Iron Man 3

Superhero franchises are known to falter when it comes to third instalments. It happened to Superman. It happened to the X-Men. It happened to Spiderman. But pleasingly I don’t think it’s happened to Iron Man.

I should clarify that before I continue. Iron Man 3 (or Iron Man Three as it was styled at various points on screen) is not a cinematic masterpiece that will change the way filmmaking works. It’s not the best superhero film you’ll ever see. It’s not even the best Iron Man film you’ll ever see. But as an action-filled blockbuster and taken on its own terms as the concluding part of a trilogy (that includes a brief sidestep into a team-up) it’s very enjoyable.

The plot is light as a feather but that shouldn’t be a problem. If you’re going to see Marvel films and looking for something with a strong narrative you should probably re-evaluate what you’re hoping to get from your trips to the cinema. What the film opts to do instead is set up the various characters and factions early and then string set pieces together with scenes that the cast pursuing their goals.

And what set pieces they are. From the obliteration of Stark’s ocean view leisure palace to a fight scene with molten lava henchmen the film gives you plenty of chances to gawp. The best is saved for last as the film culminates with Robert Downey Jr free running his way around a ship, hopping from one Iron Man suit to another in a sequence that luxuriates in its overblown extravagancies and ridiculous nature.

Downey Jr is as good as he’s always been in the role, quipping himself senseless and providing a believable anchor for proceedings. The dramatics are a bit overblown at times though. We just want to see Stark having fun, not suffering crises of confidence.

Joining him are fellow regulars Gwyneth Paltrow, Don Cheadle and Jon Favreau as love interest Pepper Potts, firm-handed career army man BFF James ‘Rhodey’ Rhodes and overzealous bodyguard BFF Happy Hogan. I’ve never had an easy time believing in the on-screen chemistry of Downey Jr and Paltrow. There never seems to be much passion between the two. It’s the same here as in the previous two films, but at least it stays the same and doesn’t get worse.

Paltrow gets a staggering amount to do in this movie. So much, in fact, that I suspect she had certain clauses written into her contract. She not only dons the Iron Man suit at two separate points but also ends up with superpowers. If she’s going to appear in future Marvel films she’ll need to have her role scaled down.

Cheadle gets rebranded as the Iron Patriot (one of the few nods to modern Marvel storylines possible, considering ho uninventive the company is these days) and does little until the film’s closing action scene (although there’s a humorous sequence that sees him taking a phonecall while quizzing suspected terrorists that proves a highlight before that). Favreau spends most of the film lying in bed with jokes being made about the televisual preferences of his character. That’s fine for what it is.

Joining them as this film’s bad dudes are Guy Pearce as misunderstood scientific genius (is there any other kind?) Aldrich Killian and Ben Kingsley as the Mandarin. Pearce’s performance is fine but he’s tasked with the difficult job of being the character that keeps the film chugging towards its inevitable explode-a-thon of a finale. As such he’s more often tasked with spouting exposition than getting to act.

Ben Kingsley, on the other hand, is brilliant. For most of the film the Mandarin is a threatening terrorist that mixes Osama Bin Laden with a southern preacher. He’s chilling because he’s the sort of villain the real world actually has: a psychotic and a xenophobe. But after a clever twist that reveals his true nature Kingsley is left playing a totally different character and has great fun doing so. Not only is it enjoyable but it’s clever. The Mandarin is a dated concept from the comics used because he’s known for being one of Iron Man’s chief rivals. It’s fitting for him to finally make his debut on the silver screen but Marvel had to alter the character in order to make him work for modern audiences.

Iron Man the third is an improvement on Iron Man 2 but doesn’t quite hit the heights of the original. I think the reason there is that nobody really expected much from that first film and it was so well put together that it was hard to improve on. The second and third films have spent at least some of their time trying to hit the same filmic notes rather than just being as good as possible. Marvel Studios have done a good job rounding off the saga of Stark as a solo artist. Whether tha character appears again or not, we’ve got a solid series of films to enjoy here.

Fables

Don't read Fables. Seriously. Don't even try.

The central idea is wonderful, if not wholly original: characters from fairy tales, folklore and children's stories are all real and have been living in New York for decades. A simple idea that someone even mildly creative could do spectacular things with. Sadly, someone even mildly creative didn't pitch the idea to Vertigo. Bill Willingham did.

