Hello nonexistent lady and gentleman, I'm going to ramble about the movie I saw last night/earlier this morning, it's called Thor and it's directed by Kenneth Branagh, he's the guy who played the villain in Big Willie Style's Wild Wild West. So I went to the AMC to see it because I had a free popcorn and soda coupon that was about to expire and that's really the only reason I even bother going to the AMC because that place is pretty fuckin' wack, like most movie theater chains. Hell, even the popcorn is fuckin' wack, come to think of it, and yet I went to this place just so I can have some of it for free. Christ almighty.
Some albino homo carrying a blanket and his girl friend sat next to me, and they seemed like nice folk, they asked me if the seat where my jacket was currently resting was being saved for anyone. For some reason I've yet to fathom, rather than say "No it's not", I said "No, we're cool". Who's cool? Me? If that's the case, did I mean "we're" in relation to the royal We? Honestly people, if you think my ramblings make no fuckin' sense, you should try having a fuckin' conversation with me some day, it's some mind-boggling mad mixture of fragmented sentences, missing subjunctives, constantly changing tenses, and a dash of Tobias Funke-isms. I suck at life and its many facets, is what I'm trying to say.
Because it was a midnight showing, it was a midnight crowd and because it was Thursday heading into Friday, that meant it was College Friday and about 98 percent of the audience was old enough to look at you in confusion when you tell them the director of Thor also directed a movie called Dead Again and when you tell them that's the one with Emma Thompson they're all like Who Da Fuck Is Emma Thompson, I Know It's Cinco De Mayo But I'll Still Beat Your Fuckin' Mexican Ass Up And Down The Aisle.
Everybody took the opportunity to hoot and holler during the previews and it gave some of the douchier douches in the crowd many chances to demonstrate their ability to sound like a woman moaning during sex. Because it was all men doing that shit, it made me laugh to think that's exactly how they'd sound if they were to ever find themselves in a prison and Bubba or Leroy or Tyrone or whatever other borderline-racist use of a downtrodden black name for a prisoner shoves about 12 uncut inches of pent-up/veined-up Hurt up these motherfuckers' dumb Axe-wearing bro asses.
There was a trailer for Super 8 before the movie, so I looked away, because I'm good at that shit -- without images, the dialogue and music are useless in trying to spoil shit for me. There was also a trailer for Green Lantern and because I couldn't give a shit about that shit, I watched that lame shit. Anyway, I had no idea who or what was in Thor, aside from the director, because I don't go hunting that shit down on the Internet and because I haven't gone to the movies to see something first-run since Blue Valentine (well, that and Muthafuckin' Fast Fuckin' Five) so it's not like I've been privy to any Previews of Coming Attractions anyway.
So yeah, Thor. This shit starts off with some battle shit way back in the day between Odin and his merry band of supermen (or whatever the fuck they're supposed to be -- Gods? Evolved humans? Highlander II: The Quickening-style aliens?) fighting it out with some bad guys who were probably ancestors of that mutant Mystique from X-Men. The bad guys are called Frost Giants or some shit like that, and they have the ability to freeze shit while wrecking havoc, and because they don't take the time to make some stupid quip like "All right everybody, CHILL!" or "What killed the dinosaurs? DA ICE AGE!" that makes them a million times better than Mr. Freeze from Batman.
Odin is played by Anthony Hopkins, who is doing his thing, and he has an asshole son named Thor (the titular Thor) who wants to be king so he can show all these weak-ass bitches how a Real Man does this shit. Odin's like George Bush and Thor is Dubya, if you're the kind who likes to politicize every fucking thing. Anyway, they're just about to finish the coronation when some of these Avatar rejects try to steal some glowing blue box that has Awesome Powers of some kind (freezing things is what it mainly seems to do). There's a lot of hoopla about the failed attempt, it leads to this dick Thor going over to the Frost Giants' planet and stirring shit up because he's a fuckin' douche who turns tables full of food over if he doesn't get what he wants, like some petulant child, which is kinda what he is, really.
It's hard to judge Thor's friends because they're all really cool but they're big on Thor, so they must be Secret Assholes behind closed doors. I mean, it's like when I found out the lovely Kristen Bell was engaged to that cock Dax Shepard. Now, for all I know, Dax Shepard might be a nice guy, or at least decent enough to get a nice girl like Ms. Bell and not make fun of her lazy eye, but since that motherfucker collected paychecks fucking with people on Ashton Kutcher's horrific program Punk'd, that makes him Guilty by Douchesociation, plain and fuckin' simple. Same thing with Thor's fellow warriors, and same thing with every pro-sports player and their teammates.
As it is, Thor's warrior homies are pretty cool; you have this hot warrior-princess type, you have this young Cary Elwes-looking motherfucker, you have Punisher War Zone with a beard and fat suit, and you have this relatively quiet Asian motherfucker who you wished had more opportunity to kick ass. Hell, I wish they all had more opportunity to kick ass. You know what, powers that be? You should at least make one of those DTV spinoffs like they did with the Get Smart movie, using these characters. I'd pay a few bucks to watch these 4 do their thing.
