Horror Fest VII Day Two: The Cabin in the Woods

 Oh, kiddos! I know! I sure thought that this year, of all years, Halloween III: Season of the Witch was going to make it! But it got bumped... for Moontrap. Yeah, let's just blame Moontrap for it and not my inability to stay up late any more.

 Once upon a time, believe it or not, Horror and Summer Fests were and ALL NIGHT activity. No joke. There was a time, when the Cap'n and friends were younger than they are now, when I could actually watch movies until six or seven in the morning, go to bed, wake up five hours later, and start all over. Seriously, though: I have hazy memories of watching Friday the 13th Part 2 as the sun was coming up during Summer Fest or nudging Neil and Cranpire to wake up as Shark Attack 3: Megalodon reached its absurd crescendo (and if you've seen the movie, you know EXACTLY what I'm talking about) at six thirty in the morning. That used to happen.

 But not so much any more. Now we're older than we used to be, and it's much, much harder to keep things going past midnight. Three is usually the threshold, even on a weekend, and when everybody else takes off, it's difficult to talk myself into pushing that extra mile, even for you, dear readers.

 So Cap'n Howdy is a lame-o and you aren't going to get the Halloween III: Season of the Witch write-up you were so desperately hoping for. Or the one for The Silent Scream (featuring The Boogens' Rebecca Balding). If you'd like I can repost my review of The Woman in Black and we can pretend folks stayed awake for it. Because, believe me, if they had, they wouldn't have slept at all that night. Hell, if The Boogens hadn't happened, there's a good chance V/H/S could have ruined some golden slumbers on Friday. But that's what horror movies are supposed to do, dammit! They're supposed to scare the crap out of you and keep you up all night. That and Hobo Bug Juice, but with less vomiting on the former and probably more on the latter.

 There's a reason they don't make Mountain Dew: Game Fuel Orange any more, and I'd like to think it's because someone found out we were mixing it with Wild Irish Rose and putting it in Styrofoam cups for your endurance pleasure. That's surely why nobody makes Sunkists Floats anymore - TripWIR was too much for any one human to handle.

---

 Where was I? Oh yes, the closing film of Horror Fest VII - Cap'n Howdy's New Nightmare, which surprisingly didn't feature a single Nightmare on Elm Street film (partly because we watched Part 4 - The Dream Master during Summerfest 4). I am here to add a few thoughts to The Cabin in the Woods, mostly to my initial write-up, which gave Four Reasons to See The Cabin in the Woods (Again), which I did.

 Tonight was actually the fourth time I've seen the film (the fifth if you count watching it with the commentary). I saw it again in theaters, and then on home video and Blu-Ray (clearly the same thing so ask no follow up questions there) and I took advantage of the "pause" button to scour the background for details. And while I still haven't found the Unicorn Tapestry (and I will!), I did see a lot of the other triggers for various monsters (including what I believe would unleash the Dismemberment Goblins, the evil doctors, and possibly the sexy witches that we'll see when The Cabin in the Woods makes its way to Skinemax).

 I guess I forgot to mention this when I did the original write-up of The Cabin in the Woods, but the very first time I saw it there was some grousing online about what the "electrical disruption" was that prevented the cave-in and how it came from "upstairs." It was a plot point people seemed to believe was abandoned or never really explained in favor of getting Marty and Dana into the facility and unleashing the monsters. However, the second time I saw the movie it was abundantly clear what happened, and there was no secretive conspiracy being used to undermine the facility from within.

 So "upstairs" is the cabin and the entire area surrounding it, and since the electrical disturbance happens after Marty disappears, it's pretty clear that the wires he was playing around with that lead him to find the elevator are what prevents the cave-in from happening. There's no reason to resolve that story downstairs because the characters it impacts don't meet Marty until it's too late, so it's entirely up to the audience to put it together. Sneaky...

