thankfully, AA manages to just about live up to those incredibly high expectations.

The film sees Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.), Steve Rogers (Chris Evans), Dr. Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo) and Thor (Chris Hemsworth), a.k.a. Iron Man, Captain America, The Incredible Hulk and, er, Thor, come together for the first time as superhero team The Avengers to take on Asgardian baddie (and Thor's brother) Loki (Tom Hiddleston) as he leads the other-dimensional Chitauri in an invasion of Earth.

The key to AA's success is not just in bringing together four well-known superheroes with their own discrete franchises - films such as Alien vs. Predator and Freddy vs. Jason have proven that simply throwing successful characters together does not automatically a successful movie make - but that it brings them together in such a comprehensively successful way. The way in which writer and director Joss Whedon has woven a seamless tapestry of the Old World stylings of Thor, the World War Two era characteristics of Captain America, and the modern day bearings of Iron Man and The Hulk (the last two also coming with their own idiosyncrasies) is impressive in itself. The whole thing just works, and all the better because Whedon is acutely aware of the ridiculousness of some of the concepts with which he is working. Steve Rogers' outfit is always going look the silliest, Thor is never going to slip unnoticed into 21st Century America, and Hulk can't help but be a not-so-jolly green giant. But Whedon works this to his advantage, gleaning some of the film's funniest moments from it. "You don't know what you're dealing with" says Thor to Iron Man when they first meet. "Shakespeare In The Park?" Stark quips back faster than a lightning bolt from Mjolnir.

Whedon's script isn't light on comedy, with moments throughout which aren't just amusing, but downright laugh-out-loud funny. The exchanges between the four superheroes and their conflicting mentalities produces some incredibly human humour, perfectly crafted by Whedon's razor-sharp writing. The director also knows his way around physical humour, equally well-crafted and perfectly placed within the film. One exchange of blows between Hulk and Loki is especially memorable for all the right reasons.

The performances from the whole cast are a delight. Downey Jr., Evans and Hemsworth slip back into their already established characters pleasingly well. Ruffalo deserves huge credit for making Bruce Banner/Hulk his own character after two misfired attempts at bringing the rage monster to the big screen in the last decade. Ruffalo largely ignores the character created by Edward Norton in the most recent 2008 film, and to good effect; his Banner is a paranoid genius haunted by the alter-ego he refers to only as "the other guy", and that Ruffalo establishes a character of depth and sympathy so quickly within the film reaffirms him as a genuine cinematic talent who has until recently often gone overlooked.

It's also important that Avengers Assemble never becomes about one superhero and his sidekicks. It would have been very easy to make this "Iron Man 3 (featuring Thor, Hulk and Cap)" considering Downey Jr.'s popularity and Iron Man having had two films to the other members' one (or in the case of Ruffalo's version of the Hulk, arguably none). But each plays an equal part, feeling as though each has not only their own strengths, but also shortcomings. Each character also feels as though they develop throughout the film, with each becoming more rounded as they develop as a team.

The supporting cast cannot be overlooked here either. Samuel L. Jackson is predictably excellent as Nick Fury, fleshing out a character who has been limited largely to cameos in Marvel Studios' output thusfar. Tom Hiddleston brings menace and insanity to Loki, transforming him into a genuine evil force to be reckoned with, something I feel he fell short of when introduced in 2011's Thor. Clark Gregg returning as Agent Phil Coulson is a joy in all his scenes, a wonderfully human counterpoint to the superpowered multi-dimensional larger-than-life characters surrounding him. Black Widow is surely one of the most well-developed female characters in a superhero film, making her introduction in Iron Man 2 feel somewhat one-note, thanks here to Scarlett Johansson's pleasing performance and Whedon's smart scripting and direction. Her relationship with S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Clint Barton (Jeremy Renner) is established well and is hopefully something that will be developed further in future Marvel Studios outings.

Avengers Assemble is not without a handful of imperfections. The good versus evil story is a little too by-the-numbers, and the Chitauri led by Loki feel somewhat generic at times. But these are minor niggles in what is a superbly crafted superhero action film. With a run time of nearly two-and-a-half hours the film could have become a real slog, but I enjoyed every minute. The action sequences are brilliantly realised, never feeling overly busy or confusing (take note, Michael Bay) - one particular unbroken tracking shot within the final battle taking in all four superheroes battling against Loki's invading forces is truly breathtaking.

