Iron Man 3 - not bad, and that's good enough for me

I'm afraid that if you've started reading this review expecting something as well-thought out, erudite and historically-aware as some of the other posts on this Blog Fantastic, then you are going to be sorely disappointed.

In much the same way, if you start watching Iron Man 3 expecting it to be much more than lots of explosions, snappy one-liners and more explosions, then you are going to be... well, not sorely disappointed, because explosions and one-liners are AWESOME. But you won't get what you expected, if you weren't expecting explosions and jokes.

Perhaps not an earth-shattering conclusion, that, but I'm new at this movie reviewing malarkey. Once I've got a few under my belt I'm sure I'll develop a style or formula, much like Skyd has when they review products.

Rest assured, however, that I will not be asking whether any movies I review are a hat. Unless I'm pursuing some sort of elaborate metaphor.

So, Iron Man 3. Is it a bad movie, like Olympus Has Fallen? No, and not only because no one was stabbed in the brain. Iron Man 3 lacks Olympus' bevy of plot holes and stupidities (apart from the villain's motivation to destroy seeming to stem, primarily, from a dislike of the hero after a relatively minor slight way, way back in the past when the villain looked a lot uglier but RDJ was as attractive as ever).

Is it a good movie, then? Not really. There aren't any crazy twists in the plot, there are no profound messages or lessons to learn, and no characters so great, so incredible (on this blog, referred to as "Characters Fantastic"?) that you just have to know more about them.

Iron Man 3 is a superhero movie, with lots of references to other parts of the franchise; I'm sure there were many that I missed, and that people with a greater knowledge of Marvel's comics will be able to spend hours arguing over the consistencies of the various movies.

But while I enjoyed the feeling of a movie fitting in to a larger (and cohesive) whole, that's not really why I enjoyed Iron Man 3. I enjoyed it because it was fun. It didn't take itself too seriously (and try to have a profound message or lesson) so you could just relax and enjoy it. But it took itself seriously enough that it wasn't bad, and attempted to convince the viewer of nothing that a reasonable suspension of disbelief wouldn't allow.

Maybe that is the easy way out when making a movie: put in enough effort that it's not crap, but not so much that people will think you were trying hard, and therefore hold you to more stringent requirements. Maybe we should be asking more of the film industry as discerning consumers of their art (with AND without inverted commas).

But maybe that's good enough for me: to be able to go to the cinema, enjoy a movie and not feel like I got ripped off.