 I still feel like the film is more a commentary on horror in the abstract than attributable to any single film, and that it models itself more on Scooby Doo character tropes than a particular horror film or series, but that doesn't bother me. Most of the horror theory I read in college and continue to study now begins with broad notions and pulls portions of specific films in as it suits them (for example, the idea that "Final Girls" have gender ambiguous names, which I'm sorry, but how many guys do you know named Laurie, Nancy, or Alice - Halloween, A Nightmare on Elm Street, and Friday the 13th, the "big three" for Final Girl theory). It's okay that The Cabin in the Woods is more "about" horror in general than it is about a specific set of tropes you see over and over again. Believe me, I spent the whole weekend watching horror movies and The Cabin in the Woods meta-narrative doesn't map onto any of them, even The Mutilator.

 Still, it's a clever idea and it has something to say about audiences and our relationship to the films we watch, which puts it ten to twenty notches above, say, Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon, which talks a lot ABOUT horror tropes but doesn't really have anything to say about them (other than to make up a trope - the "Ahab" - that only exists in the Halloween films).

 Alas, kiddos, it's pushing 2 in the morning, and as much as I'd like to wax the philosophic about this, the Cap'n is no spring chicken anymore. I'm older, and wiser, especially enough to know better than to ever take on the McGangbang Challenge again... that took years off of my life!

Blogorium Review: The Avengers

 When I think of "Summer Blockbuster" movies, I tend to think of the 1999 remake of The Mummy. It's a big, loud, dumb, action packed movie with plenty of special effects and wafer thin characters. When I say "big," I mean the scale of just about everything: the fight scenes, the chases, even the jokes are elevated to a massive level. Rachel Weisz is introduced as he character knocks down every shelf in a library. It has a little something for everybody, including something for the horror fans: it's hard to argue that the scarabs who tunnel under your skin and eat your heart or the pre-Arnold Vosloo Imhotep are there for the kiddos or the romantics who came to see Fraser and Weisz trade barbs before falling in love. It's an entertaining, if inconsequential, film that does exactly what it sets out to do, throws in some (for then) state-of-the-art special effects, and sends audiences home happy.

 The Mummy is what I assume people mean when they say "it's not supposed to be Hamlet - it's just a movie!" Of course, I haven't seen the Transformers film*, which is where this argument comes up with every successive sequel. It's what I gather I'll be hearing from people who go to see Battleship, this year's Transformers surrogate. That's fine, I guess. Gone are the days when "summer" movies meant movies like Batman Returns or Jaws or Raiders of the Lost Ark were the norm, when John and Jane Q. Public would go to movies that didn't need to be as close to "lowest common denominator" studio concocted and market tested product as humanly possible. Where movies like The Dark Knight or Inception aren't a rarity. Okay, so Mission: Impossible: III and Star Trek and even Iron Man also qualify. Let's not be so myopic here, but my point is that playing it safe pays off and doing something a little risky (and Batman Returns or Alien 3's relative failure may have fed into this) was something you wouldn't need to wait a few years between.

 Which brings us to The Avengers, the culmination of Marvel Studios' four year project to make a film for Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.), Captain America (Chris Evans), Thor (Chris Hemsworth), and The Incredible Hulk (Eric Bana, no wait, Edward Norton... no, wait...) before bringing them together with Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) and Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) under the leadership of Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) to save the world. In The Avengers, the threat is Loki (Tom Hiddleston), introduced as "Loki! The brother of Thor!" by Erik Selvig (Stellan Skarsgård), in case you missed Thor last summer. That would, by the way, probably be a bad idea, but don't worry, Marvel isn't going to leave you in the dark at the beginning of the movie. That might make you leave.

 So I don't want anybody thinking that I didn't enjoy The Avengers. I did. I enjoyed it a LOT more than The Mummy, which is an unfair comparison but helps frame how I feel about how The Avengers functions as entertainment and the reaction to the film. I've seen it twice now, and I liked it more the second time than the first. It's a film that plays like gangbusters with an audience, so I totally understand why people are throwing around words like "amazing" while other reviewers are reacting in comparably hyperbolic ways to bring them back to Earth.