Avengers Assemble is ultimately as good as anyone could have hoped the film would realistically be, and deserves to go down in cinematic history as one of the best comic book films ever made. It's equal to the sum of its parts, and the parts within it are pretty damn awesome. It takes the best parts of the films which led up to it and combines them together in a genuinely wonderful way.

But perhaps, most of all, the film is a success because it doesn't try to be something it's not. Giving the characters here a gritty and realistic reboot would most likely produce a film of pretension and silliness. The closest we've seen to that in the Marvel Universe is 2008's Incredible Hulk, which for the most part just didn't work. Christopher Nolan proved in 2008's The Dark Knight that taking a comic book character, his allies and adversaries, into a quasi-real-world setting can produce something truly outstanding; Whedon in 2012 has proven that it's possible to come very close to that level of success whilst at the same time wearing your fantastical comic book credentials as proudly as Captain America wears his star-spangled suit.

9/10

Film Review | A Scanner Darkly (2006)

Despite Philip K. Dick's renown for writing sci-fi with brains, adapting his work for the screen has so far proven that good source material definitely doesn't always equal a good movie. As far as Dick adaptations go things are very hit and miss - for every Blade Runner there's a Paycheck, for every Minority Report, a Next. A Scanner Darkly therefore still had a lot to prove upon its release, although its unique style and the fact it was touted as the most faithful Dick appropriation to date set it in good stead.

The film is set in California "seven years in the future", when the war on drugs has been lost in the USA and a significant proportion of the population are now addicted to a drug known as Substance D. Bob Arctor (Keanu Reeves) is an undercover detective working to infiltrate the world of addicts and dealers, his identity protected from his colleagues by wearing a hi-tech scramble suit and adopting the alias "Officer Fred". As Fred, he is assigned to focus his attentions on Bob Arctor, thereby having to spy on himself, all the while regularly taking Substance D, which increasingly affects his ability to keep track of both personas.

The premise of A Scanner Darkly is undoubtedly complex but holds the potential to be incredibly compelling. It's a shame then that the film largely falls short of fulfilling its promise. The dual character of Arctor is a demanding role, and it's one that Reeves never manages to pull off. When soliloquising as Arctor, there is very little hint that the two sides of Arctor's life and personality are conflicting internally; when he shares scenes with other characters, Reeves simply merges into the background. Not something you want from your main character. Much of the film's success hinges on our understanding of Arctor and our ability to follow both sides of his personality; Reeves comprehensively fails to make this happen, giving a performance that is decidedly wooden.

The supporting cast do better: Robert Downey Jr. as Barris is a textbook arrogant blowhard who knows a lot less than he thinks he does, creating a vile yet compelling character; Woody Harrelson's turn as likable laidback addict Ernie provides some of the most successful humour throughout; and Winona Ryder as small-time dealer Donna, whilst not as strong here as Harrelson or Downey Jr., provides pleasing support.

It's a shame then that, for large parts of the story, these potentially compelling characters don't have a huge amount to do. Many of the scenes boil down to simply listening to drug addicts talking to each other whilst under the influence which, in truth, really isn't that interesting. When the action isn't following the collective Arctor is simultaneously a part of and spying upon, it focuses upon Arctor's work life away from the group. Aside from some neat touches with near-future technology, this again isn't all that interesting, something which Reeves' flat performance only highlights further. By the time the final act kicks in, the plot progression feels rushed and the moral message somewhat tacked on.

A Scanner Darkly does have some redeeming features however. There are a handful of comedic scenes which are immensely successful - the group's drug-influenced investigation into whether a recently purchased bike has any "missing gears" is genuinely brilliant, and the surreal narration of the botched suicide attempt of Freck (Rory Cochrane) is blackly inspired. The "rotoshop" style used throughout is also impressive, offering the film a pulpy graphic novel feel. The style is also used to great effect at times; it's hard to imagine the depiction of the scramble suits used by Arctor and other characters in the film being quite as effective through traditional live-action filming.

What we end up with is a mixed bag, and certainly not the successful Dick adaptation many had hoped for. Whilst there are things that make A Scanner Darkly worth a watch, the flaws are too hefty to truly recommend it. It's so-so at best, and ultimately a wasted opportunity.

5/10