#Lex Luther is nothing if not petty

[mkarchin713]

An addition to the Muppets take Gotham movie plot.

During their search for missing cast members the muppets have to sneak into a super hero themed costume party being held at Wayne Industries to raise money for the Justice League.

Robin the frog insists on going as Robin and forces Kermit to go as Batman.

When a the Ventriloquist and Scarface crash the party they mistake Kermit for Batman.

Shenanigans ensue.

Miss Piggy, dressed as Wonder Pig, takes down goons trying to get at her Brucie-poo.

Scooter is wearing his superhero costume from episode 419 (look it up) and trying to find the right chapter in his “how to be a superhero book”

Rizzo is dressed as Super Rat and is devouring the buffet table and doesn’t even notice the rogue showed up.

Starler and Waldorf spend the entire scene heckling to rogue who gets sympathy from Fozzie.

The fight only gets stranger when the real Batman shows up and no one can tell the difference between him and Kermit.

I feel like Bruce Wayne projects the kind of amiable playboy 'fun' vibe that he'd be the type of celebrity that certain interviewers feel comfortable surprising with puppies.

You know the kind of shows I mean.

The late-night talk show situations where they're making benign small talk with their smiling guest, and there's a segment where animals get brought out, usually to talk about some sort of ecological relief effort.

So you're watching your trash TV talk show late at night, and you get to watch billionaire pretty boy Bruce Wayne be begrudgingly talked into holding a (relatively) harmless creature which inevitably gets a lot of delighted shrieks from the audience as it starts being a lot more active than the handler promised. And to his credit, Bruce doesn't flinch, he doesn't freak out. But his eyes are a little wide, and his voice a little tight as the smile on his face takes on a slight rictus quality before he's inevitably rescued by an apologetic handler who is also laughing because they all know there was no real danger, it was just funny to put Bruce, who is an undeniable good sport and already laughing along, out of his comfort zone for the sake of charity.

Meanwhile, up in the Justice League headquarters, several founding members of the League are wondering how fast they can get a fake Oscar award shipped to the space station because fuck off. Absolutely fuck off, Bruce. Where the fuck did he study? Juilliard? (Probably.)

(Clark ends up going to a novelty store during the commercial break. It's faster than trying to get anything shipped, even with the infrastructure Bats built for them. He finds it several days later taped to his console in a conspicuously empty briefing room. It's gaudy and awful, the words "Best Actor" engraved on the plaque. No one's around to see him smile. No one comments when it vanishes. Everyone thinks it's been yeeted out an airlock. Dick absolutely comments when it shows up in the manor, stashed in one of the trophy cases that sprung up for all the bat kids' school awards. Bruce has no idea how it got there. Must have been Alfred. (It was not.))

Anyway, consider, for your amusement, Bruce Wayne getting highjacked on The Gotham Toight Show with a handful of wriggling puppies and, for a split second, not having to pretend he's delighted to be there.

[dumbestpersoniknow-blog]

The Path to Avengers: Endgame. Part 7 of 21--Iron Man 3

Observations and opinions. Feel free to disagree. I ain’t trying to convince you of nothing.

Pepper is now CEO of Stark Industries. Tony was a jerk in his younger days. The mistakes of one’s youth makes the super-villains of one’s present. This particular villain discovered a cure for dismemberment. Tony has been having portal-induced panic attacks since introducing a portal to a nuclear warhead.

This begins Phase 2 of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Why does Phase 2 start here?  What does this change of phases mean for the average fan? What is a Phase? Let me answer all of those question by saying: This is the beginning of Phase 2.

Now that I think about it, what’s different in Phase 2 is that we have entered the “superheroes do not need to inconvienience their superhero friends when mayhem ensues” era of the MCU. At one point, Happy tells Tony that he wants things to be how they used to be before Tony started hanging out with the superfriends.  Tony could have been helped by hanging out with the superfriends during this movie. Does he not want to bother them? Are they busy? The U.S. president gets kidnapped. Captain America would probably be willing to clear his schedule. Maybe he's too busy catching up on The Twilight Zone and Seinfeld.

Is Iron Man 3 is a Christmas movie? It has Christmas trees and Christmas lights and it has a Christmas music soundtrack. The reasons for this story-wise are nonexistent. But Director Shane Black likes Christmas movie. So there you go. Tony thinks a kid wanting his autograph looks like Ralphie. We learned in the first movie that Peter Billingsley works for Stark Industries. That’s almost interesting.

Speaking of almost interesting things, Jon Favreau, who directed the first two Iron Man movies, did not direct the third. But he did returned to play Happy Hogan. And speaking of Christmas movies and Peter Billingsley, he is in Elf, which is also directed by Jon Favreau. Favreau was hired to direct Iron Man based on the success of Elf. He was seen as a bankable director. The whole Marvel Cinematic Universe is born out of Elf. That sentence may be a stretch, but it’s typed now, so what can you do?

