Iron Man 3

The third installment of the popular franchise, the Iron Man 3 follows the events described in Avengers. “Nothing has been the same since New York”, claims Tony Stark as he battles with anxieties, panic attacks and insomnia. His arrogance and over-confidence leaves his life shattered, his girlfriend in danger and the world on the brink of collapse – and thus he need to start to put himself together piece by piece to save those he cares about.

Even though I generally like the Iron Man franchise – I even remember watching cartoons about him when I was younger – it was never my favourite. It is not as serious, dark or severe as some of the other superheroes movies are. It never attempted to provide a food for brain, however little the comics books can give; jaw-dropping was also not its strongest suit; its goal was solely mindless entertainment. Surprisingly enough, the movies didn’t have a lot of action or explosions. The Iron Man trademark attractions always were badass jokes and charismatic main character who could easily and with a charming smile find a way out of even the hardest situation.

The Dictator

Sacha Baron Cohen is in this again. After brilliant comedy Borat and absolutely terrible Bruno, he brings another comedy, where he plays Aladeen – the head of small Arab country, who opposes any kind of democracy and will never let anything looking like freedom to sneak into his kingdom.

Cohen got an absolutely unique niche in the entertainment industry. His characters become something more than just fiction. Borat was outstanding in some sense; the jokes from the movie were quickly learnt and quoted by almost everyone who bothered to watch the movie (despite the notorious quality of the jokes, which exploited practically only a couple of topics). Bruno, on the other hand, failed badly. Partly because of the high expectations, partly because of the poor plot, but the movie failed to amuse in the same shocking and provocative way. This is why I was a bit worried about the Dictator – the movie could have gone in both directions.

Hugo (2011)

The movie is set in Paris in 1930s and closely follows the storyline of “The Invention of Hugo Cabret” by Brian Selznick and tells the story about a boy who lives on the train station, his father, a robot called automaton and dreams which never really leave us.

This is the work of well-known director Martin Scorsese, which is notably different from his other works. The Departed, The Shutter Island, The Aviator, Bands of New-York: those are the most famous ones and they have one feature in common, they are not movies for kids or fairytales. Scorsese’s choice of genre for the next movie, Hugo, caught me by surprise; I definitely didn’t expect him to take on the Christmas tale. I had a bad feeling about it (I am a great fan of the 3 movies mentioned above), and I am so glad that I turned out to be wrong. The genius of Scorsese shines in whatever movie he decides to make.