Review: "Iron Man 3"

The idea of an extraterrestrial life visiting Earth and making contact with humans has been expressed many times over. I remember spending a lot of energy on the subject, to the point where it caused me anxiety. It got so bad, my parents decided NOT to take me to see Independence Day, until I calmed down. Of course, I’m a bit more collected now, but I still wonder; how would we respond to the knowledge of intelligent life beyond our planet?

In Independence Day, we fought against an attack. In District 9, we impoverished an entire species. And in Marvel’s The Avengers, we assembled our best to protect us and send a warning. The options appear to be either A) Fight them or B) Control them, at least in the examples provided. In the case of Avengers, we get a series (the Marvel Cinematic Universe) that shows our world prior to, during and now after alien life has been exposed to all. How does the world move on in the follow up film Iron Man 3?

Better than you’d expect, actually.

Appropriately Underrated: Quick "Skyline" Thoughts

When the word underrated is tossed around, it implies that something has had its quality overlooked. Sometimes, however, that somethings' quality has been underrated on purpose.

“Skyline” follows a group of characters that could've been extras in any of the “Fast and Furious” films, who wake up after a penthouse party and are forced to pretend that the city is being harvested by aliens. The rest of the movie features highlights such as Donald Faison producing a gun from nowhere, and Eric Balfour DEMANDING that the survivors go to the roof, despite the fact that the idea has been nixed several times.

When I first saw Balfour's character screaming at the sky in the trailer, I laughed myself to the conclusion that this would suck. I only ended up watching this on Netflix after I took a writing assignment for InvadeNola. And from what I understand, I am not alone in my thoughts regarding the movie.

The only two positives that I can think of are also negatives. One - Paul Walker was not in it. This is a positive for the obvious reason, and a negative because this is exactly the kind of movie that I'd expect him to be cast in(especially the first 15 minutes). Two - The special effects. The alien ships and the disaster they cause are quite impressive visually. Unfortunately, they are not used to serve the story. The whole movie comes off, to me, as an advertisement to get business for a visual effects company("look at what our computers can do!").

Indeed, this is underrated, and for good reason. But, I would still recommend this be viewed - Eric Balfour's tearful screaming will induce such wonderful laughter.