If you’ve been following reports about Iron Man 3 , then you know that Gwyneth Paltrow’s character Pepper Potts dons an armored suit during the Mandarin’s helicopter attack on Tony Stark’s home. But now you can actually see her in the suit in this international TV spot for the movie. Gywnnie looks great, but I’m more interested in the Mandarin’s affectation-free “You’ll never see me coming” voiceover. Check out the clip below (via Indiewire), listen to Ben Kingsley say the line, then check out the American trailer that hit the web earlier in March and listen to Kingsley say the same line. See what I mean? The international version is much more plainspoken (and preferable, if you ask me). I’ve asked a Disney spokeswoman if a decision has been made to eliminate Kingsley’s weird dialect or if the Mandarin’s less affected voiceover is unique to one of the film’s international releases. I’ll update accordingly. More on Iron Man 3 : Iron Woman? If Pepper Potts Has A Future In Armor, She Needs To Kick Villain Ass [ Indiewire ] Follow Frank DiGiacomo on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
This latest and last trailer for Iron Man 3 before the Marvel movie’s May 3 release takes a while to work up a head of steam, but stick with it. Do your best to ignore the cringe-inducing dialect that Ben Kingsley has adopted to play the Mandarin — “you’lllll neverrrr see me coming” — try not to be distracted by Gwyneth Paltrow in a black bra and wait for the final shots of this Yahoo! exclusive. The rumors were true: Tony Stark’s alloyed forces do appear at the very end of the trailer, and they look like a lot of fun. [ Yahoo! ] Follow Frank DiGiacomo on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
With the first Iron Man 3 trailer premiering on Tuesday, Disney whet franchise fans’ appetites by releasing a 17-second teaser trailer and poster for the latest installment of the metallic Marvel superhero saga. The trailer is one of those blink-and-you-miss-it deals that raises more questions than it answers, but, based on the movie-trailer-foreshadowing course I took in college, Pepper Potts ( Gwyneth Paltrow ) will be in some definite danger come May. Next to Downey, Potts’ character gets even more attention than what appears to be a from-the-rear shot of super-villain Mandarin, who will be played by Ben Kingsley . The weird thing is that when I first saw the Potts scene, I thought Paltrow was laughing. I figured this was trailer shorthand for establishing Potts/Paltrow as such a heart-lifting force in cynical Tony Stark’s life that, well, something bad has to happen to her. Turns out the teaser trailer is way more direct than that. Judging from Paltrow’s sweaty appearance and confinement in some weird restraining device that looks like it was borrowed from a Six Flags roller coaster, Pepper’s in a world of pain. Could it be [cue ominous music]…torture at the hands of the dastardly Mandarin? (More about him in a later post.) Either that, or maybe Paltrow’s character is undergoing some kind of state-of-the-art psychological treatment in which she’s just learned that Goop was seriously jank idea. Regardless of the interpretation of Gwynnie’s facial expression, my conclusion remains the same: She’s going to be in harm’s way in Iron Man 3 , which jibes with the this-time-it’s-personal synopsis that Disney released on Thursday. In case you’ve forgotten: Marvel Studios’ “Iron Man 3” pits brash-but-brilliant industrialist Tony Stark/Iron Man against an enemy whose reach knows no bounds. When Stark finds his personal world destroyed at his enemy’s hands, he embarks on a harrowing quest to find those responsible. This journey, at every turn, will test his mettle. With his back against the wall, Stark is left to survive by his own devices, relying on his ingenuity and instincts to protect those closest to him. As he fights his way back, Stark discovers the answer to the question that has secretly haunted him: does the man make the suit or does the suit make the man? Here’s the teaser trailer. I hope tomorrow’s longer version reveals more. Follow Frank DiGiacomo on Twitter. Follow Movieline on Twitter.
