Amph What was the last movie you saw? (Ver. 2)

MCU marathon - Week 7

Iron Man 3

This one got quite a bit of crap from the fans when it came out, that was mostly because of the way they handled the Mandarin. I was pretty annoyed the first time I saw it in the cinemas because of this, but the idea has grown on me every time I’ve watched it since. I’d still rather they used the real Mandarin, but that alone definitely wasn’t enough to take away the enjoyment from the rest of the film.

Tony Stark is an incredibly well developed character. I feel like the line that Captain America said in The Avengers - “Big man in a suit of armour, take that away, what are you?” - was what this film was a response to. They literally stripped Tony of his Iron Man armour and left him to fend for himself with nothing but his knowledge. This was incredibly effective and gave us something different from the first two Iron Man films. Tony really showed that he is more than capable without the armour, as he’s incredibly intelligent and a pretty skilled fighter. He wasnt stripped of his personality and humour though, which are still both fantastic.

Once he got his armour back, he was back to kicking major ass and saving the day in some of the best action sequences yet (in this viewing order). The plane sequence where he rescued the group of civilians falling out of the sky was really well done. But the best scene for me in the entire film was when Tony’s house was being destroyed and he sent the Iron Man armour to protect Pepper. That was a really, really nicely shot scene.



James and Pepper were good again. Ben Kingsley did a good job as both Trevor and the Mandarin. I didn’t care much for Aldrich. He was good, but probably one of the bottom MCU villains. I may have missed it, but I don’t think they went into his motives enough. But yeah, overall it’s really good.

8.5/10.

Side note: One thing I noticed was after he took down one of the Extremis soldiers without his armour, he was thrown against an ice fridge where the door fell off. He then picked the door up and it looked like he was holding a shield, similar to Cap with the taxi door in his first film. I think this is a subtle reference to remind you of Cap and what he said about Tony being nothing without his armour, yet he just proved him completely wrong.

MCU rankings

1. The Avengers - 9.5/10
2. Captain America: The First Avenger - 9/10
3. Iron Man - 9/10
4. Iron Man 2 - 8.5/10
5. Thor - 8.5/10
6. Iron Man 3 - 8.5/10
7. The Incredible Hulk - 7/10

 

My favorite scene of Iron Man 3 when he had all the suits take on the Extremis soldiers.

@Jordan1Kenobi Also, the answer to Captain America's question "take that suit away and what are you?" sets up nicely for Spider-Man: Homecoming when Peter says he's nothing without his suit and Stark says, "If you're nothing without it, then you shouldn't have it."

 

I’d like to add some things to this review, as I didn’t put as much thought into it as the others, even though it’s currently in my top position.

The main focus of this film was to bring a group of heroes together, who have actually never worked together, to save the world. All with their own unique personalities and skills. Now it wouldn’t have been easy for the writers to make this work. You have a group of big characters that have all been made to look like the main hero in their own films, and now they have to share that title with all of the others. Yet they handled it perfectly. All of these personalities clashing together made for some great dialogue and conflict, and also gave each of the characters more development when they were able to overcome their conflicts with each other and learn how to work in a team and see the best in each other. I also need to give Nick Fury some love. That guy is a badass.

I know I said the action hadn’t aged well, but it’s not a new film so there’s not much they could’ve done about that. My favourite scene is when Cap drops down to put an end to Iron Man and Thor’s fight. “You want me to put the hammer down?!” *Boom!*



With all of the elements coming together so perfectly, like characters, action and humour, it’s almost like your comic books have come to life and jumped onto the screen. The people behind the film obviously cared so much about the characters and material to achieve this. Well done guys.

Still a 9.5/10.

 

Yeah, the call backs to other films in the Avengerverse have been really well done. My favourite is from the opening sequence of Age of Ultron, when Cap does a forward somersault over the handlebars of a motorcycle and throws it into a truck full of HYDRA goons. That is clearly a reference tot Cap lifting a motorcycle over his head during the Star Spangled Man montage in TFA.

 

My quest through old classics continued last with Sleeper, the Woody Allen film. Honestly pretty hilarious, I really liked it. Before that was Rollerball and it’s a strange film but I enjoyed it (the 1970s original) and just before that The Night of the Hunter.

 

Sleeper: the robot butler scenes and subsequent 'that's a big chicken' line still crack me up.