The first few issues follow an uninspiring murder mystery setup. Fable policeman Bigby (a human Big Bad Wolf) is roped in as lead investigator. While it's not exceptional the story does a good job of introducing the lead characters and the premise of the book. You're left to assume things will pick up in the next batch of issues.

They don't. The murder mystery is followed by a listless rehash of Animal Farm, an unengaging Civil War tale, and the story of a journalist discovering the true nature of the Fables. Along the way hints are dropped as to the history of all the characters and the hows, whys and wherefores of them being in NYC. Sadly it all feels cackhanded, forced in because Willingham's more interested in the backstory that what he's actually writing.

In one sense this isn't too bad. Hints of what's gone before can often be interesting, fleshing out characters and the world they inhabit. But Willingham goes too far and leaves you wondering why he just didn't start the book with his cast escaping from the Homeland. The answer to that is obvious of course: because it’s not an interesting enough story. It's the contemporary setting that gives Fables its appeal. That the escape pitch wouldn't have been enough to sustain the comic in its own right should have told Willingham to leave it at enigmatic hints.

The biggest failing of the book is Willingham not knowing what to do with his ideas. He's unsure whether he wants to try writing a contemporary anthology series starring well known characters with their more interesting tropes emphasised or a sprawling meta-mythology that encompasses every story ever told, like a fairy tale League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. That both ideas can't coexist in one title and he can't choose between the two means he ends up writing neither satisfyingly.

Artist Mark Buckingham’s artwork is best described as reliable. It’s not bad but it’s not going to wow anyone who’s ever read a comic before. It feels workmanlike. Some of the less identifiable characters can often become muddled with each other. It’s not the book’s biggest problem but it still makes it tough to enjoy.

I read the first eleven volumes of Fables as well as a number of its ludicrously abundant spin-off media. It was frustrating. Good ideas constantly cropped up but went underdeveloped or veered off in ill-conceived directions. Even though I generally rate good ideas over anything else in a comic I couldn't stand the approach here. There was nothing to latch onto but an endless cycle of disappointment.

Please avoid this series. You'll regret reading it.

Batman: The Dark Knight Returns

I’ve tried to like Batman: The Dark Knight Returns. But I can’t. There’s something about it that stops me from doing so. It could be that it’s grim near-future setting had become played out by the time I came to read it. Which is a little unfair because when DKR was written the theme wasn’t as overplayed as it is now. It’s one of the titles that helped to make it popular.

Another problem could be the artwork. Frank Miller (who wrote the script and drew the book) is a talented artist but the panels here are too cramped and tightly packed. At times it’s hard to decipher what’s supposed to be going on and in what order you’re supposed to track the panels across the page. While that does add (deliberately I would hope) to the book’s sense of claustrophobia it makes enjoyment difficult to come by.

It’s that sense of claustrophobia that the book is often praised for. This near-future setting is a dystopia in which superheroics have been outlawed, replaced on the streets by brutal regiments of riot gear-swaddled police. The last cape standing is, predictably, Superman. He now works for the government (or “the man”, if you prefer) while a bitter (and aged) Bruce ‘Batman’ Wayne has retired.

Bruce’s decision to return to fighting the good fight is the story of Dark Knight Returns. You probably could have guessed that from the title. As the tale begins The Batman hasn’t been seen in Gotham City for a decade, crime levels are rising and Wayne is finding inaction increasingly difficult. Deciding to ignore the injury that caused him to retire in the first place he returns to the streets as ‘The Caped Crusader’ and quickly finds himself in a conflict with Harvey ‘Two-Face’ Dent.

Surprisingly few DC regulars crop up during the lengthy story. Superman and Green Arrow are the only heroes besides Batman with a presence, the latter feeling an odd choice because, nowadays at least, he’s a pretty low profile player. Joker appears as a patient-slash-prisoner at Arkham Asylum, and Catwoman crops up as the owner of an escort business. It’s that sort of a book.

That minimalistic approach is actually one of the book’s best attributes. Were it written today it would likely be a summer crossover event designed to find a place for even the most minor of characters. That Miller was given the freedom to use as many or as few characters as he deemed necessary is pleasing. It also ensures the book has enough time to develop what characters it does use, allowing us insight into what they’re feeling and why they’re doing what they’re doing. There’s little of that in the crossover approach.

