You didn’t think Robert Downey Jr. could get any more awesome…

…and you were wrong. Not only does Downey absolutely kill it as Tony Stark for the fourth (fifth including the cameo from The Incredible Hulk) time, he manages to exceed and improve upon his previous portrayals in every possible way. There are so many examples to support this conclusion, but since I try to do my film reviews spoiler-free, I’ll shy away from any plot-revealing details for Iron Man 3. The other films, however, I will spoil the living crap out of.

SORTA-CRYPTIC REVIEW AHEAD

Iron Man 3 takes place shortly after last Summer’s blockbuster The Avengers, and the effects of the events in that film have made a lasting impact on Tony Stark. You could say he has been scarred from his experience fighting alongside gods and supermen against an invading alien army.

One of the things that sets Stark apart from the likes of Captain America, Thor, and the other Avengers is that he is the only one who is “merely” a mortal man who has spent all of his time only fighting other mortal men — Steve Rogers/Captain America’s experience in the Marvel Universe’s World War 2 involved everything from alien weapons to doomsday devices and supermen; Thor is a god from a distant galaxy who has godlike powers and cosmic knowledge; Bruce Banner/The Hulk is himself a “giant green rage monster” who in is few outings has fought other super beasts; the other humans like Natasha Romanov/Black Widow, Clint Barton/Hawkeye, and Nick Fury have had enough time to adjust to the world of gods and men (I’m ignoring the bit of The Avengers where Romanov and Barton discuss feeling out of their league because I choose to).

The effect of this knowledge and the attempted self-sacrifice Stark made in The Avengers drives the story in Iron Man 3, and it’s brilliant. Add to this the fact that this is the first Marvel film to not feel the entire time like it’s trying to set up other movies, and you’re left with a more complete and enjoyable character arc that really feels like a fresh new story to tell. There is a lot of character development in Iron Man 3, and it comes because Shane Black (the director of Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, one of the guys in Predator, and the writer of most of the best action movies of the 80s) spends a lot of time making sure that Stark is without his suit of power armour, forcing Stark to adapt and think his way out of situations for the first time since the cave in Iron Man. That isn’t to say that there aren’t any fx-fueled action set pieces using Iron Man armour — there is honestly more Iron Man action in Iron Man 3 than all the other films featuring Stark put together — but you don’t feel like the plot is merely there to set up the action. It feels natural.

Add to the brilliant writing, direction, and leading character, and what do you have left? Oh yeah: everything.

Everyone gets to shine

This should be a rule for making any film: that every character with a significant speaking part or integral connection to the story gets an opportunity to shine in the film. That happens here — from Don Cheadle’s sequences as War Machine and Iron Patriot, to Gwyneth Paltrow’s fourth take on Pepper Potts, Jon Favreau stealing a bunch of scenes as Happy Hogan (especially in the prologue), to Guy Pearce playing the most Bond-villain-like role of his career, and finally to Sir Ben Kingsley, who not only owns his role as The Mandarin, but manages to show an incredible amount of depth and diversity with such a small part.

Hell, even the kid-whose-name-I-forget who gets a surprising amount of screentime manages to steal some scenes.

If I were to have one complaint I’d say that the henchmen characters don’t get a whole lot to work with. But the way that the movie comes together, you hardly notice.

Easter Egg City

These days you always know to stay through the end of the credits of a Marvel film, and Iron Man 3 is no different. But if you thought that was the only Easter Egg to catch in the film, you’d be missing out. There are many references in Iron Man 3, and I don’t want to list any of them lest I spoil some of the surprises, but they’re great and for the first time in a Marvel film they don’t serve to further the plots of other movies (yet). Instead, they create even more depth to the film and to Tony Stark’s story.

Should you see Iron Man 3?

Considering the movie made upwards of $160,o00,000 in North America alone this past weekend, there’s a good chance you went to see the movie already (that’s the second-highest box office opening weekend of all time, behind 2012′s The Avengers).

Yes. Go see Iron Man 3. Unless you don’t like any of the other Marvel films, in which case why did you read this far?

I tried to buy a laptop…

…and “tried” is the key word here. When I went in to a local chain, “FS”, earlier this month to purchase a new laptop for work, they didn’t have any of the model I was interested in in stock. Their website claimed another store had some, so I went there.

As it turned out, there weren’t any there either, so I ordered the laptop online.

An initial delivery date of 4-8 business days got extended because the laptop “missed” a connection during transit and that meant an additional week on top of the 4-8 business days.

At that point, I was losing my patience a bit, but the laptop managed to arrive two days earlier than expected (though still five days later than initially projected), so I immediately got to work loading up the programs I use professionally.