 The first time I saw The Avengers, I was caught off guard by just how "Whedon-esque" The Avengers is. I don't want to repeat too much of what I said last week, which covers what most of audiences know of Joss Whedon versus what his die hard fans have come to expect, but even I wasn't expecting The Avengers to be as "quippy" as Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Serenity. Almost every character has a moment where they make a clever, scathing comment that undercuts tension or action or a speech made by someone else. Most of them have several, and I'm not just talking about Downey's perpetually snarky Tony Stark, who has a nickname for every member of the team. Even the Hulk (Mark Ruffalo) gets a line in that is, apparently, often drowned out by the laughter from what happens right before he says it (the line, for anyone who didn't hear it, is "Puny god.")

 At first, I didn't know how I felt about it. Being a semi-dedicated Whedon-head**, once it happened a few times, I understood that this was going to be a film where stakes were maybe not as important as they could be. Then again, that's fine: if you've seen any of my other reviews for these films, Jon Favreau, Kenneth Branagh, and Joe Johnston also muted any serious sense of threat to their respective outings. The Avengers are "hopelessly outgunned" but not in such a way that Tony Stark doesn't continue to threaten Loki right before a Chitauri*** invasion of Manhattan. The film was enjoyable, but I had reservations about how I felt about the lack of "stakes," even when a supporting character died and another character turned "evil" early in the film. Rather than meaning much, it just made sense. That's a good way to address two characters we kind of know but who have to this point played minor roles in other films.

 See, the more I write about The Avengers, the more it seems like I didn't enjoy it. Nothing is further from the truth: I'll probably see it again, maybe even this weekend. I highly recommend it to people tired of insipid "summer entertainment" and I think it's great that parents are bringing their kids (or, more likely, vice versa) and that the whole family seems to be loving it. This is a movie that can comfortably show trailers for Prometheus, The Dark Knight Rises, and Pixar's Brave beforehand and not one of them seems out of place. It's a movie for geeks, for families, for casual moviegoers, and people just looking to have fun at the movies. Clearly its box office receipts (which, as you know, is the only way you know a movie is any good****) support the idea of its universal appeal. It is a LOT of fun, and I really want to emphasize that.

  The more I think about it, the more appropriate it is to compare The Avengers to The Mummy AND to J.J. Abrams' Star Trek. The Mummy I use as a sort of superficial concept of what "summer entertainment" means, in that it is successful in trying to reach all of the target demographics while also being vaguely enjoyable but also mostly forgettable once you're finished with it. It's why the film works so well on Saturday afternoons, when it seems to play on television. It doesn't require you to pay too much attention, but you'll have a good time and be able to get back to what you're doing without much trouble.

 Star Trek, similarly, is a more successful version of this. It's accessible both to Trekkies***** and people who know of Star Trek but haven't necessarily been following the series or films. The direction is assured, the film moves at a brisk pace, the cast is fun, and it delivers laughs and thrills in equal measure. I continue to argue that despite the fact that the Star Trek reboot is a very entertaining film, it doesn't have much - if any - of a plot. It does such a fine job of making you not notice this fact that nobody really seems to mind, and I'm cool with that.

 The Avengers is sort of like that, in that it gets by on such good will with what it does right (the levity, the excitement, the humor, the character interaction), that you don't really mind the first half dragging after Loki steals the Cosmic Cube (er, Tesseract******) until Thor shows up. We spend time catching up with Tony Stark and Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow), we see Black Widow in a scene that should make fans of Buffy or Dollhouse very happy, we meet the new guy playing Bruce Banner and enjoy the fact that Marvel finally nailed the Hulk's alter ego, and as usual, Steve Rogers doesn't have much to contribute.

 I know. I was mean to Captain America in that review, but aside from one great line ("There's only one God, ma'am, and I don't think he dresses like that") he doesn't get to do much but shout orders. Well, there's the other nice moment when he finally gets a pop culture reference (at the expense of Thor) that's a good laugh during an exposition scene. Captain America doesn't play much of a role in his fight scene with Loki - Iron Man swoops in and saves the day, and I don't really understand why the whole "Thor's hammer vs. Cap's shield" manages to end a fight in the woods after the God of Thunder steals Loki from S.H.I.E.L.D.'s jet.

