At the Movies — IM 3 and Oblivion

Iron Man 3 is fun. Oblivion makes you work.

IM3 is a comic book. It has its genesis in Marvel comics and although it may stray from the letter of the comic, it brings a group of characters and a story that you like. Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr,) and Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow) become more real than we have seen them. Tony actually is telling this story from his psychiatrist’s couch (but you don’t find that out unless you stay through all the credits at the end) and has realized that there is more to him than Iron Man. He is forced to leave his suit aside and fight his foe with Macgyver like use of bailing wire and duct tape but in the end, CGI and high tech come into play to finally save the day.

I guess I could pick out flaws here and there (how the hell did Pepper survive that fall and where did that car come from that he drove to Florida) but then if you buy in to Iron Man suit parts that fly across country to mate up with their maker,  everything else falls into place.

What makes the IM series work is that you like these characters, particularly the “evil” Mandarin, played in wonderful camp by Sir Ben Kingsley and of course Tony and Pepper. The story can be described in two sentences, but I won’t — you need to see it. Its simple, good versus evil, and why not.

I liked this movie. If you like incredible CGI, a movie that doesn’t take itself too seriously, and lots of “derring do.” IM3 is for you.

Oblivion is much more complex. I know that many people left the theater shaking their heads and asking their friends what it was all about. I ‘got’ it about halfway through and found it relatively simple —  if you  suspend your disbelief early on and buy into space invaders, memory erasing, cloning. and Tom Cruise being a ‘robot’ repairman, the movie does make sci fi sense.

Cruise does journeyman’s work in this film as do his co stars, Andrea Riseborough and Olga Kurylenko one playing his lover and the other his wife.  That certainly adds spice to the story. Morgan Freeman is Morgan Freeman as leader of the resistance movement and there you have it.

Beautiful vistas, soaring music, making love in a glass bottom swimming pool, the giving of ones self for love and country, what more could you want.

If you like sci fi, and a complex plot that turns on itself that least a couple of times. Oblivion is for you.

JVH