Sacha Baron Cohen and Larry Charles’ The Dictator is indefensible and hilarious, an unruly thing that invites you to laugh at things you feel you shouldn’t. I’ve heard people — even some who like the picture — referring to The Dictator as offensive, and one of the guys sitting behind me at the screening laughed at some jokes and remained awkwardly mute during others. After one of these pauses — the vibrations of his uneasiness were traveling right through my seat back — I heard him say to his pal, “I’m not sure how I feel about this.” But as the end credits rolled he announced joyously, “That was great!” as if he’d endured an enema cleansing that made him feel a whole lot better afterward. Cohen has many gifts as a performer, and with The Dictator he reveals yet another one: He knows how to flush stuff right out of you. Cohen’s invented character du jour is a despot named General Admiral Haffaz Aladeen, ruler of the equally made-up North African state of Wadiya. Aladeen hates the West, hates Jews and regularly calls for the execution of anyone who undermines his authority, by, say, questioning his firm belief that nuclear missiles should be pointy and not rounded. His chief adviser is his Uncle Tamir (Ben Kingsley), who chafes under Aladeen’s authoritarian rule and seeks to undermine him. After Aladeen survives an assassination attempt, Tamir persuades him to go to New York to address the United Nations, which has been sticking its nose into his sordid doings. Once he gets to the city — he makes his grand entrance on the back of a decorated camel — he’s kidnapped, stripped of his protruding steel-wool beard and medal-and-scrambled-egg-encrusted uniform, and forced to live as an anonymous immigrant with a tenuous grasp of the English language. It’s at this point that he meets Zoey (Anna Faris), a peacenik mighty-mite who runs a whole-foods store and who, in her desire to be fair and generous to all peoples, attempts to understand his motivations as he spouts all sorts of racist and sexist invective. Meanwhile, Aladeen — who has adopted the name Alison Burgers, for reasons so ridiculous that they’re better left unexplained until you see the film — attempts to reclaim his stature with the help of scientist and Wadiyan exile Nadal (Jason Mantzoukas), who agrees to help him regain his mojo by bulking up in the nukes department. Cohen’s targets here include people who fly planes into buildings for religious reasons, people who hate Jews, and women with hair under their arms. As they used to say on Sesame Street , one of these things is not like the others, but those of you who like to cultivate fragrant jungles in your armpits will just have to deal. The satire in The Dictator is sharp but not exquisitely pointed, and the movie is better for it: It’s clear enough where Cohen’s sympathies lie — his jokes have a kind of sick buoyancy, instead of hammering you with their politics. Cohen’s humor is political, though in the end it may really only be humanitarian. At home in Wadiya, amongst his riches, his servants and his high-cost prostitutes (one of whom is Megan Fox, gamely playing herself), Aladeen likes to play video games, including a Wii-style amusement called “Munich Olympics.” I groaned, along with much of the audience, when he hit the “play” button, but there’s anger in the joke as well as audacity. Cohen doesn’t suffer bullies gladly, which makes a character like Aladeen an irresistible canvas for him. The Dictator is a written-and-rehearsed picture, unlike the extended prank Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan , and it’s probably the better film. As he did on that picture (and the more wayward Brüno ), Cohen again pairs with director Larry Charles, who’s acutely in tune with his rhythms. Charles — who has worked extensively in TV as a producer and/or writer on shows like Seinfeld , Entourage and Curb Your Enthusiasm , and who also directed the gloriously woolly 2003 Bob Dylan fever dream Masked and Anonymous — has by this point proved to be a great midwife for the ideas of oddball intellects. He gives some shape and heft even to Cohen’s silliest gags, like the one in which it’s explained that Aladeen amended the Wadiyan language so that “negative” and “positive” are the same word — this bit of silliness occasions a great little cameo for Aasif Mandvi as a doctor who’s trying to give a patient the result of his AIDS test. Add to that the pleasure of watching Cohen in all his long-legged, language-mangling glory: The Dictator works both as satire and as comedy, and the two don’t always mingle so easily. Cohen has a way of slinging lines that’s as casual as a cook flipping meat patties in a burger joint. “The police here are such fascists!” he says, aghast at the behavior of New York City cops, but he’s really just setting us up for the kicker: “And not in the good way!” By the time Aladeen has been in in New York for a while, his sartorial choices have been unduly influenced by crunchy-granola Zoey, to the point where he thinks nothing of wearing Crocs in public. When Nadal uses this footwear choice as evidence of how far Aladeen has fallen, the has-been tyrant can only agree: “Crocs,” he says dejectedly, “the universal symbol of men who have given up hope.” Cohen may be playing an autocrat, but he doesn’t let his ego run roughshod over his fellow actors. Anna Faris gets less screentime than Cohen does, but she stands up to him admirably, maybe because she’s willing to go just as far as he is for a laugh, even a painful one. As Zoey, a no-makeup martinet with firm ideas about equality among all peoples, she captures perfectly the tyrannical smugness of the tiny but powerful nation of white people known as Park Slope, Brooklyn. The Dictator , for all its liberal leanings, doesn’t let anyone off the hook, not even well-intentioned liberals. Cohen comes right out and says things that most of us, in polite conversation, wouldn’t dare. He knows it’s the impolite conversation that really gets things moving. Follow Stephanie Zacharek on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
What is it with Hollywood trailers this week? Men in Black 3 looked like more like a mass grave than a summer confection, Rock of Ages drowned in music to grocery-shop to, and now the first look at Sacha Baron Cohen’s The Dictator boldly takes on that most subversive and risky of subjects: Muslim despots of the Middle East. You know — the decadent self-parodies being overthrown, dragged out into the street and executed because they are so incredibly relevant in the 21st century! Oh, and Megan Fox. And the Kardashians. Sigh . Click through for your pick of low-hanging fruit.
After a weekend of speculation, guesses and second-guesses about which top-secret “work in progress by a master filmmaker” would in fact screen tonight as a last-minute addition to the New York Film Festival, Martin Scorsese confirmed today’s reports by taking the stage at Avery Fisher Hall in Manhattan and introducing his family-friendly 3-D opus Hugo to a loving hometown crowd.
You know what they say: When life throws you Megan Fox and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles stories, make a Michael Bay update. Psych! I totally made that up! Never mind. Read on, however, for the odd news confluence that has necessitated a brief check-up on the Emperor.
Last night Katherine Heigl made her first appearance on the Tonight Show since 1995, when the struggling actress shamelessly entertained Jay Leno with her lawnmower dance move to promote Under Siege 2 . Sadly for viewers though, Leno passed up the hilarious clip reel in favor of good-old fashioned talking points — talking points that were meant to elicit funny anecdotes, but instead led to the Killers actress choking up while discussing the death of her brother. Click through to see how Jay Leno handled the unexpected emotion, as well as the other highlights you missed last night while mourning The Tyra Banks Show .