 But look, I'm thinking about this too much. And I'm not saying that maybe I shouldn't, but like Star Trek, most people just don't care. And I'm okay with that, because if you're going to get behind "summer entertainment" in the way people are getting behind The Avengers, it's vastly preferable that it be something this well made. This much fun. Joss Whedon knows exactly how to put the right pieces together to make a movie that plays to as many people as possible without pandering or dumbing everything down, and now he has a massive platform with which to demonstrate it. I totally understand why people LOVE this movie, and I understand why some critics are so frustrated that people are willing to overlook so much of what isn't "perfect" that they see. Both sides have a point, even if they're reaching a little too hard to prove what the other is "missing."

 Where am I? Well, like I said, I'll be seeing it again. I enjoyed it that much and think a third time is worthwhile. I'm comfortable with the film's strengths and faults in equal measure and to be honest, the former outweigh the latter in all the ways that count. Since I can't fathom why I'd see Battleship, The Avengers is going to be my "summer entertainment," as Thor and Fast Five were last year. Things will get dark and moody with Prometheus, The Dark Knight Rises, and (hopefully) Looper in the coming months, but I'll be happy to have some fun with Earth's Mightiest Heroes in the meantime. You should too.







* After The Island, Michael Bay and I got to a point where it made more sense for us to spend some time apart. Not being able to follow the incomprehensibly edited and shot robot action scenes in the trailers made the decision to sit out the last seven years of his output easier.
** That's what you call yourselves, right? I mean, you aren't all just Browncoats, right?
*** Interesting tidbit I missed during the credits - the Chitauri named "The Other" is played by Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel alumn Alexis Denisof.
*** On the off chance you have never read one of my reviews before or anything else from this blog, I would like to point out that this statement is intended sarcastically.
**** Sorry, Trekkers.
****** I must admit that I'm a little confused why The Cosmic Cube isn't called "The Cosmic Cube" in The Avengers, and is instead repeatedly referred to as "The Tesseract." At first I thought it was to avoid explaining what a "Cosmic Cube" would do, but when you introduce Thanos as the stinger for the sequel and don't say his name (the lady sitting next to me asked her boyfriend "who's he?" and he didn't know) then I think you could get away with just calling it The Cosmic Cube.

Blogorium Reviews Assemble!: Thor

I'm of two minds when it comes to reviewing Thor, because as much as I want to convey to readers that the movie is not only watchable, but eminently better than the garbage passing itself off as "summer entertainment" year after year, I also feel a responsibility to point out that half of the film is much better than the other. I feel this is directly attributable to Thor's director, Kenneth Branagh.

Branagh, whose output varies from the likes of Dead Again to a remake of Sleuth, is best known for his Shakespearean films - Henry V, Hamlet, Love's Labours Lost, Much Ado About Nothing, and As You Like It (as well as appearing in Othello) - and the influence of the Bard on his adaptation of the Nordic-God-Turned-Marvel-Comic-Hero is apparent throughout the film.At least, part of the film.
 
  In the realm of Asgard (one of the nine cosmic realms), Odin (Anthony Hopkins), King of the Gods, is preparing to step down and enter Odinsleep - his period of hibernation - but first must decide which of his sons to hand the throne of Asgard to. His oldest son, Thor (Chris Hemsworth) is brave, if stubborn, whose rule may be undermined by a sense of entitlement. His youngest son, Loki (Tom Hiddleston) spent his life living in the shadow of Thor, and while his mischievous nature is recognized, his desire to win Odin's approval is evident. When the Frost Giants invade Asgard and try to steal back the Casket of Ancient Winters (their power supply), Thor disregards Odin's wishes and travels to Jotunheim with Loki, Sif (Jaimie Alexander) and The Warriors Three - Volstagg (Ray Stevenson), Fandral (Joshua Dallas), Hogun (Tadanobu Asano) - in tow to destroy the King of the Frost Giants (Colm Feore). Furious, Odin strips Thor of his powers and orders Heimdall (Idris Elba) to banish his son to Earth.

 And that's the first half hour or so of Thor. That doesn't take into account astrophysicist Jane Foster (Natalie Portman), her advisor Dr.Erik Selvig (Stellan Skarsgård), and assistant Darcy (Kat Dennings), who discover Thor while searching the deserts in New Mexico for wormholes (or, as the film insists on calling them, "Einstein-Rosen bridges*"). No sooner have they found the brash, unruly son of Odin than Mjolnir, Thor's hammer, also falls to Earth and is discovered by S.H.I.E.L.D., headed up by Agent Coulson (Clark Gregg), who continues to appear in all Avengers-related Marvel films.

