Review: The "Iron Man" Films bring on man and machine action

"Iron Man" PG 13
This 2008 movie was the first of Robert Downey Jr. and his return to movies, directed by John Favreau. The film is about a billionaire weapons dealer called Tony Stark who is shot down during an Afgan war and is surgically altered by a strange scientist who claims to be trying to keep him alive, while under captivity. The scientist outfits him with a device that can enhance his power, and he proceeds to build a body armor mech suit to bust out of prison and return to America. Once home he enlists a military man, Rhodes, and a willowy secretary, Potts, to be his liaisons while he fights a mastermind who has also created a dynamo human mech and plans to attack people with it. Based on the late Vietnam era comic books, which have goen through many reincarnations since, Iron Man is a lot like the whole man and mecha robot craze in Japan, (even Ultraman, which was kind of an Iron Man knock off, as it turns out). Marvel comics was betting on this being the first of their Avengers initiative films, leading to last year's Avengers, in 2012. A fun ride and a novel concept.

"Iron Man 2" PG 13
The 2010 sequel to Iron Man sees Favreau back directing but makes it a little convoluted when a weapons maker from Russia wants revenge on Stark for sopme bad deals earlier and creates his own monster mech adaptation, the deadly whip like Whiplash armor arms, and a mech suit also. Maybe in this case it's not such a great sequel, but it is one of the Avengers movies, so it's in there and has to be included. Sure it builds up some of Stark's back story and his broken family relationship, and his alcoholism, but it is supposed to be an action movie too. Sometimes is lacks in that.

"Iron Man 3" PG 13
Shane Black takes the helm for this one.Following the Avengers movie, the first post crisis story takes place around Christmas 2012 when Tony Stark returns but is tormented by panic attacks and by a crackpot inventor from his past, who he snubbed at a Y2K party. Then there is a seemingly unrelated new villain on the loose, the Manderin, who apparently is a white dude, but this will not give much away, as in the comics it was a half Asian megalomaniac. Stark's house is attacked by helicopter gun ships while his buddy in the Iron Patriot armor is running about mugging for the camera, as another Iron Man of sorts. (He was Rhodes or War Machine in part 2). Then after the attack Stark disappears to a small town where he is on the trail of the inventor and the Mandarin, while the President (who is like a Bush clone), is taken hostage by the main baddies. The final showdown features a whole crazy army of mech armors. The FX are done by Digital Domain instead of ILM.See the 2D version. The 3D will not be so hot.