(no subject)
Finally saw Thor today! I was worried I'd miss it because it had stopped showing in English here except for Sunday matinees, which are almost impossible for me to catch thanks to the one-two punch of insomnia and insomnia-triggered migraines. But as it happened, E. (my friend in Geneva) needed a study break from his exams, so I hopped a train and we caught an afternoon showing there. I made sure to wear this necklace I bought a couple weeks ago (along with this one); it seemed appropriate.
Non-spoilery capsule review: big, dumb action flick that succeeds by virtue of fantastic visuals and being earnest without taking itself too seriously. I still like Thor: The Mighty Avenger far more as an origin story for Marvel's take on the character, but I got more invested in this version than I expected.
THE GOOD:
» I really liked all the characters, especially Sif, Heimdall, and Loki.
- I was pleasantly surprised that Sif got as much screentime as she did but I wish she'd gotten more.
- I almost always like Loki, whatever the adaptation (except in Marvel 616, ironically, where I've never been able to get into the Thor sub-franchise), so I was pleased he made such a good showing here. JMS and Protosevich did a good job keeping the twists and countertwists in Loki's (seemingly) true motivation coming, and I like that even at the end of the film it's ambiguous how much he was telling the truth at any point in the story. On the other hand, as much as I liked him I felt he was just a little too sympathetic. The moment he really crossed the moral event horizon was when he decided to destroy Jotunheim, and that story beat was too rushed to sink in properly.
- Heimdall was just a BAMF. Best visual design (the helmet! the eyes! the sword!), best voice, manages to project awesomeness across the screen just by existing ... oh yeah.
- Oh, I almost forgot Darcy! Who was hilarious, and I'm sad that she's unlikely to carry over to later films.
» The visuals were incredible. I've never been particularly moved by Kirby's "god" designs, either Marvel or DC, and the movie stills of Asgard and the Asgardians looked seriously cheesy. But somehow it worked brilliantly on the big screen, even the metal armor that didn't look remotely like actual metal. I could have watched those nebula skyscapes all afternoon and been happy.
» I missed one of the major fight scenes (see below) but the ones I saw were ace, and really got across all of Thor's superhuman physicality and raw power. Loved all the different ways he used Mjolnir.
» Lots of snappy, funny, and just generally fun dialogue.
THE BAD:
» Loki's ... Loki-ness aside, the narrative itself wasn't especially interesting. Very paint-by-numbers origin story. Granted, almost *all* origin stories have this problem at this date, but I really wasn't feeling the whole hero's journey thing Thor was supposed to be going through.
» I don't know whether it was the dialogue or Tom Hiddleston's acting, but even though I loved Loki the rest of the time I thought the scenes in which he got emotional weren't entirely convincing. Of course, this is Loki we're talking about.
» I'm sorry, but Odin is a terrible monarch and a terrible father. Isn't "make the line of succession clear" part of How Not to Plunge your Kingdom into Civil War 101? Honestly.
» Since I'm a fan of Marvel comics and have watched the previous films in their Avengers movieverse, the SHIELD scenes worked fine for me because I already knew they were more set-up for Avengers than a huge part of the plot. My friend E, who doesn't read the comics and hasn't watched the previous films, thought that SHIELD was supposed to be a riff off the Men in Black and didn't understand why that subplot was in the film because it was pretty much pointless.
THE UGLY:
» Tragically, I was in the bathroom and missed the entire scene in which Hawkeye cameos. I don't feel too badly about this because I'm sure it'll be on YouTube within six hours of the DVD coming out, if not before, but several people have told me already that I missed one of the best parts of the film. Sigh.
Is there a word for the opposite of retro-futurism? That is, instead of futuristic technology with an old-fashioned aesthetic, old-fashioned technology with a futuristic aesthetic.
ETA: on second thought, "retro-futurist" is probably the wrong term because the old-fashioned aesthetic comes from it being imagery used in the past to represent the future. Gah, it's 4 AM, I'll work this out later.
Non-spoilery capsule review: big, dumb action flick that succeeds by virtue of fantastic visuals and being earnest without taking itself too seriously. I still like Thor: The Mighty Avenger far more as an origin story for Marvel's take on the character, but I got more invested in this version than I expected.
THE GOOD:
» I really liked all the characters, especially Sif, Heimdall, and Loki.
- I was pleasantly surprised that Sif got as much screentime as she did but I wish she'd gotten more.
- I almost always like Loki, whatever the adaptation (except in Marvel 616, ironically, where I've never been able to get into the Thor sub-franchise), so I was pleased he made such a good showing here. JMS and Protosevich did a good job keeping the twists and countertwists in Loki's (seemingly) true motivation coming, and I like that even at the end of the film it's ambiguous how much he was telling the truth at any point in the story. On the other hand, as much as I liked him I felt he was just a little too sympathetic. The moment he really crossed the moral event horizon was when he decided to destroy Jotunheim, and that story beat was too rushed to sink in properly.
- Heimdall was just a BAMF. Best visual design (the helmet! the eyes! the sword!), best voice, manages to project awesomeness across the screen just by existing ... oh yeah.
- Oh, I almost forgot Darcy! Who was hilarious, and I'm sad that she's unlikely to carry over to later films.
» The visuals were incredible. I've never been particularly moved by Kirby's "god" designs, either Marvel or DC, and the movie stills of Asgard and the Asgardians looked seriously cheesy. But somehow it worked brilliantly on the big screen, even the metal armor that didn't look remotely like actual metal. I could have watched those nebula skyscapes all afternoon and been happy.
» I missed one of the major fight scenes (see below) but the ones I saw were ace, and really got across all of Thor's superhuman physicality and raw power. Loved all the different ways he used Mjolnir.
» Lots of snappy, funny, and just generally fun dialogue.
THE BAD:
» Loki's ... Loki-ness aside, the narrative itself wasn't especially interesting. Very paint-by-numbers origin story. Granted, almost *all* origin stories have this problem at this date, but I really wasn't feeling the whole hero's journey thing Thor was supposed to be going through.
» I don't know whether it was the dialogue or Tom Hiddleston's acting, but even though I loved Loki the rest of the time I thought the scenes in which he got emotional weren't entirely convincing. Of course, this is Loki we're talking about.
» I'm sorry, but Odin is a terrible monarch and a terrible father. Isn't "make the line of succession clear" part of How Not to Plunge your Kingdom into Civil War 101? Honestly.
» Since I'm a fan of Marvel comics and have watched the previous films in their Avengers movieverse, the SHIELD scenes worked fine for me because I already knew they were more set-up for Avengers than a huge part of the plot. My friend E, who doesn't read the comics and hasn't watched the previous films, thought that SHIELD was supposed to be a riff off the Men in Black and didn't understand why that subplot was in the film because it was pretty much pointless.
THE UGLY:
» Tragically, I was in the bathroom and missed the entire scene in which Hawkeye cameos. I don't feel too badly about this because I'm sure it'll be on YouTube within six hours of the DVD coming out, if not before, but several people have told me already that I missed one of the best parts of the film. Sigh.
Is there a word for the opposite of retro-futurism? That is, instead of futuristic technology with an old-fashioned aesthetic, old-fashioned technology with a futuristic aesthetic.
ETA: on second thought, "retro-futurist" is probably the wrong term because the old-fashioned aesthetic comes from it being imagery used in the past to represent the future. Gah, it's 4 AM, I'll work this out later.