Od's Blood! Hath ILE no thread for anticipation of Kenneth Branagh's THOR? Verily?

Stan Lee as Don Blake's walking stick?

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/01/movies/kenneth-branaghs-thor-film-of-marvel-comic-hero.html

Mr. Hemsworth, a former soap-opera star who studied Mr. Branagh’s film of “Much Ado About Nothing” for a high school production, said he was intimidated at first to meet his “Thor” director. Instead he said he found an animated and egoless filmmaker who suggested that he prepare for the film by reading Hesse’s “Siddhartha.”

Lot of references to Olivier in this piece

Mr. Hopkins said that, as an actor, “I phone it in a lot as I’m getting older,” but seeing the aura of his old mentor in Mr. Branagh stirred him to invest himself more fully in “Thor.”

so, did Branagh himself write this piece or

Mr. Hemsworth, a former soap-opera star who studied Mr. Branagh’s film of “Much Ado About Nothing” for a high school production

"I knew Keanu would be my role model from then on."

His “Thor” director...an animated and egoless filmmaker who suggested that he prepare for the film by reading Hesse’s “Siddhartha.”

His “Thor” director...an animated and egoless filmmaker who suggested that he prepare for the film by reading Hesse’s “Siddhartha.”

His “Thor” director...an animated and egoless filmmaker who suggested that he prepare for the film by reading Hesse’s “Siddhartha.”

tbf everyone should read Siddhartha (preferably by age 16) so I can't be too mad at him for that

Or there's the not-quite-the-same-thing movie version.

Rene Rodriguez likes.

like anyone ever heard of this comic

yeah its only been published continually since the early 1960s and was created by the most famous american comic book writer-artist team of all time

u take lolbait

(not that I'd ever heard of it)

All the kids are into Norse mythology these days anyway

I saw this last night. Fun but stupid and surprisingly (or maybe not?) Portman was the worst part of the flick.

Serious lack of Beta Ray Bill I felt.

http://www.comics101.com/comics101//news/Comics%20101/335/Beta%20Ray%20Bill%201.jpg

Can I just say my biggest complaint re: Marvel vs Capcom 3 is that Beta Ray Bill isn't one of Thor's alternate skins?

Did the Frog of Thunder make the cut?

Fun but stupid and surprisingly (or maybe not?) Portman was the worst part of the flick.

^^yep and surprisingly, this was the flick that made me realise that, apart from maybe Black Swan, i pretty much don't like Natalie Portman in any movie ever. It's weird, I feel like I've always had this positive impression of her in movies but that's really just her Hollywood image isn't it? Garden State. Star Wars prequels. That one movie with Ashton Kutcher. Closer. V for Vendetta. Anywhere but Here. god she's horrible.

anyway, she was totally lost in this, the only person who did not realise she was in a big dumb THOR movie directed by Kenneth Branagh.

she's crap!

yeah she's awful

p. cool lil movie about cosmic space gods on 8-legged horses hurling thunder bolts at freaking big-ass frost giants

i thought this was gonna be utter dogass, but it was a lot better than i expected (meaning it was moderately entertaining). charismatic cast (featuring the first engaging hopkins performance i can remember in like a decade+), Asgard was pretty cool & cosmic, some whomp-ass fight scenes - it could've been a tighter, more gripping movie in some respects, but it could've been a lot worse too

and portman's totally fine in it and has great chemistry with mr thor, tho their relaysh is p underwritten & perfunctory

guy playin loki really owns in this; also the frost giants are freakin... awesome

branagh uses a lot of dutch angles without really seeming to understand their purpose

movie was very balaeric true

bah, balearic*

idk what that means

it means that if you ask kenneth branagh what he thinks of king lear he just goes "BA!"

Yeah dude playing Loki is excellent. I guess he's gonna be the villain for The Avengers too so i can live with that.

