I am a huge nerd, there is no doubting that. But of all the different kinds of nerdy hobbies I have, reading and collecting comic books is not one of them. Well, at least not in the same scale as other comic book hobbyists. I have a few comic books....two from Star Wars Expanded Universe, one Alien vs Predator, and one of the new Hellraiser comic. I've never read any of the Spiderman, Superman, Captain America, or any other superhero comic series. So, much like going into see Your Highness, I didn't have to worry about making any comparisons to the source material. I did however have high expectations of director Kenneth Branagh, who is better known as an actor. Branagh has done a range of things, from Shakespeare to playing a teacher in one of the Harry Potter films. I wondered how someone who is best known for doing Shakespeare would handle making a movie about a comic book series. I can honestly say.....it turned out very, very good.
The basic premise is partially ripped from the mythology of the Norse, who worshiped a pantheon of gods known collectively as the Asgard. The Asgard were ruled by Odin (played in the movie by Anthony Hopkins), the god of war and death. Odin had many sons, though in the Marvel Universe Thor movie, he only has two: Thor (Chris Hemsworth) and Loki (Tom Hiddleton), both slightly based off of their Norse mythology counterparts. While humanity has mostly forgotten about the Asgardians, at one time, Earth was saved by the Odin and his army. The frost trolls of Jotunheim had a magic maguffin that could freeze everything, and invaded Earth to start a campaign to conquer the Nine Realms, the worlds of Norse mythology. The Asgardians stopped them, invaded Jotunheim, the maguffin was captured and locked away, and Odin forged a truce with the frost troll king Laufey ( Colm Feore). On the day of Thors induction into kinghood of the Asgard, three frost trolls break in and try and take the maguffin. The trolls are stopped, and Thor takes it upon himself to go to Jotunheim, and confront Laufey. A battle ensures, and Thor and his party are rescued by Odin. Odin then strips Thor of his powers, and sends him to Earth to prove he is worthy of being an Asgardian. Thor is dropped in New Mexico, where he encounters scientist Jane Foster (Natalie Portman). I'll leave the rest of the plot alone, so I don't spoil it for those that actually want to go see it.
Thor is overall a good movie. The pacing and flow is wonderful, the acting isn't hammy or half-hearted, the dialogue isn't too stupid (with one exception, see below), and the effects were pretty good (some of it didn't look entirely natural even though it looked like they were trying to make it seem that way). Kenneth Branagh did a really good job, and this made me want to check out his other directing work. I was initially very doubtful about Chris Hemsworth, since I had never heard of him as an actor. He really shined in Thor, and hopefully, he will be making more movies in the future that aren't Avengers related.
One of my major complaints was the character of Darcy Lewis, played by Kat Dennings. She existed as comic relief, and she failed miserably at it; the character was just a pure annoyance and added nothing to the movie.
Thor was on par with the first Iron Man movie, and even if you don't know any Norse mythology (I know some) or anything about the comics (like me), still go see it, it's worth watching.
Make sure to stay after the credits!
Monday, May 9, 2011
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
Movie Review: Red Riding Hood
I was on a date the other night when the women I was with suggested we go see a movie at a local dollar theater. It used to be you could easily find a local dollar theater, go and see the movies you didn't want to pay full price for when it was in full theatrical release. With movies being pushed to DVD so quickly after their theatrical release, dollar theaters are a rarity. After using my phone to find out the movie listings (which was only six theaters, and the other movies available were crap), we decided to go see Red Riding Hood. I had very little interest in seeing this when it was in full release; it screamed "trying to make a teen movie loosely based upon the old folk tale". Further proof that I'm extremely jaded: I was fucking right.
The movie is about Valerie (played by Amanda Seyfried), a young girl living in medieval times, in a remote village someplace in Europe. She has spent her life in love with Peter (Shiloh Fernandez), but is promised to marry Henry (Max Irons), in typical Middle Ages arranged marriage fashion. While this is an important part of the story, it is not the main story. The main story is simple: a remote European village is plagued by a werewolf. They leave offering to it in the forms of livestock, but then Valeries sister is killed by it, and following the death of a real wolf that was thought to be the werewolf and the arrival of a witch hunter named Father Solomon (Gary Oldman), the real hunt starts for the werewolf. The real hunt turns into the typical inquisition procedure: turn everyones life around, accuse the wrong people, go off of hearsay, etc., and it turns out as well as one would suspect when you give the blindly religious too much power. In the end, we find out who the werewolf is, in the kind of ridiculous twist that would make M. Night Shyamalan proud. Of course, its also filled with the "teen movie angst" that, I really wish I could say seemed underlying....but no, the angst is there, in your face, all the time, just like....another teen movie that unfortunately exists.
