Iron Man 3 tops The Avengers

(Iron Man 3 North American poster)

Robert Downey Jr. reprises the titular role for the fifth time (he appeared as Tony Stark in the Incredible Hulk). Don Cheadle and Gwyneth Paltrow are also returning. The villain is played by Academy Award attainer Ben Kingsley. Last time it was the Oscar-designated Mickey Rourke. Now Iron Man 2 in my opinion was super boring. The first part overcoming it easily. Three is directed by Shane Black whose first venture was Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, also starring Downey Jr.

  KKBB was humorously brilliant. But Black has written films as early as the Lethal Weapon franchise. Iron Man 3 already has a 95% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes. With negative reviews not being too negative. The earlier films also have had fresh ratings. Iron Man with 95% and the sequel with 73% both movies being directed by Jon Favreau.

  So I'm more interested in watching this one in the theatre. After all, summer has begun. Though it is still spring in Al Ain, UAE. Another point to note is that Iron Man grossed a little above $580m but the sequel only reached $623.9m. I'm not shocked as I hated the latter.

  The three-quel has made $198.4m in its worldwide opening. This is at the same time The Avengers emerged with $185m. This also clears the point that Iron Man is Marvel's most powerful stand-alone Avenger.

  So yes, anything above $800m globally is expected. Though it's not written in stone that the possible last of this trilogy will land at $1b.

  Now for news other than all the above mentioned. Oblivion is at number 2 in its second leg. I also wanted to include a mini-review of Oblivion in this week's article. Starring Tom Cruise, Olga Kurylenko and Morgan Freeman. The film shines with a star cast (okay discarding Kurylenko). Still, it was a bad flick. 

  Sci-fi today is predictable and demands originality. Oblivion started as any dystopian science-fiction movie would. But Oblivion is not only a post-apocalyptic movie, it's an apocalypse of a movie. Seriously, the  venture became so predictable after one hour that the brilliant director tried to show his finesse afterwards. That ended up being more than audiences bargained for. And I seriously had a headache in the cinema hall. Compared to this, Prometheus looks like a futurism legend.

  With notable action scenes and great acting by Cruise, as usual, Oblivion was fine for the first hour and a half. But the remaining 35 minutes were shear torture. I regretted being born in those final moments. This is the biggest problem with director-writer Joseph Konsinski. He based this film on his unpublished graphic novel to only prove why the art was not published in the first place. He also wrote/directed Tron Legacy that had a stupendous ending yet better than Oblivion's. Well, the whole movie was better than the latter.

  Oblivion has a 56% rotten rating. The consensus: 'Visually striking but thinly scripted', is the best description for that universe. No sequel is in the news and it is possible with the film 1 million dollars away from attaining the $200m mark. Domestically, it has grossed $65m on a budget of $120m. Tom Cruise's face in the trailers were enough to cross the $100m milestone. It won't cover its budget in the States, probably ending up with $100 million. The people's rating on IMDB rating is 7.2. My rating is a razor-edge 1.5/4. 

  The newcomers this week are Pain and Gain at number 1, with The Big Wedding not so big at 4th place. The former stars Mark Wahlberg and Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson respectively.

  That's all from me folks, stay tuned next week for further discussion on this weekend's top spot. And I'd like to end this article with a quote by a fellow movie critic:

'Oblivion is one of the best-looking bad films ever made'. - Shaun Munro (WhatCulture).

(Chart by Box Office Mojo)