(Note: laptop hard drives are still predominantly in the era of 5400 RPM drives. When your desktop uses a SSD, the transition back is very noticeable)

A few minutes into using the new laptop I notice that the left-shift key is having issues. It sticks — which isn’t something you normally expect unless you’ve spilled some kind of soda on your keyboard. I fix the sticking key by pressing down on the other side of it, and it looks like it’s just one corner that doesn’t seem to click down right. I can deal, so I keep using the laptop.

Then, when I typed up my review of Oblivion, the left-shift key decided it wanted to make a fast escape from the keyboard. It jumped off farther than I thought possible for such a small key, and escaped from the tray to another part of the desk I was using at work.

Typing without a left-shift key is… not ideal. So I took the laptop back to FS to see what they could do about it. It didn’t get better.

Sorry, we don’t have any of those in stock…

Now, I need this laptop to get work done in the office. It’s the only computer I have there, and without it I’m boned. Additionally, I have Adobe Creative Suite on the laptop (which takes a really long time to install on a 5400 RPM drive… my god) which is a demanding collection of programs at the best of times, so my needs in a laptop are things like dedicated video cards and lots of RAM.

When I took the laptop in and explained that not having one costs me money, the solution at FS was to give me a keyboard to use in the meantime and to order me a replacement laptop. Since the model I have is not in stock anywhere, they’ll even upgrade my laptop in the meantime. Of course, there is a catch: the upgrade laptop is also not in stock, so they have to order it online, but because it’s an online-sales only laptop, they told me I’d have to put it on my credit card to order it.

Now, Adobe Creative Suite has to be deactivated from any devices you have it installed on if you want to free up your product activation key. The key is limited to X number of installs and the installation of the program requires an internet connection (or an over-the-phone conversation) while you do it. This is to combat piracy, which I totally get since the programs are far from cheap, but it ends up being more of a massive headache for those of us who legitimately purchase these programs. The pirates? They hack the program and strip all the registration/activation aspects, so in reality they get a better product.

But I digress.

So at this point FS wants me to purchase another laptop online, which I’m not inclined to do because of how badly they’ve already screwed up, the amount of time it takes to ship, and the fact that it might also arrive broken. Additionally, they want me to put that money down and then use my defective laptop in the interim with a really budget keyboard that their sales rep handed me. If I go with this option, I’m out another $800 dollars and I still have to wait another 4-8 business days for this new laptop to arrive — a laptop that may or may not have issues of its own.

What would you do?

I’ll tell you what I did: I not-very-politely declined the offer from the FS CSR, took the broken laptop home, deactivated Adobe, ran the laptop software to reset the laptop completely to factory defaults, and then returned it.

Then I went online to NCIX where I found a better laptop for cheaper and ordered it. Purolator will deliver it within 1-2 days. Sure, it might have an issue, but they will exchange it within 30 days (rather than FS’s 14 days) so I’m pretty stoked.

Joseph Kosinski loves science fiction.

The last thing that one might expect having seen Tron: Legacy would be that Joseph Kosinski can direct emotional characters. T:L was basically a two-hour Daft Punk music video, and in that area the movie was a success, but the character development and emotion completely fell by the wayside. It seemed like that was going to happen with Oblivion as well, but the strength of its cast came to the rescue.

Oblivion is an homage to science fiction. Almost none of the plot is original, and very few of the twists and turns will come as a surprise, but the few that do will make the experience worthwhile.

Tom Cruise only ever plays Tom Cruise. Thankfully, he’s not alone.

This isn’t a good or a bad thing, because Tom Cruise can carry a movie.  Oblivion has a substantial amount of character development (shocking for a sci-fi film) and since so much of it is Tom Cruise solo, this works pretty well. You have to give Cruise credit: he always gives 150%.

Opposite Cruise are Olga Kurylenko and Andrea Riseborough, both of whom are totally awesome. Their performances aren’t worthy of awards by any stretch, but they’re so grounded and believable in their emotional arcs and their motivations that it really helps Oblivion succeed as a whole.

M83

You can’t talk about Oblivion without talking about two things: the visuals and the sounds. M83 delivers a kickass soundtrack for Oblivion that I hope earns some award nominations (though if Daft punk doesn’t get one for Tron: Legacy, it seems unlikely). The music is a constant driving force and is always exceptional during each of the film’s scenes. It’s a fantastic score that may not be as listenable outside the film as Daft Punk’s score for Kosinski’s last film, but you shouldn’t hold that against it.

The look.

Oblivion is, in a word, stunning. The art direction, set design, special fx, sets — they’re all top notch and consistently gorgeous. Claudio Miranda, who did the cinematography for Life of Pi, Tron: Legacy, Fight Club, and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, is clearly a visual master.

Entering a new golden age of science fiction

Oblivion isn’t the best movie you’ll see this year, not by a long shot. But it is so much better than the vast majority of Hollywood releases and is crafted with so much care that it deserves to be seen. Just make sure to see it in IMAX.