Thus bringing me to some of my problems with this movie. For one....it feels so like Twilight, its almost kind of hard to not laugh at the whole thing. It also doesn't help that Valeries father is played by Billy Burke, who most of us know better as Charlie Swan, the father of Bella Swan, the "heroine" from the Twilight "saga" movies. In doing research into the acting backgrounds of the two male leads, I found out that Shiloh Fernandez auditioned as possibly playing Edward Cullen in Twilight...and it shows. Which brings me to the acting. One of the minor characters is Henrys father, Adrian, is played by Michael Shanks. Michael Shanks is best known for playing Dr Daniel Jackson, the archaeologist/linguist on the TV show Stargate SG-1. He is killed early on by the werewolf.. He also set the mood for the acting caliber for the majority of this movie: TV drama...AT BEST.While the older, more experienced ensemble cast showed some of their acting chops, because we spend most of the movie seeing Seyfried, Fernandez, and Irons, we're treated to less than skillful actors being angsty teenagers....even though they're all in their twenties. Billy Burke played Billy Burke (I've only seen him in this movie and the Twilights, so I have no idea what his possible range could be, but it's not shown here). Gary Oldman....disappointed me, though not in the same way that the main cast did. It seemed as if Oldman realized that something was missing in the performances of main cast, and decided to compensate by overacting. While not as bad as say, Jeremy Irons in Dungeons and Dragons, Oldman was really overdoing it this time. Final complaint: the werewolf in this movie looked exactly like the "werewolves" from Twilight. This is my way of saying that it was a horrible looking CGI giant dog. While this may seem like a worthless little nit-pick, it highlights a major problem: if you're going to have a CGI animal of any kind in a live-action movie, spend the time and effort to make it look semi-plausible; not something that looks like you spent a day working on it.
Pros: Decent pacing, easy to understand plot, further proves I can (almost) completely predict a movie based on its trailer.
Cons: Bad acting (of various flavors), "what a twist!" plot point, was too much like Twilight.
The movie is about Valerie (played by Amanda Seyfried), a young girl living in medieval times, in a remote village someplace in Europe. She has spent her life in love with Peter (Shiloh Fernandez), but is promised to marry Henry (Max Irons), in typical Middle Ages arranged marriage fashion. While this is an important part of the story, it is not the main story. The main story is simple: a remote European village is plagued by a werewolf. They leave offering to it in the forms of livestock, but then Valeries sister is killed by it, and following the death of a real wolf that was thought to be the werewolf and the arrival of a witch hunter named Father Solomon (Gary Oldman), the real hunt starts for the werewolf. The real hunt turns into the typical inquisition procedure: turn everyones life around, accuse the wrong people, go off of hearsay, etc., and it turns out as well as one would suspect when you give the blindly religious too much power. In the end, we find out who the werewolf is, in the kind of ridiculous twist that would make M. Night Shyamalan proud. Of course, its also filled with the "teen movie angst" that, I really wish I could say seemed underlying....but no, the angst is there, in your face, all the time, just like....another teen movie that unfortunately exists.
Thus bringing me to some of my problems with this movie. For one....it feels so like Twilight, its almost kind of hard to not laugh at the whole thing. It also doesn't help that Valeries father is played by Billy Burke, who most of us know better as Charlie Swan, the father of Bella Swan, the "heroine" from the Twilight "saga" movies. In doing research into the acting backgrounds of the two male leads, I found out that Shiloh Fernandez auditioned as possibly playing Edward Cullen in Twilight...and it shows. Which brings me to the acting. One of the minor characters is Henrys father, Adrian, is played by Michael Shanks. Michael Shanks is best known for playing Dr Daniel Jackson, the archaeologist/linguist on the TV show Stargate SG-1. He is killed early on by the werewolf.. He also set the mood for the acting caliber for the majority of this movie: TV drama...AT BEST.While the older, more experienced ensemble cast showed some of their acting chops, because we spend most of the movie seeing Seyfried, Fernandez, and Irons, we're treated to less than skillful actors being angsty teenagers....even though they're all in their twenties. Billy Burke played Billy Burke (I've only seen him in this movie and the Twilights, so I have no idea what his possible range could be, but it's not shown here). Gary Oldman....disappointed me, though not in the same way that the main cast did. It seemed as if Oldman realized that something was missing in the performances of main cast, and decided to compensate by overacting. While not as bad as say, Jeremy Irons in Dungeons and Dragons, Oldman was really overdoing it this time. Final complaint: the werewolf in this movie looked exactly like the "werewolves" from Twilight. This is my way of saying that it was a horrible looking CGI giant dog. While this may seem like a worthless little nit-pick, it highlights a major problem: if you're going to have a CGI animal of any kind in a live-action movie, spend the time and effort to make it look semi-plausible; not something that looks like you spent a day working on it.
Pros: Decent pacing, easy to understand plot, further proves I can (almost) completely predict a movie based on its trailer.
Cons: Bad acting (of various flavors), "what a twist!" plot point, was too much like Twilight.
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