The Mighty Thor!!

For this weeks After the Credits, I will be reviewing Thor, the newest comic book in a long line of live action big screen adaptations from Marvel Studios. After first learning about this movie, I started re-questioning humanity. I grew up, like lot of you, reading the comic books with these heroes in them, and now Hollywood is screwing them up for us all, or are they? These are my seconds after conclusion thoughts and reflections.

The part of Thor was given to relatively little known Chris Hemsworth. You might remember him from the opening scene to the 2009 blockbuster remake of Star Trek as George Kirk. As for his love interest, we have super hottie  Natalie Portman (Black Swan and Star Wars) and Thor's nemesis/brother Loki is played by even lesser known Tom Hiddleston. Of course we have Clark Gregg making his third appearance as Agent Coulsen of S.H.I.E.L.D. Throw in a wise cracking hottie Kat Dennings (40 Year Old Virgin), sprinkle in the BFF troop which includes Ray Stevenson (King Arther), and finish off with a pinch of Anthony Hopkins (Silence of the Lambs) as Odin, this movie turns out a pretty decent cast.

Thor starts out a little rocky, opening on Earth with some intense Northern Lights action then quickly rewinds to give you a good idea of what is happening. I'm not going to spoil the entire movie, but you might not want to read if you want to remain "completely shocked". The fight scenes were well choreographed and the jokes were well timed. All in all I thought it was a good movie, very well deserving of the 3.5 Bruce Willis Heads.

Now to my favorite part, making fun of it. First off, I know Thor swung his hammer around and knocked out bad guys by the truck loads, but this effect does not translate to live action well (its oddly reminiscent of the Road Runner cartoons). Also, the frost giants are barely taller than I am (I currently stand at 6'8"). Speaking of height, Natalie Portman stands at a whopping 4 inches taller than the blue Post Office mailboxes you see everywhere. I guess standing next to Hayden Christensen anyone would appear bigger (and more talented). We have a furnace on the loose for about 15 min, a cranky brother who tells lies, and a giant floating golden city. Not a whole lot else to make fun of... except the completely meaningless cameo of Jeremy Renner as Hawkeye. I understand he's in "The Avengers" due to come out next summer, but 30 seconds of him pointing an arrow at Thor just doesn't do it for me. As a side note, all of these movies that are being rolled into The Avengers next year have cameos and/or 15 second clips after the credits (The Incredible Hulk and both Iron Man movies).

I liked Thor, believe it or not. I think now that Marvel is making their own movies they are getting better. Anything is better than Spider-man 3 (which is already being remade). What else is coming that we can look forward to? We have already seen The Green Hornet and Thor this year. Priest, X-Men: First Class, Green Lantern, Transformers 3, Captain America, Men in Black 3, Sin City 2, Ghost Rider 2, Deadpool, Conan remake and Cowboys & Aliens to finish off 2011. In 2012 we can look forward to The Avengers, Star Trek 2, Spider-Man reboot, Batman 3, G.I.Joe 2, Iron Man 3, Superman reboot, Ant-Man (really??!!??), Hancock 2, Kick-Ass 2, Wanted 2 and Wolverine 2. Where is the originality in modern cinema? I know what your saying, "half of those are DC Comics..." and my answer to that is, "Does that make their live action movies any better? NO!!" Until the next After The Credits, good night!