Mr Bombastic!: Thor - Trailer (OFFICIAL)

With comic book movie adaptations pretty much an assembly line affair these days, its harder to really assess each new creation on its merits.

One standout point for this latest Marvel epic is volume. In a genre marked by loud, busy pictures, Thor could have easily taken on Shaggy's "Boombastic" as its theme song. It yells, bangs, whooshes and barrels its way through roughly two hours in bringing the story of the Norse god of thunder into the 21st century where, of course, everybody's favourite bogeyman, "The Government" is waiting to muddle and mess up things.

And yet, there is - to coin a dancehall phrase - a "bashment" quality to the boisterousness of both the film and its main character. Director Kenneth Branagh decided to chuck his Shakespeare credentials out the window and delivers a mildly asbsurdist, even sardonic take on the superhero, jostling between the New Mexico desert and an Asgard that looks like every archtitectural student's worse thesis flung together. As a kind of mythological gatekeeper between these worlds, Idris Elba (whose token blackness sparked some controversy), picks up on the director's lead and radiates the best kind of cool. His performance says "So what if this is totally incredible stuff? We're doing all right."

As the earthling love interest, Natalie Portman does little to reverse my long-held antipathy toward her, but the inclusion of Kat Dennings as her sister almost makes up for it  - perhaps she and not Portman should have been the love interest, but that's obviously NOT a risk the studio was going to take.

In the lead role, Aussie  Chris Hemsworth, a sort of buff Brad Pitt, is similarly taking some of the air out of the  Thor mythology; you can almost see him suppressing a chuckle or a smirk even as he rails against the "Frostchilds" (the evil race that is seeking to take over Asgard) or upbraiding his own father, Odin (Anthony Hopkins, in an uncharacteristically earnest performance).

As the sort of leading edge of this year's superhero movie tsunami (there's Captain America, Green Lantern, The Avengers and more X-Men still to come), Thor grabs the genre, holds it upside down by the ankles, and gives it a fairly good shake. You won't get much out of watching tis spectacle, but on the other hand it isn't boring, which is more than can be said for many of its cohorts.

Flashback

No "Wonderful Life" or 'Miracle on 34th Street" for this movie blogger. 


Last night, I re-watched  one of my all-time faves: True Romance.

Directed by Tony Scott (Top Gun) and written by Quentin Tarantino (who of course, went on to deliver Pulp Fiction), this movie features a ton of actors who went on to stardom in either feature films or cable and network TV - Christian Slater, Patricia Arquette, an early Brad Pitt, Christopher Walken, Dennis Hopper, Bronson Pinchot, James Gandolfini, Michael Beach, Tom Sizemore, Michael Penn and Gary Oldman as a pimp. 


Drugs, violence and eternal devotion after a one-night stand - not to mention a slammin' soundtrack. Perfect!


A merry Christmas to all followers and supporters of Mike@the movies, wherever in the world you may be. Be safe, be happy and - more than presents -try to give yourself.

Megamind: Will Ferrell Unleased (and Unseen)

Can a bad guy really go good? That's just aprt of the question posed by this smartly-written, well-paced animated comedy. At roughly 90 minutes, it feels neither too short nor too long.

Megamind(Will Ferrell) is in an existential quandary after defeating his nemesis, the suave yet equally egotisitcal MetroMan (Brad Pitt). How can a master of villainy thrive in the absence of a do-gooder superhero? To rectify the problem, he first decides to create an alternate hero using bits of Metroman DNA, but of course, complications soon surface.

Firstly, the serum is inadvertently ingested  by a local TV cameraman who, after much trial and error. becomes Titan (voiced by Jonah Hill). More interestingly, Megamind finds himself falling for ace TV reporter Roxanne Ritchie (Tina Fey) and what's more, she is falling for him, albeit in the guise of the curator of the Metroman museum, Bernard.

The producers expertly juggle these dilemmas along with commentaries and questions about identity, friendship, loving those who seem hateful, how the transition from "evil" to "good".

As the superhero movie era shows no signs of abating (Thor and Capt. America lead a hos of live action adaptations over the coming year), MegaMind is just the kind of antidote needed for over-seriousness, with dialogue that snaps and crackles like the best of today's TV sitcoms. Sexy without being crude, snappy without being self-important, Megamind joins The Incredibles and Ratatouille in that select group of mainstream animated features that both kids and parents can enjoy without embarrasment.