Anyway, Odin, he knows what's up, he knows his son's a cock, so he takes away Thor's ass-kicking powers and takes away his mighty hammer and exiles the fortunate son over to Earth. Thor ends up landing over in New Mexico which kinda sucks because once you stop for a meal at the Bobcat Bite, there's really not much to do there, not unless you're a filmmaker looking to save some money tax-incentive style.
So Thor lands in New Mexico and gets hit by a van that happens to be driven by Natalie Portman, the lucky bastard. With her, she's got this cute chick in glasses that I was kinda crushing on, and the guy who Jennifer Connelly and Paul Bettany named their kid after. This guy, this Stellan Skarsgard, I guess he's a friend of the Connelly/Bettany double-feature, and I wonder how that's like. I mean, I bet you a typical visit ends with him going home and jerking off to Bettany's hot wife -- that is, if Stellan Skarsgard is anything like me, because that's what I usually do after visiting a friend and his wife or girlfriend, even the unattractive ones, because I ride the Sad/Creepy train to work everyday and I'm a self-employed motherfucker.
It's like this movie I saw once, called In Search of a Midnight Kiss, and it starts with this dude taking a photo of his roommate's wife and photoshopping it onto some anonymous naked chick's picture. Then he starts beating off to it, then his roommate and his wife walk in and catch him in the act. The only reason I haven't done that shit yet is because I'm too lazy to learn Photoshop -- well, that and I was too busy banging so many hot chicks, obviously, I don't have time for lame shit like that. But who's to say Stellan Skarsgard ain't some Photoshop master? I take that back, homeboy doesn't even need Photoshop, he just needs to rent The Hot Spot and get some prime wankery material right fuckin' there, man.
Anyway, Portman's some kind of scientist and I guess the cute chick in glasses and Skarsgard are part of the scientific study Scooby team, and they're trying to figure out what's up with this fuckin' Aryan's wet dream who fell from the sky, and better yet, why is he such an asshole?
I thought it was really canny of Branagh and company to have the first third of the movie play like some ultra-portentous Life & Death shit, some Fate Of The Universe shit, all done with dead-seriousness expected from a story about mythical gods. But then, after the situation is laid out and Thor lands on Earth, the movie bamboozles our asses by introducing a very healthy sense-of-humor to the proceedings, and not in some lame Beastmaster 2: Through the Portal of Time kinda way either, I mean, they don't really overdo it with the fish out-of-water jokes, it's more like "trip out on this fuckin' asshole".
It's pretty fuckin' hilarious the shit this guy pulls once he's on Earth, fuckin' walking in the middle of the street, expecting traffic to stop for the motherfucker. Actually, that's not too weird at all, at least not here in California with that bullshit right-of-way law, because in that case there's a shitload of Thors in this motherfucker. The only way he'd fit in more is if he was riding a bike in the middle of traffic. But yeah, he carries himself in such a I'm Important And You're Below Me manner, thinking everyone's going to cater to his every order and desire, and he finds out the hard way it's not gonna work out that way for him now. Still, it's funny to hear him declare that he's in need of "sustenance", and then after scarfing down many plates of breakfast, this asshole's smashing coffee cups after draining them dry, demanding more of the fine beverage. Because sometimes it's awesome to watch an asshole do his thing as long as he's not doing it to you.
It's also Good Times to see him pulling some shit, thinking he can get away with it because he's fuckin' Thor, only to find out the hard way that he's just as susceptible to getting tased and getting shot up with sedatives. This is the Hollywood version of the real world, though, so that means he can still get hit by a car and come out of it with a minor moment of disorientation, just like Matrix in Commando getting smashed by a Porsche going high speed and shaking that off like it ain't no thang, unless there's an alternate ending where Thor drops dead and while everyone wonders what the fuck happened, Portman uses her scientific knowledge to deduce that it probably had something to do with getting hit by a car twice.
So after the first third of serious set-up, the movie then eases into a back-and-forth structure, cutting between Thor's misadventures in New Mexico and all the drama going on back in Thor's stomping grounds of Asgard (a world that looks a lot like the Feature Presentation intro for Harkins Theaters). The New Mexico stuff is funny and the Asgard stuff is serious, and somewhere along the way, that shit starts to blend in with each other, which I guess makes it like, I don't know, representative of the increasingly dangerous situation. It's like, this shit was funny but now it's no longer the people of Asgard and those Mystique-looking motherfuckers who are in risk of having their worlds rocked, now it's the farmers and migrant workers of New Mexico (and the rest of the world as well, when you think about it) who are now being tossed into the Everything To Lose pile.
Thor has this brother named Loki, and he's got a really big forehead, like Christina Ricci, and I'd make fun of that shit except I've noticed I have a lot more forehead nowadays because getting older blows. I'm more aware of that shit in other people, now that it's happening to me. It's a good thing Mike Epps wasn't in the audience, he'd have his way with the motherfucker, and with me, for that matter. Anyway, Loki's the opposite of Thor, he's skinny, dark-haired, and even-tempered -- or is he? DUN DUN DUN.
