Warren Ellis was in the credits--I'm pretty sure I saw his name there, and I hadn't been prepped by discussion here.

My assumption was that Maya's motive was to kidnap Pepper and use her as leverage to persuade Tony to do what she wanted. Did I misread the explanation to Killian entirely?

I quite enjoyed it, but I do feel they could have shortened the final fight scene and not skimmed over what he narrated afterwards instead. In terms of things happening, and things of import, I felt the it was imbalanced.

LeN--I did drift away during Avengers too, thinking, wow, they're still fighting, and I'm not learning anything new about anyone here.

I just watched Contraband and accept that Mark Wahlberg is a much better actor than I was giving him credit for--the inane guy on talk shows is well-hidden when he dons the garb of working class or lower roughneck.

I give the movie a thumbs up for the Jackson Pollock--I can't not. But, Jesus, talk about erasing all the tension with zero consequence. Yikes. It could have been a kinda dark movie, but it punks out something awful.

I saw IM3 today with amyth and another friend. I loved it on just about every level. I was glad to go into it unspoiled.

I want to see IM3 again just so that I can watch it knowing what movie I'm seeing, if that makes sense. It was quite different from what I was expecting (and I'm not sure what that was) and that can leave me with a bad taste the first time around.

I'm too tired to make any points, but towards the end, things seemed to get . . . derivative? Homages? Rip-offs? There was the Terminator sequence (you know, the scene after Reece climbs out of the dumpster and he and Sarah cling to each other, thinking it's over); it felt a lot like Kiss Kiss Bang Bang in some instances, which made me feel a bit awkward about being excited that Shane Black being at the helm, or maybe that was the SB/RDJ combo working against itself. There were a couple of other instances that if felt too much like it was tipping it's hat to other movies instead of trying to be itself, but now I can't recall what.

But I enjoyed it, I just need to watch it again with the correct expectation goggles on.

Once I finally believed that Ben Kingsley really wasn't the villain, I thought it was hilarious, and it all made sense (the bad accent). Maybe if I hadn't read so many stories involving him I wouldn't have had such a hard time believing the fake-out and it would have played better. As it was, watching his explanations seemed like a bunch of hasty lies, so finally accepting it was a bit lame. BK does the best comedy, though.

Too much white font! Must not read!

I shall see IM3 tomorrow; tonight I saw 42, which although not complicated, was indeed a feel-good movie. Strange to recognize the horribly racist Phillies manager as Alan Tudyk, though. Eww.

My old gym was in IM3! One of the reaction shots where everyone was watching TV, they panned past people on ellipticals and running machines on a mezzanine level, and that was the West LA branch of SportsClub LA.

Ironman rocked. I found the whole film engrossing. RDJ was as charming as only he can be. All the exchanges between Tony and Harley were fantastic--the "Don't be a pussy" line killed me. The CGI was pretty damn seamless and so the action sequences were very exciting. I really loved the Mandarin reveal and how much FUN Ben Kingsley was having. Hell, I just loved the movie.

So here's my predictable question: what was Killian's motive, again? I get the short term of covering up explosions so that he could keep working on Extremis, but what was the goal in controlling the prez and the Mandarin? And when he said he didn't need the president any more, was that because he had Tony? I have villain-understanding problems, clearly.

I did also get confused by the issue of power. Literally. Not literally confused (tho I am), but about literal electrowhosit power. I mean, if we didn't know Marvel and the studios want to fellate RDJ and that there are more Avengers coming up, I could almost think that this was more of an ending than the last Batman movie (Pepper goes on to fight crime as...Magma? I always liked Magma...sudden pangs of nostalgia, irrelevant, correct course)--didn't the power source for the suits used to be his reactor? Didn't he even say that in this film? So why, then, the issue with hooking up 42 (it's the answer!) to a car battery or whatever for that extended period? Though I guess it makes sense with the events at the tail end of the movie, since if the reactor were the power source, he couldn't work them any more.

Also, I'd have liked a line explaining coding the suits--when he explained to Rhodey that there were 41 suits that he couldn't used because they were coded to him, has he been coding them to Pepper all along? Just this last one (needless to say I cried here--are superhero movies supposed to make you cry, or is that just something I'm aging into)? Will he again? Good thing they're exactly the same height, no matter what movie magic says--I imagine that would be hard to design around.

Although I get the point of the sequence where Tony has to rely on things that aren't his suit, I thought he was a little James Bondy there, and it messes things up if he's suddenly Black Widow equivalent, plus as soon as Rhodey showed up his Chuck Norris competence dropped by a few noticeable points.

In the end, did he fix Pepper's Extremis, or remove it?

ita_!, my understand is profit. By controlling both sides of the fight, 2x the profit. He didn't need the President, as he had the VP under his control.

The way the film played it, the suits had to charge up (assumedly, ideally from the arc reactor). Once charged, they could function for a while on their own... because of Reasons, okay?

42 is more modular than the others, so I could buy that it can adapt better to other bodies than 1-41 (although mark 1 is unlikely to be helpful, as that was the "out of the cave" suit). Once again, the answer seems to be because of Reasons.

Yeah, I get that they set him up being more of a non-suit fighter with the punching bag in the beginning, but I don't like it.

I think your last question is up for debate. I tend toward the former, as I find it more narratively interesting.

I was surprised not to see Warren Ellis's name anywhere in the credits.

He was thanked in the credits as was Joss.

I agree with Debet that Killian's motive was to make money by selling weapons to both sides of the anti-terrorist conflict.

I enjoyed Tony's interactions with Harley and Gary-the-TV-Guy more than the action sequences.

Gwyneth is really appealing as Pepper - as a role she wears it well.

I didn't understand why Mark 42 suit didn't have any power at the beginning? Did they say it wasn't fully charged or something?