 The New Mexico part of the story, including a well-staged action sequence involving Thor, the S.H.I.E.L.D. team (including an extended cameo by Jeremy Renner, who will play Hawkeye in The Avengers**), is unfortunately the half of the film that doesn't really work. It's clear that Branagh is more interested in the Shakespearean power play at hand in Asgard, where Loki assumes power as Odin collapses after banishing Thor and proceeds to manipulate events in order to keep his older brother from ever returning. What happens on Earth, the place where Thor learns humility and earns his "God of Thunder" powers - which should be the most important part of the film - takes a back seat to Asgardian politics.

 Portman and Skarsgård are wasted in roles that serve no purpose: Jane Foster's developing romance with Thor never really makes sense because there's no story arc to support it. Selvig seems to exist in order to bridge Norse mythology to the story at hand (as is evidenced by the many times Skarsgård is forced to mention or read tales of the Viking Gods during the film), and for one good scene where he (badly) lies about Thor's identity to free him from S.H.I.E.L.D. captivity. There's also the after credits tease, but I'll get to that in a minute. I have no idea why Kat Dennings is in the film at all, as Darcy contributes nothing to the story unless the three screenwriters (plus two credited "story" writers) felt the pressing need to have three people discover Thor.

 Gregg is, as usual, fine as the "been there, seen that" second hand man of S.H.I.E.L.D. This time, he's on his own (Samuel L. Jackson's Nick Fury doesn't show up until later), and makes a credible Earth-bound foil for Thor, I guess. Since Thor pretty much gives up on beating goons after failing to raise Mjolnir, it's hard to really say. Again, the Earth-bound business feels perfunctory, second to the far more interesting Asgard story.

 Branagh seems to be more comfortable with Hopkins, Hiddleston, Hemsworth, Elba, and Renee Russo (who I didn't even recognize as Odin's wife Frigg) and the power struggle between father and sons. It's as though he's reveling in a pulp fiction twist on King Lear, and the film comes to life during throne room conversations. That's not to say that the Asgard half of the film isn't without its problems, though - another Branagh idiosyncrasy pops up that further confuses the narrative.

 Audiences have some idea when they are introduced to Loki that he's supposed to be the villain: his posture is slightly stooped, his hair is slicked back and his sullen, sunken eyes just scream "bad guy waiting in the wings!" But when the time comes for Hiddleston to shift from younger brother with an inferiority complex to full on baddie, Branagh doesn't convey that. This shouldn't be surprising: Branagh also devoted as much of his Hamlet as possible to give nuance to Claudius, typically portrayed as the moustache twirling villain. And there's something to be said for nuance, for giving a villain dimensions, or even to make him sympathetic, but Loki is such a muddled antagonist that he's never a genuine threat for Thor.

 In fact, Loki doesn't actually behave in a villainous manner until the after-credits sequence (directed by Joss Whedon, it turns out), where Selvig is summoned by Nick Fury to examine the Cosmic Cube. This brings me to another problem that isn't Branagh's fault, per se, but more attributable to Marvel Executive Producer Kevin Feige: the "set-up" effect.

 To be fair, Thor integrates Marvel characters (specifically Avenger-related) in a less intrusive way than say, Iron Man 2: there are small asides that indirectly mention Tony Stark and Bruce Banner; there's the aforementioned "Hawkeye" scene, and The Cosmic Cube is their way of anticipating the Captain America film to come. Nevertheless, the cumulative effect is that Thor on Earth isn't really about Thor among humans, but as laying the groundwork for The Avengers, right down to the last thing he says to Agent Coulson before leaving for Asgard.

 Okay, so I've nitpicked Thor as a way of addressing why there's a small (but vocal) backlash against the film online, so why do I think it's better than most summer entertainment? Well, the Asgard sections of the film are very good, as is the battle with the Frost Giants. Hemsworth and Elba are both great; Hopkins hasn't been this watchable in a while, and while they don't make much of an impact in the story, Sif and The Warriors Three have a natural chemistry with Thor that hints at a stronger relationship than we see in the film.

