Star: Don Cheadle

Captain America: Civil War (2016) – Chris Evans and Robert Downey Jr

This movie has a deadly biohazard theme from the start, just in time for what allegedly happened in the real world just a few years later. Pre-programming much? Fortunately this theme quickly disappears and doesn’t spoil the rest of the movie.

Chris Evans stars as Captain America – the main character in this movie; although there are a few other major characters from The Avengers also playing roles here, including Wanda Maximoff aka The Scarlet Witch, played by Elizabeth Olsen with vibes of Hillary Clinton. And Natasha Romanoff aka Black Widow, played by Scarlett Johansson – the camerawork during her fight scenes is particularly shaky, presumably to hide the fact that a stunt double is doing all the work for her, and this makes for rather unpleasant viewing during action scenes. There’s also plenty of action from the start by Anthony Mackie who plays Cap’s flying negro sidekick called Sam Wilson.

Later on we also see Tony Stark aka Iron Man played by Robert Downey Jr, and Clint Barton aka Hawkeye (Marvel’s equivalent of Green Arrow) played by Jeremy Renner. Ant-Man (Paul Rudd) and Spider-Man (Tom Holland) even get involved, as does T’Chala aka Black Panther (Chadwick Boseman), and Iron Man’s sidekick War Machine aka Iron Patriot (Don Cheadle) and even Bruce Banner aka The Hulk (Mark Ruffalo) – they all have roles in this movie as if it’s just another big Avengers get-together, but I guess it’s fine, because let’s be honest, it would be quite boring if it were all Captain America unless they had an interesting & creative storyline as good as the original from 2011.

There’s some good action in this movie – it may even be Chadwick Boseman’s best outing as the Black Panther – better than his work in the first dedicated Black Panther movie which came a couple of years later. But there’s also some unpleasant arguing in this movie, followed by a divide between the order-following Avengers and the ones who think they know better (including Cap). The script is a bit messy too. It’s a real mixed bag of a movie, and for this reason, I’ll rate it Bang Average just like both previous Captain America movies and both prior Avengers movies too.

Iron Man 3 (2013) – Robert Downey Jr

Iron Man 3 (2013)

The first 10 minutes are a mix of plot-building drama with mild humour, and a couple minutes of irritating anti-Islamic conditioning. We also get a nice little action scene where Robert Downey Jr shows off some of his Wing Chun skill, before putting on his latest Iron Man suit at super high speed.

The plot takes some refreshing twist within the first hour, and although it dries up a bit in the second hour, the action is generally decent throughout – there are some really strong scenes from time to time, and plenty more mediocre. There’s also several instances of good humour in this movie. So I have to say it outperforms Iron Man 2 (2010) as well as The Avengers (2012) where Iron Man was one of the main characters and pretty much stole that rather muddled show. But Iron Man 3 is not quite as original or awesome as the original Iron Man 1 from 2008 of course, so ultimately I rate Iron Man 3 as just Above Average for an action hero movie – just one step down from the original which I rated as Decent. With a bit more of a smooth & comfortable, confident vibe, and a bit less scary, depressing and irritating, I would have rated this movie equal to the original. It would have been nice to see at least one of the women being kind of happy but every single one of them is a tormented soul – especially Iron Man’s woman Pepper Potts played by Gwyneth Paltrow who is literally tortured throughout this movie. It’s not meant to be a horror movie, it’s meant to be a cool action hero movie, but what do you expect from Hollywood – they’re addicted to horror and usually find a way to make it ruin an otherwise pretty cool movie.

Guy Pearce plays the main villain in this movie, called Aldrich Killian. He does a decent job of it.

Ben Kingsley plays the villain early on – a terrorist called The Mandarin who’s really just an actor called Trevor Slattery who didn’t think anyone was being hurt. His acting was excellent here.

Don Cheadle also returns as a core character, Tony Stark’s old friend Colonel James Rhodes who has his own suit and calls himself Iron Patriot – formerly called War Machine. He does an alright job here.

Iron Man 3 is eventually rounded off with a strong dose of conditioning against those who preach caution toward technological advancement. I’d guess this plus the anti-Islamic conditioning earlier on were probably what got this movie sponsored.

Iron Man 2 (2010) – Robert Downey Jr

While there are some interesting aspects to the plot and some decent action scenes too; for the most part this movie is one or two levels less entertaining than the previous one. They seem to be doubling down on the drama aspect, to boost the plot, but it’s not working well for me as an action hero movie fan – it even gets quite boring from time to time, although it ends quite strong. Obviously there’s no revelatory unveiling of the Iron Man superhero to the world in this movie, since the world already knows all about him, including his identity and his capabilities, so this sequel is in dire need of additional creativity to keep the plot fresh and the action captivating – this movie is noticeably lacking in these departments, so I rate it a couple levels down from the first Iron Man movie.

It’s good to see the return of Robert Downey Jr, and alright to see the return of Gwyneth Paltrow.

It’s also great to see the addition of Scarlett Johansson into the core cast of this movie. Her character initially seems a bit too consistently cold-hearted and blank-faced for my liking – a touch of warmth wouldn’t go amiss – but it keeps us on our toes about who she is and what are her intentions, until it’s all revealed after an hour in, and then it suits her role nicely. Scarlett Johannson and Jon Favreau (from Stark’s company) make a great team in some awesome action scenes towards the end, which includes multiple moments of good humour too. Credit to the writers, producers, directors and actors for that. It’s good to see Jon have a more significant role this time round too – he had only a minor role in the previous Iron Man movie but deserved something better and this has been remedied in Iron Man 2.

Samuel L Jackson makes a refreshing appearance at the top of the second hour, causing the movie to gain positive vibes and become generally more interesting. Better late than never, although I’ll never be able to justify rating this movie as highly as the first, after sitting through its weak first hour.

The intrigue and positive vibes are cranked up another notch about half an hour before the end, as Tony Stark finds a message from his late father with a clue towards creating a new element that can replace the plutonium in his power core (his artificial heart) which is slowly killing him.

Mickey Rourke plays the main antagonist (with techie brain plus brawn) quite well, while his new partner (with business brains, money & influence) is adequately played by Sam Rockwell.

Don Cheadle plays the role of James Rhodes – a black man with quite a senior position in the military, who is friends with Tony Stark, but when Stark is dying and goes a bit crazy, Rhodes steals one of his Iron Man suits believing he’d make a more worthy superhero himself. Don does an adequate job, but he’s no Wesley Snipes or Michael B Jordan.

Don and Sam both carry a bit of a beta-male vibe. Very much lacking that ‘main man in the room’ vibe; although that may be the intention, since Sam shouldn’t overpower Mickey, and Don shouldn’t overpower Robert, but Mickey and Robert are both so-so themselves, half way between Alpha and Beta I’d say. And/or maybe Sam & Don sold their souls to be rewarded with these roles, as is often the way in Hollywood.