Iron Man 3 (2013)

“Gods, aliens, other dimensions- I’m just a man in a can.”

 I rather liked this film the first time I saw it. And this time around it still struck me as well-directed, very much so in fact, well acted and characterised with Downey and Paltrow as superb as ever. And perhaps this time around the identity of the “Mandarin” was less of a surprise. But the film seems to be lacking something.

Perhaps it’s the lack of a real supervillain. Perhaps it’s the deliberately small scale of the film (compared to Tony’s last outing, at least) with his anxiety attacks in the wake of the events of The Avengers- which is actually a good character point, Tony Stark bring the kind of rich, powerful, arrogant type who needs vulnerabilities to remain sympathetic, although Downey’s huge charisma does a huge job on its own. But ultimately the film feels entertaining but, well, insubstantial by MCU standards. And it never quite convinces how he gives up all the armour at the end.

There are some very good bits. The twist with the Mandarin is brilliant, and Ben Kingsley gives us a superb comic turn, and the Mandarin videos themselves are a superb visual riff on the iconography if the “War on Terror” which feels oddly retro six years later. Guy Pearce is ok as Killian, although his accent slips in places. Don Cheadle further cements himself as a mainstay. And there’s a lot of fun with armour, and various bits of it. But this film is unexpectedly inconsequential. Even the post-credits sequence is a bit of a damp squib.

Predator (1987)

"If it bleeds, we can kill it!"

The fact that this film is so good didn't surprise me; I knew that, ever since I hired out the video in the late '80s. I haven't seen it for, well, twenty years, though. And this time I was flabbergasted by Arnold Schwarzenegger's performance. As a departure from the norm he's actually called upon to act rather than just be Arnie. And he pulls it off superbly, anchoring the film successfully through his acting, not just through his physical presence. It's a shame he hasn't been called upon to do that more often.

The film is excellent all-round, though. The suspense; the brilliant design of the creature, its face being revealed towards the end to great effect; a claustrophobic rainforest setting; and most of all a credible and nuanced set of three-dimensional characters to get picked off one by one.

The film is fairly long, but justifies its running time through characterisation, suspense and a superb final duel between Dutch and the creature. The fact that we have only vague glimpses of the creature in the first part of the film makes the reveal so much more effective. What a shame the film doesn't have too happy an ending: after that mushroom cloud Dutch will end up with cancer, methinks.