Miller is at his best when creating dystopic nightmares. That’s what he’s given us with The Dark Knight Returns. It’s a world without hope and at least one of the points of the story appears to be that the world will always need Batman, which I think readers are supposed to take as the standard “fight for what you believe in” jazz.

It’s no wonder it was cited as a big inspiration the Nolan Bat trilogy: all three films, though particularly the final entry, owe a large debt to the depressing world Miller gives us here.

And yet I still can’t enjoy it, because of that artwork and Miller’s refusal to enliven the pace. The book drags for much of its page count. When it does get going it’s an enjoyable read and one of the best interpretations of Batman there’s ever been. Sadly those points don’t come frequently enough and there isn’t enough else in the book to help carry things when the plot lags.

V for Vendetta

I like the V for Vendetta film. I like the fact that it encourages you to believe, just for a moment, that it's cast the chubbier half of Fry and Laurie as a crusader intent on bringing down the government. I like the fact it's cast Mr Blocker as the Prime Minister. Most of all I like the fact that its relatively slender running time means that things actually happen fairly early on.

None of this is a knock on the original text. I like the comic book original version of V. It's just that, well, Alan Moore is pretty self-indulgent and takes forever to get moving with his plot or any sort of coherent revelations regarding his masked protagonist.

This is a fairly common problem with Moore. He’s going to do things at his own pace and nobody’s going to stop him. The issue is particularly prevalent with V for Vendetta. I suspect this is because Moore started writing the strip for British indy anthology comic Warrior towards the beginning of his career. Bigger publishers tend to have more of an idea of how many issues they want written and Moore has become less self-indulgent, or perhaps just better at getting his ideas across more quickly, as his career has gone on.

 

V for Vendetta is an alternate future dystopia story (set in 1997 it could now be considered an alternate history tale). British society has fallen apart in the wake of a devastating and unseen war, with totalitarian regime Norsefire having swept into Westminster to restore order. We follow the story of eponymous freedom fighter and culture vulture V as he trains young Evey Hammond to join him in his fight to restore freedom to Britain.

 

Given that it was written during the 80s it’s safe to say that it was at least partly inspired by Moore’s feelings on Thatcher’s government. Seems that Thatch inspired quite a few highly regarded comics of the decade. She wasn’t all bad.

 

Some plot elements don’t quite sit right. V’s origin for example. It’s revealed in flashbacks in the latter half of the collected volume but feels lacking in drama. It’s not something that needed revealing. That it is and there’s nothing of any particular interest behind it detracts from the momentum of the story.

 

Better is Moore’s world building. I’ve singled this out as a strength of his before and this book is a solid example. While the plot meanders and becomes bloated with extraneous information Moore drops in hints as to the country and world at large. He gives a solid idea of how the new British government is structured without going into endless details on the subject or revealing it all in reams of text. He tantalises with hints rather than trying to force you to care about his world, which is a good approach.

 

The book’s lasting legacy is probably the Guy Fawkes mask. It’s worn throughout by V as a symbol of his anarchist ways (and also to disguise his features). Along with the cloak and 17^th century style hat it creates quite the iconic image. His face being obscured throughout the story means the mask becomes his real face, instantly recognisable to anyone who’s read the book as a symbol of V’s morals and beliefs.

 

Never ones to miss a trick DC (the owners to the publishing rights of the title) released V masks when the film came out in 2006. They caught on in a big way. Naturally they’re a hit at fancy dress parties but they’ve also become a regular piece of kit for anti-establishment protestors. It’s a nice touch, but you have to wonder if the irony of paying DC, a pretty big corporation, to take a stand against big corporations has struck them. Probably not.

 

For the record Alan Moore approves of this development (of course he does). He's less approving of the film adaption. That's the case with any of his work that makes it to cinemas but in this instance he's not alone (in fact he rarely is).  Most people think V is a shoddy film that works better as a book. I think both have their merits, although the comic has more (and Moore) to offer.

 

V for Vendetta is a very good example of Moore's early work. Reading it you can certainly see that he was already beginning to develop into a leading voice for the comics industry, a man with his own ideas and a vision for how to use the medium to send a message. It was equally as clear that he was interested in heroes, just not necessarily the conventional caped kind. The disjointed, lackadaisical narrative stops it from being an easy read but not from being an enjoyable one.