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Will Iron Man 3 break the curse of third installment curse in Marvel movies? Spiderman 3 was insufferable and squandered Spiderman 2’s greatness. The less said about X-Men 3 the better. Nuff said.

That question is a good rhetorical device as an introduction to my review, because obviously, this was a pretty good third installment. I think it was just as a good a comic book movie as the second Spiderman and that’s a very good compliment. The movie relies on Robert Downey, Jr. for the spark. I think he’s been integral to the Iron Man/Avengers franchise driving it forward with his personality. Or is it Tony Stark? I didn’t read Iron Man comics, but if he was more like Downey maybe I should’ve.

Iron Man 3 finds Tony Stark trying to be less of the man in the iron suit. He’s trying to live right by his girl, Pepper Potts, and by his friends. But international terrorists and evil genius industrialists keep pushing him into the iron suit. Or rather jumping in and out of several of them.

The one thing wrong with the film though is that there are too many characters especially the villains. Every minute a new bad guy showed up. And they absolutely wasted my girl, Rebecca Hall. Too many bad guys! And the ending turned into Lethal Weapon 3! When you get a bevy of Iron Men, you need to use them not focusing on witty banter between black and white buddy cops.

Summer movies man. Got to catch ’em all.

4 of 5 stars.

I’m not too sure about Michael Bay’s Pain & Gain. I enjoyed it while watching it, but soon after I felt terrible that I enjoyed it. In fact, I feel that it is a vulgar film. It asks us to try and make sense of these idiots who try a “Fargo,” kidnapping for money or to get their kidnappee’s estates. You can’t. Floridians are idiots — white Floridians especially.

Pain & Gain follows Marky Mark and his gym rat crew as they kidnap people who they try to blackmail them out of their own homes. They bumble their way through the first one successfully. Yet, they need more money, do it again, and cause all sorts of mayhem. Needless to say, they were unsuccessful. When things went wrong, they went wrong quickly and ugly.

The movie was a comedy yet it was somewhat of a thriller. You’ll laugh at the dummies and cringe at their dumb antics. Michael Bay makes you forget that it is a Michael Bay film. The only hint is that he spins the 360 shot in an important and crucial scene. It’s a Michael Bay special.

One good thing about the movie is The Rock. He’s pretty awesome and it shows. He’s very natural and easy going even when he’s doped up on cocaine. The Rock is so lovable.

You better watch this before the summer movie train’s in full speed. It will be soon gone and on digital download.

3 of 5 stars.

Tom Cruise once again tackles science fiction in Joseph Kosinski’s Oblivion. Kosinski is the director of the notorious Tron: Legacy. Tron: Legacy was a movie I looked forward to, but afterwards, I wanted to burn my Mac mini. It was stupendously boring and superficial. Looks pretty like Olivia Wilde, but ultimately looks were deceiving. So would Oblivion be the same?

I digress. We were supposed to be talking about Oblivion, Tom Cruise, and the director, Kosinski.

Oblivion was written by Kosinski from one of his stories that became a comic book. I can see the comic book panels now and understand the langorious pace several issues would combine to match the first hour and a half of the movie. There was lots of mood setting placing Tom Cruise into the barren, post-alien apocalypse Earth. It took a while before we get into the meat of the story. Tom Cruise must save the remnants of the post-alien apocalypse Earth from the alien invaders. Or was is it the other way around? I should’ve put spoiler alert there. Or are you now keen on one of the many twists! Spoiler Alert!

Tom Cruise was Tom Cruise. Shirtless. Looks the same as he did years ago. Wears the same Yankees cap from the other alien invasion film: The War of the Worlds. He’s the star. Show him as much as possible. And don’t forget to have him running, running, running. Letting those little legs carry him as far and as fast as they can.

The thing most fascinating about Oblivion is that the it started to make sense once the movie began unraveling its mysteries. Things that felt like coincidence where actually explained. Of course, YMMV depending on if you buy the premise of the world Kosinski built. Early on I was not buying it; but the reveals made it worth while.

Oblivion was a lot better than Tron: Legacy. It had some of the same problems though: superficial, pretty, but it definitely made up for it with the twist and turns.

3 of 5 stars.

Admission suffers the same issues as Burt Wonderstone. It’s all over the place. Is it a romantic comedy featuring Tina Fey and Paul Rudd? Is it a stab at social commetary a la Mean Girls? Is it another movie? Yes. Yes. Yes. The problem was it was marketed as a romantic comedy at first and that social commentayr comedy second. But there is also another movie there about Tina Fey’s character and her long gone son given up for adoption. If you had told me there was this movie, I would not wonder what the movie was about. It was made into 3 movies by the creators of the film and all seemed fine. They didn’t sell it that way and that made it feel lousy. The movie deserved better, because it’s better as a whole.

3 of 5 stars.