 The film is also funnier than this recap might suggest, and the laughs are much needed considering how much "fish out of water" plot is glossed over. The effects are impressive, particularly the Bifröst and bridge of Asgard. More to the point I feel the need to stress that there actually IS a story in Thor, which is more than I can say for a lot of "summer movies." It may not be the perfect comic book movie, but if you don't mind the imbalance of interest on Branagh's part, there's a lot to enjoy in Thor.



* I mention this because Ain't It Cool News, of all places, has an actual astrophysicist that breaks down the science of Thor here, and it seems like while the name is appropriate, it's really just a fancy way of saying "wormhole."
** I mention this because Coulson never actually uses his Avengers moniker, so either you know about the casting or are enough of a Marvel fan to know why he chooses a compound bow over sniper rifle. Or both, I suppose. Otherwise, it's just "hey, why is Jeremy Renner in this movie?"

Blogorium Review: Thor

I'm of two minds when it comes to reviewing Thor, because as much as I want to convey to readers that the movie is not only watchable, but eminently better than the garbage passing itself off as "summer entertainment" year after year, I also feel a responsibility to point out that half of the film is much better than the other. I feel this is directly attributable to Thor's director, Kenneth Branagh.

Branagh, whose output varies from the likes of Dead Again to a remake of Sleuth, is best known for his Shakespearean films - Henry V, Hamlet, Love's Labours Lost, Much Ado About Nothing, and As You Like It (as well as appearing in Othello) - and the influence of the Bard on his adaptation of the Nordic-God-Turned-Marvel-Comic-Hero is apparent throughout the film.At least, part of the film.
 
  In the realm of Asgard (one of the nine cosmic realms), Odin (Anthony Hopkins), King of the Gods, is preparing to step down and enter Odinsleep - his period of hibernation - but first must decide which of his sons to hand the throne of Asgard to. His oldest son, Thor (Chris Hemsworth) is brave, if stubborn, whose rule may be undermined by a sense of entitlement. His youngest son, Loki (Tom Hiddleston) spent his life living in the shadow of Thor, and while his mischievous nature is recognized, his desire to win Odin's approval is evident. When the Frost Giants invade Asgard and try to steal back the Casket of Ancient Winters (their power supply), Thor disregards Odin's wishes and travels to Jotunheim with Loki, Sif (Jaimie Alexander) and The Warriors Three - Volstagg (Ray Stevenson), Fandral (Joshua Dallas), Hogun (Tadanobu Asano) - in tow to destroy the King of the Frost Giants (Colm Feore). Furious, Odin strips Thor of his powers and orders Heimdall (Idris Elba) to banish his son to Earth.

 And that's the first half hour or so of Thor. That doesn't take into account astrophysicist Jane Foster (Natalie Portman), her advisor Dr.Erik Selvig (Stellan Skarsgård), and assistant Darcy (Kat Dennings), who discover Thor while searching the deserts in New Mexico for wormholes (or, as the film insists on calling them, "Einstein-Rosen bridges*"). No sooner have they found the brash, unruly son of Odin than Mjolnir, Thor's hammer, also falls to Earth and is discovered by S.H.I.E.L.D., headed up by Agent Coulson (Clark Gregg), who continues to appear in all Avengers-related Marvel films.

 The New Mexico part of the story, including a well-staged action sequence involving Thor, the S.H.I.E.L.D. team (including an extended cameo by Jeremy Renner, who will play Hawkeye in The Avengers**), is unfortunately the half of the film that doesn't really work. It's clear that Branagh is more interested in the Shakespearean power play at hand in Asgard, where Loki assumes power as Odin collapses after banishing Thor and proceeds to manipulate events in order to keep his older brother from ever returning. What happens on Earth, the place where Thor learns humility and earns his "God of Thunder" powers - which should be the most important part of the film - takes a back seat to Asgardian politics.