Uh oh. I feel a long paragraph coming on filled with petty complaints. In an attempt to add brevity, I’m going to type this paragraph all in one breath and stop there, no more. [big inhale]  A couple things that drive me crazy about this movie regard the Iron Man suits themselves. Tony implants implants into his arm so the suits know how to align when he summons them to fly onto his body. But he just basically points at Pepper to make the suits fly onto her. How does that work? And Tony, Rhodey, Pepper, President Ellis and that bad guy all wear iron suits at some point. Are these suits one-size-fits-all? I’d like to see all of these people in a lineup. There doesn’t appear to be much elastic around the mid-section of the Mach 42. Also, in the other movies, the big technological breakthrough was not the suits. It was the power source. In this movie, his suits break apart into a bunch of pieces and fly all over everywhere disconnected from their power source which is in Tony’s chest. And for a long stretch of the movie, Tony doesn’t have a suit because it needs to be charged up. Why does it need to be charged when he has the power source imbedded in his body? I hate to go getting all finicky, but the rules of this technology in have been set. They must follow the rules or [gasps for air] My fingers are strong. My lungs are weak. Moving on.

Now, a more substantive complaint:  The villainous scheme. I like judging villains by their evil plans. Forty years later, for me, the gold standard of villainous schemes is still Lex Luther buying up worthless desert out west and programing a nuclear missile to hit the San Andreas Fault. He does this in order to drop California into the sea which will give him a whole coastline of prime oceanfront real estate. That’s a clever idea. Stopping that is a job worthy of Superman.

In Iron Man 3, the villains need Tony’s help to—wait, no— thy need to kill Tony because—wait, no—they need to kidnap Pepper to force Tony to—wait, no—they need to kill Tony because— ummm, I can’t keep up with their motives. Another part of their big plan is to kill the president so they can become the vice president’s healthcare provider. Do I have that right? To be fair, their plan is to own both sides of The War on Terror. But the story is told in a muddled way.

Even though the overall narrative of this movie is messy and unfocused, it’s filled with fun scene after fun scene, funny moments and witty dialogue. The forrest is frightful. The trees are delightful.

Tony goes for a long stretch of the movie without one of his iron suits. He must rely on his MacGyveresque wits and creativity to take on the superpowered baddies. Good stuff. When his suit finally returns to him, it comes in stages. He fights a group of bad guys in their lair with only his right glove and left boot. Every time he takes someone out, he sets himself careening out of control. That’s scene is a hoot. I am fond.

Many fans of Iron Man from the comics became irate with this movie. It was billed as the introduction of The Mandarin. The Mandarin is Iron Man’s archenemy and looked to be played by Ben Kingsley, but !!!SPOILER ALERT!!! The Mandarin turned out not to be The Mandarin. He turned out to be a drunk actor named Trevor who was hired by the main villain to scare people. The main villain is rather run-of-the-mill and boring. Imagine months of hype about The Joker being in a Batman movie only to realize while watching the movie that The Joker was just some drunkard Carmine Falcone paid to act crazy. People were none too happy. But as someone who isn’t a fan of Iron Man from the comics, I thought it was a bold and inventive twist.

So Ben Kingsley was the Mandarin—until he wasn’t. Then Guy Pearce said he was the real Mandarin. But in the All Hail the King one-shot someone tries to break Ben Kingsley out of prison because the real Mandarin wants to see him. This would make Guy Pearce a fake Mandarin also. So there is the possibility that the Mandarin could be a future villain in another movie. This does seem unlikely to happen anytime soon. The Mandarin wears ten rings. Each ring gives him a different power. Even if Robert Downey Jr. continues on as Iron Man (or if he leaves and Iron Man is recast), the quota of superpowered hand jewelry has been used up by Thanos.

Tony Stark narrates this movie, which is new. I’m not a fan of narration. After William Holden explained how he got to be a corpse in Sunset Boulevard, narration has gone downhill. Well, I guess it works for Apocalypse Now. Frank Drebin did some good voice over work. Jacob Tremblay did some good narration for Room. Jacob Tremblay did some good narration for Wonder. Harrison Ford did some nearly tolerable narration for Blade Runner. However, the narration was even better in the Director’s Cut after it was removed.

Stan Lee Cameo— A happy judge at a beauty pageant.

Post Credits scene— Oh, the narration isn't narration. Stark has been talking to Bruce Banner for the whole movie as if Banner is his therapist—or as if someone is trying to say that this iteration of Bruce Banner is going to be around for more than one movie. Mark Ruffalo is the first actor to do so.

Returning Characters— Iron Man, Potts, Happy Hogan, Bruce Banner, Rhodey, JARVIS