 

I laughed at the part where he said he gets grumpy if he doesn’t get at least 600 years of sleep lol. Or when he said he’s 2,000 months behind on rent. Just the snappy one liners cracked me up, I think I’m primed to laugh at Woody Allen because he has such funny ways of putting things. I still always use the Annie Hall quote to my GF when she parks too far from the curb: “It’s ok we can just take a taxi from here.” Lol

 

Airplane

If you watch any of the parody movies by Airplane's producers, make sure you watch the credits. They have jokes inserted into the credits such as: "Author of A Tale of Two Cities-Charles Dickens," and in the end credits for Airplane 2: "Best Boy-Name of person; Worst Boy-Adolf Hitler."

 

Bright .
Will Smith .

This seemed to be very much influenced by the buddy cop movies of the 80s with a lot of the expected cliches and tropes . Will Smith plays Will Smith with a bit more swearing .

the premise seemed kind of promising for a bit ( orcs , elves , fairies etc. live amongst us in an analogy of our racial and class issues ) but then it was just a lot of shooting and swearing .

4/10
.

 

Jungle Book (2016)

 

You've finally inspired me to watch Bright because I really like 80s buddy cop movies and shooting and swearing.

 

From the trailers it put me in mind of 1988's Alien Nation, which similarly uses the buddy cop formula to explore issues of race, class, immigration and assimilation. It's not exactly highly regarded (6.3 IMDb rating, %56 RT) but I think it's quite underrated. There was also a short-lived TV series that were followed by five made for TV movies, and a big screen remake has been announced from director Jeff Nichols (Take Shelter, Mud, Midnight Special).

 

Greatest movie I have ever seen.

 

Just came back from the new Jumanji. Solid fun. CT should like it, because I hear he likes solid things and fun.

 

Cars 3 (2017) Much better than the second one. It was predictable, but in a good way. Some of the new characters were fun, and it was good to see some of the old ones back. Still too much cable guy, though. Tom and Ray Magliozzi were surprisingly good, for a couple of schmoes with no training as actors; I miss Car Talk on Saturday mornings.

 

Ingrid Goes West

Finally, a movie that showcases the true oddness of the Aubrey Plaza screen persona. She is perfect in this role and in a movie that's a surprisingly well-written and gentle satire of social media as cultural and literal mental illness.

 

The TV series was among the first of many brilliant sci - fi series cut tragically short by the idiots in charge of FOX.

 

Black Panther

I’ll do a proper review once I’ve seen it again. It’s really, really good, and really different. The characters are fantastic and there’s some great humour too. It’s just the action that let me down. Once you’ve seen the trailer, you’ve pretty much seen it all, which usually isn’t the case with Marvel, but this time they showed way too much.

Black Panther, Klaw, Shuri, Everett Ross and M’Baku are the stand outs for me. Really awesome characters. Funny too. It’ll be an 8.5 or 9/10. I’m going again in two days.

 

The Empire Strikes Back

Not only is this my favorite SW film, it is in my top 5 films of all time. It is amazing how it keeps getting better and reveals new little gems upon multiple viewings. (estimate at least 35-40 viewings by now)

This last time, I watched the OOT version that was released on DVD in 2006.

Empire is definitely a desert island movie for me. An incredible film on every level.

 

There are 3 films that I regard as perfect, Empire, Raiders and Die Hard. I can watch them at the drop of a hat at any time. They never fail to hook me.

 

Agree on the first two. Believe it or not, I've never seen Die Hard. Only clips.
*ducks objects being thrown*
Lol. I assume I ought to watch that one soon?

 

Absolutely 100% watch Die Hard. That set the template for the action genre for the last 30 years. Bruce Willis is the perfect casting choice (although he didn't seem it at the time before seeing it) and Alan Rickman was fantastic as the villain.

 

To date the only "perfect" movie in my book, among those that I've seen to date, is Shawshank Redemption.

 

Ok. I'll check it out, finally lol. I love Alan Rickman so yeah, I'll watch it.

Guess I always prefered action + SF from that time period, like Alien, Terminator and Predator for example.

 

A great film I agree, but not one thats got a great deal of repeat viewing, for me anyway. I suppose it all depends what our favourite genres of films are as to what seems perfect to us.

I'm a big fan of that genre too. Thats 3 fantastic films there and 3 of them with sequels that are argubaly as good as the original.