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Wednesday, May 18, 2011

I need a horse.

I'm not a comic-book guy. I used to read Spider-Man and Daredevil when I was a kid, but never got hooked. Oh, I did buy Marvel cards like I hated the money I used to purchase them. And I played the crap out of Marvel Ultimate Alliance on my 360. Outside of those events, the only exposure to the Marvel Universe has been the recent explosion of movies. In a poorly chosen word...

1998       Blade                                                           Astonishing
2000       X-Men                                                         Excellent
2002       Blade II                                                        BADASS
   Spider-Man                                                  Great
2003       Daredevil                                                      Occurred
   X2                                                                Solid
   Hulk                                                             Ang
2004       The Punisher                                                 unseen
   Spider-Man 2                                               Stellar
   Blade: Trinity                                                 Lame
2005       Elektra                                                          unknown (but really, someone greenlighted this?)
   Man-Thing                                                    What?
   Fantastic Four                                               Alba
2006       X-Men: The Last Stand                                 If I hyphenate soul-crushing...is that one word?
2007       Ghost Rider                                                  Ugh (or the sound of being kicked in the crotch/face)
   Spider-Man 3                                               Shrug
   Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer      Non-existent
2008       Iron Man                                                       Resurgence/Favs
   The Incredible Hulk                                       Okay
   Punisher: War Zone                                    Curious (I friggin' own this and haven't seen it)
2009       X-Men Origins: Wolverine                           unfinished (I've seen parts)
2010       Iron Man 2                                                    Letdown
2011       Thor                                                              Mjolnir!

I saw ‘Thor’ last night and was very impressed. I thought that Kenneth Branagh + Thor was an equation that should never be solved, but I was surprised by how much I liked it. The dude who played Thor, Chris Hemsworth, was awesome. Natalie Portman continued her reign as ultra-hot goddess of fanboy-cinema (completely factual). And the action was very cool (initial ice-battle was pretty kickass). I also loved the big dude who played the guardian/teleport operator of Asgard. Intense.
Only minuses were the lame crew that Thor rolled with (Xena, Jackie Chan and Robin Hood) and the post-credits scene was not as boner-inducing as I would have preferred. Nitpickery aside, check this one out. It's the best Marvel flick since Iron Man, hands down. Oh, and any film featuring Anthony Hopkins gets a B+ out of the gate (unless it’s Hannibal).

2 comments:

  1. Okay, so I know that I'm approximately 376 days late on this post, but I'm commenting anyway. We redboxed this one last night to watch with my brother and his girlfriend, but it got late so we didn't put it in. We almost scrapped it again tonight, but decided to go ahead and give it a whirl. And I must say, I'm really glad we did! I'm not much of a comic book buff, and after not being super impressed with Captain America a few weeks ago (sorry), I didn't have my hopes up too high. However, I thoroughly enjoyed this one! It was totally not what I was expecting. I think a huge part of why I liked it so much was the actors - I'm a big Anthony Hopkins/Stellan Skaarsgard/Natalie Portman fan, and it would be very hard not to like Chris Hemsworth in this role. Obviously it's not a comedy, but I had a few laugh-out-loud moments at his interactions with the mortals of earth (ie. your title for this blog post). I also laughed when I read your review, as I had the exact same feelings about Thor's group of friends - lame. Anyway, you're probably racking your brain just to remember the movie, as it has been a year, so I'll wrap this up. In a nutshell, I thought it was a great flick, and definitely worth the 1 hour 55 minutes I put into it. And you're right - that guy who was the guardian/teleport operator of Asgard rocked.

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  2. While nothing holds a candle to the collective awesomeness of The Avengers, I recall having a blast with Thor.

    I've only rewatched the scene where the Destroyer beats the crap out of Thor.

    Matty loves that part.

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