Yeah I could've done without all the dutch angles, but Hemsworth has a fuckton of charm as Thor, the pacing is pretty good, Skaarsgard is surprisingly effective, Elba is great as Heimdahl, and Asgard itself looks so much like a bunch of Kirby panels I wanted to shit myself with joy. That part of it, as well as the dialogue amongst the Warriors Three, Branagh and his team definitely understood. I mean, I could easily picture myself sitting there seeing the Bifrost on a comics page with all of Kirby's technospeak descriptions. And the Asgardian dialogue was just florid enough to sound like a Kirby/Lee Thor comic.

this was a lot of fun. the romance was completely tacked on but they managed to make a corny story convincing.

Looked great, but Hemsworth/Portman had all the chemistry of a game of frog baseball. But it looked great.

Natalie Portman = worst actress alive.

Does she win for most number of crap movies in a row interrupted by an Oscar an the middle of her crap run?

Have to assume Theron, Witherspoon and Bullock are still in the running.

also Berry

on the other hand Tom Hiddleston was a terrific Loki.

lol Alfred why did you see this?

I went to a 10:15 a.m. at a multiplex by the house – it was too early for the pool.

Meek's Cutoff tomorrow night though!

this was actually finally the movie that won me over re: portman. she has just enough charisma to offset all those bad line readings... i've never considered her a good actress but she just has too much of *something* for me to call her bad either.

damn! Haven't seen this yet.

http://i.imgur.com/QjoHx.gif

lol

This was fun! Would've tipped into the good if not for the Portmonster. She's horrible. Really liked Hiddleston's Loki - just hammy enough to make the absurdity work. Hemsworth also seemed to revel in the cheese in a good way, and their fight at the end was two guys making slow motion fight faces. Brilliant.

truly tasty slice of superhokum. whereas x-men is total balls.

The Green Lantern preview before Thor looked like total balls too. Yuck.

freal. i was kinda like :/ and then they went all "here is deadpool shouting the gl creed" at the end i was more o_0 bc guess what that shit does not get less corny when it is shouted.

I didn't think Portman was totally bad, but she wasn't memorable in any way either. Thankfully her role wasn't that large; I half expected her to rush to Asgard with Thor to fight Loki, but I was happy the plot went as it did. The bittersweet ending made Thor seem like a more noble hero, even if everyone knows she and Foster will get back together in the sequel.

I would've preferred to see a Thor & Sif romance story though, like in the comics (and, obviously, in the original myths)... Especially since they stuck to the warrior Sif version of the Marvel comics; IIRC, in the original myths Sif was just Thor's wife with no asskicking tendencies (though Peter Madsen's Valhalla comics proved you can still make her an interesting character while sticking closer to the Edda poems). I also liked the wisecracking research assistant, plus the actress who played her was cute. And the old scientist guy male bonding with Thor was done nicely too.

I agree that both Hiddleston and Hemsworth handled their roles well, without taking them too seriously. The idea that Loki was kind of a Shakespearean tragic character who had noble motives behind his evil deeds was interesting, though personally I prefer Loki a trickster god, who sometimes works on the side of the Asgardians, sometimes against them. But I guess that kind of a "villain" doesn't work well in a superhero story?

The visuals in the movie were really gorgeous, they managed to convey Kirby's vision of "techno gods" almost perfectly. It would've been nice too see Thor & co. walk on an actual rainbow bridge, but their interpretation of Bifröst was certainly innovative. I wonder if it was also meant to be a variation of the Boom Tube, as a shout out to Kirby?

Oh, and obviously there were plenty of little clues for those familiar with Marvel comics. You had Donald Blake as Thor's false identity, references to Bruce Banner and Tony Stark, etc. The archer guy named Barton was obviously Hawkeye, and in the scene following the end titles there was the Cosmic Cube. Also, Odin's trophy room apparently had the Eye of Agamotto in it; from what I've read, the Infinity Gauntlet was also supposed to be there, but I didn't spot it.