 Portman and Skarsgård are wasted in roles that serve no purpose: Jane Foster's developing romance with Thor never really makes sense because there's no story arc to support it. Selvig seems to exist in order to bridge Norse mythology to the story at hand (as is evidenced by the many times Skarsgård is forced to mention or read tales of the Viking Gods during the film), and for one good scene where he (badly) lies about Thor's identity to free him from S.H.I.E.L.D. captivity. There's also the after credits tease, but I'll get to that in a minute. I have no idea why Kat Dennings is in the film at all, as Darcy contributes nothing to the story unless the three screenwriters (plus two credited "story" writers) felt the pressing need to have three people discover Thor.

 Gregg is, as usual, fine as the "been there, seen that" second hand man of S.H.I.E.L.D. This time, he's on his own (Samuel L. Jackson's Nick Fury doesn't show up until later), and makes a credible Earth-bound foil for Thor, I guess. Since Thor pretty much gives up on beating goons after failing to raise Mjolnir, it's hard to really say. Again, the Earth-bound business feels perfunctory, second to the far more interesting Asgard story.

 Branagh seems to be more comfortable with Hopkins, Hiddleston, Hemsworth, Elba, and Renee Russo (who I didn't even recognize as Odin's wife Frigg) and the power struggle between father and sons. It's as though he's reveling in a pulp fiction twist on King Lear, and the film comes to life during throne room conversations. That's not to say that the Asgard half of the film isn't without its problems, though - another Branagh idiosyncrasy pops up that further confuses the narrative.

 Audiences have some idea when they are introduced to Loki that he's supposed to be the villain: his posture is slightly stooped, his hair is slicked back and his sullen, sunken eyes just scream "bad guy waiting in the wings!" But when the time comes for Hiddleston to shift from younger brother with an inferiority complex to full on baddie, Branagh doesn't convey that. This shouldn't be surprising: Branagh also devoted as much of his Hamlet as possible to give nuance to Claudius, typically portrayed as the moustache twirling villain. And there's something to be said for nuance, for giving a villain dimensions, or even to make him sympathetic, but Loki is such a muddled antagonist that he's never a genuine threat for Thor.

 In fact, Loki doesn't actually behave in a villainous manner until the after-credits sequence (directed by Joss Whedon, it turns out), where Selvig is summoned by Nick Fury to examine the Cosmic Cube. This brings me to another problem that isn't Branagh's fault, per se, but more attributable to Marvel Executive Producer Kevin Feige: the "set-up" effect.

 To be fair, Thor integrates Marvel characters (specifically Avenger-related) in a less intrusive way than say, Iron Man 2: there are small asides that indirectly mention Tony Stark and Bruce Banner; there's the aforementioned "Hawkeye" scene, and The Cosmic Cube is their way of anticipating the Captain America film to come. Nevertheless, the cumulative effect is that Thor on Earth isn't really about Thor among humans, but as laying the groundwork for The Avengers, right down to the last thing he says to Agent Coulson before leaving for Asgard.

 Okay, so I've nitpicked Thor as a way of addressing why there's a small (but vocal) backlash against the film online, so why do I think it's better than most summer entertainment? Well, the Asgard sections of the film are very good, as is the battle with the Frost Giants. Hemsworth and Elba are both great; Hopkins hasn't been this watchable in a while, and while they don't make much of an impact in the story, Sif and The Warriors Three have a natural chemistry with Thor that hints at a stronger relationship than we see in the film.

 The film is also funnier than this recap might suggest, and the laughs are much needed considering how much "fish out of water" plot is glossed over. The effects are impressive, particularly the Bifröst and bridge of Asgard. More to the point I feel the need to stress that there actually IS a story in Thor, which is more than I can say for a lot of "summer movies." It may not be the perfect comic book movie, but if you don't mind the imbalance of interest on Branagh's part, there's a lot to enjoy in Thor.





* I mention this because Ain't It Cool News, of all places, has an actual astrophysicist that breaks down the science of Thor here, and it seems like while the name is appropriate, it's really just a fancy way of saying "wormhole."
** I mention this because Coulson never actually uses his Avengers moniker, so either you know about the casting or are enough of a Marvel fan to know why he chooses a compound bow over sniper rifle. Or both, I suppose. Otherwise, it's just "hey, why is Jeremy Renner in this movie?"