Iron Man 3 (2013)

I walked into the movie theater with certain expectations of the three essential ingredients that have come to make up an Iron Man movie: witty humor from the self-absorbed protagonist, Tony Stark, the thrilling, but predictable action sequence that invariably concludes all of these films, and a villain that is undoubtedly trying to create a bigger, better version of the Iron Man suit used for evil. Director Shane Black was the much needed change to inject some life into a franchise bordering repetitive tiredness.

The witty humor is still there and Robert Downey, Jr. is as hilarious as ever. There is also the thrilling, but predictable action sequence towards the end of the movie. The villain, however, is no longer someone trying to create a knockoff Iron Man suit (thank God), but a terrorist called the "Mandarin", played by Sir Ben Kingsley, whose acting is absolutely brilliant and completely spot on, and his questionable connection to the charming and handsome scientist entrepreneur, Aldrich Killian. Injections with a serum result in superhuman creations that have the freaky ability to generate heat and regenerate body parts, not unlike Dr. Curt Connors and his lizard monster from The Amazing Spider-Man, except that Killian's creations tend to spontaneously combust at random.

You'll certainly get your fill of explosions; Tony Stark's mansion is completely destroyed by the Mandarin in a spectacular show of multiple missiles and the slow motion destruction of all his Iron Man suits on display. There are new gadgets: Stark now has the ability to summon his suit, piece-by-piece, via implanted microchips within his arm. Even Pepper Potts has her own shining moments involving much badass-ery on her part. Happy is just as loyal as ever and Colonel Rhodes is just as dependable, working as the government's own Iron Man, the "Iron Patriot". Tony Stark actually spends most of the film outside of his suit and it is in this way that we get to see him in all his character-flawed glory. It's clear he needs to see a therapist in this post-Avengers era, when words like "New York" or "wormhole" send Stark into a crippling anxiety attack. There's a subplot involving Stark and a young boy that could have easily evolved into a cheesy boy-breaks-through-superhero's-emotional-barriers, daddy issues moment, but it doesn't because, well, it's Tony Stark. Instead, the screenwriters turn this scene into pure comedic gold.

The plot could have been fleshed out a bit more. To be honest, I'm not quite sure what the Mandarin's motives were--some mixture of trying to cover up accidental combustions, purposefully dropping actual bombs in an attempt to rule the world, wanting to make money, and trying to score a date with Pepper. Whatever the reason, we are given a massive final battle between an army of Iron Man suits and an army of glowing superhumans. Suits are destroyed, superhumans are thrown off high heights, Stark summons suits in midair, and the villain almost wins. Prepare to be entertained.

The Great Gatsby (2013)

Once in a while, if I'm feeling particularly morbid, I'll think of my own funeral--who would attend and what would they say about me? That's probably why I find The Great Gatsby to be such a depressing novel. Jay Gatsby was nothing but a sad, lonely man too stuck in the past to really live. And nobody bothered to attend his funeral.

I love The Great Gatsby (the book) for two main reasons. There are the feelings it so effectively evokes: the blind hope, the corrupted American dream, the friendless man with no one at his funeral. There is also the beautiful prose, which made the work a certifiable masterpiece. You have to wonder how a movie adaptation could possibly capture or even come close to capturing all the subtleties of the book. If the writing made The Great Gatsby so great, then how can that greatness be translated to the big screen, where no tangible words are available for full digestion by the audience? For this reason, it is easy to understand why so many film critics have unsurprisingly bashed the movie for its supposed lack of faithfulness to the great F. Scott Fitzgerald.

Really, what is an adaptation but a director's own reading of the book? It is Baz Luhrmann's job to interpret the text and it is our job to sit back and trust him. He does an incredible job of breathing life into the story and bringing it onscreen. The movie may have been substantially empty, but Baz does one hell of a job of making the film a pure visual feast (I would have expected nothing less from him). It is only with Baz's signature dramatic flourishes and over-the-top artistic details that the audience gets a feel of the frenetic, vibrant 1920s aura; sometimes the truth can only be revealed through exaggeration. Even the prose that defined The Great Gatsby's greatness is brought to life; chosen poetic quotes float across the screen in floral prints and cursive fonts and the tangibility of its language is very real.

There is almost too much going on within the film. We are so distracted by the millions of things thrown at us (quite literally in 3D), that we are given no time to really appreciate the message Fitzgerald wanted us to take from all of this. "Less is more" is a lesson that Baz has yet to learn--perhaps a more traditional adaptation at certain points of the film would have allowed the audience to appreciate his direction and Fitzgerald's original intent.

The casting is perfection. Leonardo DiCaprio nails his role as Gatsby right on the head. The anachronistic soundtrack makes the movie a little more relatable to the modern audience. The 1920s were a time of change and while jazz was new and unprecedented then, it certainly isn't now. There are a few ways Baz Luhrmann could have improved his adaptation of the book, but quite frankly, this movie is great as is. And as a personal, self-proclaimed avid fan of the book, that's saying a lot.