Lethal Weapon Man 3

Rating: 1/10 (10 July 2018)

Shane Black's hilarious comic book movie spoof!

Ostensibly a Dizzee franchise sequel, the latest entry in megalomaniac capitalist Tony Stark's cybernetic journal is nothing more than a parody of what has come before, a special effects-stuffed turkey whose stale, cold leftovers would not even satisfy a porky Comic Con fan boy.
The cowards at Marvel, afraid to unleash a truly righteous villain against Stark's falsely patriotic robot alter ego, dump the bin Laden-like Mandarin character halfway through this loud, prolonged video game masquerading as cinema in favor of a fey, bare-chested Richard Branson knockoff intent on destroying the world and bedding Gwyneth Paltrow, or vice-versa.
The Mandarin is a phony, as fake as RDJ's waxen-faced performance, with the early scenes of revolutionary fervor and violent reaction to continued colonial oppression merely feints in a convoluted plot to - well, to get us to the end of the hopelessly overlong CGI spectacle. Capitalism rules the narrative, as it does the real world, so a tween boy's happiness spelled out in toys bought with Stark blood money is as close to a cheerful ending as this shameful cartoon can get.
Shane Black, who promised us his last action hero a couple of decades ago, is resurrected from Hollywood no man's land to fumble his way through the pixelated panels of this comic book disaster, tying it all together in a pretty digital package with much explosion and mayhem, his 1980's modus operandi. That there is "no there there" is as much trouble to Marvel and Black as their frightened western consumer's approach to eliminating an actual antagonist.
Tony Stark is, and always has been, a rat of an arms dealer turned savior of the Armor-ican way. This is no more evident in the fact that he allows his hot girlfriend to be turned into a genetically altered monster, then casually "saves her life" off screen, while in the coda he gets his heart repaired by the best surgeon money can buy: himself. This is a movie filled with such offhand adolescent irrelevancies. Adults could not care a whit about any of it.
If the bottom-line overlords at Dizzy had allowed it, Iron Man should have gone metal boot to combat boot with the "terrorist" Mandarin, and then we'd see the real fallout of Stark's first insidious armorer's holiday to the Middle East (can you say Jericho missile, anyone). As Gandalf might say, "dealing out death and judgment" is not so easy. It certainly shouldn't be left to some smartass arms company CEO.
Like the faux patriotism and plastic industrial America the movie's makers obviously worship, the CGI-blasted mayhem of the movie's climax is nothing but fake sighs and moans. All that matters is Stark gets his mojo back - and never has to face off against displaced people's anger. The Mandarin might be a "terrorist," but as depicted in the first half of the movie he is certainly righteously angry - and very funny. Stark, Dizzee, Marvel and all corporate goons deserve retribution at the hands of the people's chaos, but instead they sit around the board table chuckling at this prolonged SNL spoof they have concocted for the fan boys, and the millions r(e)aped in profits as yet another company boss wins the day.