There's also this awesome badass gatekeeper played by the motherfucker who gets owned by Denzel in American Gangster (I haven't seen The Wire yet) and Rene Russo plays Thor's mom. This chick, Rene Russo, I don't know if it's the CGI or if she's just lucky to be blessed with good genes but she's growing old gracefully, that one. She's got what Helen Mirren has and what Candice Bergen used to have; she's got that thing going on where if you're an old dude but don't want to look like a complete degenerate by dating a 19-year-old, and you want to date someone in your age range but still get props from your fellow man, then you really can't get any better than her or the other old broads I just mentioned, even though some keep trying to push way-past-glory types as being still in their prime. I mean, people go on about how glamourous someone like Sophia Loren still is, and if by "glamourous" you mean "she dresses well" and nothing else, well then I guess you're right. I'm sounding like an even bigger asshole than usual, because when it comes down to it, I'd hit that shit and be tearfully grateful for it. No I wouldn't, I'm like Brad Pitt in this bitch, excuse me while I have sex with a hot chick between paragraphs.
Raza actress Adriana Barraza is credited in the end credits, yet I don't remember ever seeing her, I don't know what that's about. Maybe Branagh's a big Top Gear fan and shares the same opinion of mi gente as those limey fucks, and he wanted to fuck with us, the fuckin' asshole. Branagh doesn't give a fuck about Oscar-nominated performances if they're coming from a fuckin' wetback, isn't that right, ol' chap? I bet you he almost choked on his fish & chips as he laughed over that particular editing decision. Whatever, perhaps it was something else. Maybe if having a certain foreshadowing cameo by a bow & arrow-using motherfucker in the movie meant you had to ass Babel out in the name of keeping a bladder-friendly 119-minute running time, then I guess it was the right thing to do.
I don't know how they're doing it, but I'm glad Marvel is doing it. I mean, they've been doing very well these past 10 years with their comic book movies. I've liked all of them, and even the one I liked the least, the Ang Lee version of Hulk, I still liked quite a bit. Who's in charge of picking the directors for these joints, because he or she deserves a medal for picking someone he or she thinks would make the most interesting adaptation, rather than just picking some motherfucker whose film opened at number one in the box office the previous week. OK, so they picked Brett Ratner for X-Men: The Last Stand, but nobody's perfect, we all have our weak moments, and besides, at that point in the production they were in such last-minute deep shit, they needed someone competent who could get the goddamn thing in the can, and you know what? I liked that movie too. I like everything.
But yeah man, for the most part, it's like they pick the director least likely to get the job but most likely to get the material. I mean, it's not like Branagh was coming off a string of box-office smash hits when they picked him, but the motherfucker has made some good movies, he's great with actors, and they Just Fucking Knew he sure as shit was going to bring the same over-the-top panache he brought to his previous joints (at least the joints that aren't in black & white and have alternate titles in the UK and the States). I've heard some people say that this one doesn't feel like a Branagh joint, and I'm going to take a wild guess here and say that has something to do with the lack of CGI fire-breathing metal creatures in Peter's Friends or Love's Labour's Lost.
Seriously, what the fuck are you talking about, people? This Brit is directing the shit out of this shit like it was fuckin' Henry V (I still want to see the previous Henrys, but I can't find them at any video store), I really doubt the guy half-assed it for a paycheck, and if he did, he probably had all the scripts on set re-titled "William Shakesphere's Thor" just to make sure he kept his eye on the prize. Sure, I'm sure he could've probably done more with the material, but you gotta understand that's part of the deal when you're working for big daddy Marvel; you gotta bring your A-game but you also have to understand who's signing your checks. Look at it this way: this movie is probably going to make a lot of bank, enabling homebrit the capital and clout to make a couple more movies that are 100 percent his, then when those movies bomb, he'll get hungry again and direct the sequel or something and probably get a wee bit more leeway the second time out. That's called a Win Win situation in my book.
Thor is above-average entertainment; it moved fast and kept my interest and had a nice amount of laughs in the motherfucker. The action was cool in that CGI-spectacle sort-of-way, and the visuals in general are really nice to look at (I especially loved anything involving that hyped-up They Live style otherworldly transporter room). Natalie Portman is very pretty, the cute chick in glasses is my current movie-crush, Stellan Skarsgard is probably secretly jacking it to Jennifer Connelly, and the director of Choke is doing his S.H.I.E.L.D. thing like a fuckin' boss.
They're all giving 110 percent for a movie that averages 84 percent, in my opinion. I wouldn't call Thor great, it didn't rock my lame world like Muthafuckin' Fast Fuckin' Five did, but it's definitely one of the better examples of a summer movie, one that I wish was the rule, rather than the exception nowadays. Yeah, I know it's May, I know it's not really summer yet but Hollywood doesn't give a shit, so why should we, right? Also, Ralph Macchio is thanked in the end credits and that earns Thor extra credit special points, and while you probably think the filmmakers were thanking another Ralph Macchio, as far as I'm concerned, there's only ONE Ralph Macchio, bitches. Get that shit right.
In conclusion, Vincent D'Onofrio is probably pissed off right about now.
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