Your Thumb Hit By The Hammer Of The God

Let's just say that at first blush, I'm not too terribly disappointed with the appearance of the cast, save what could possibly be the woman who will obviously the love interest. Not that Natalie Portman isn't a semi-decent actress, it's just that.............

..............just watch.



All the key players are there: Thor, Odin, Loki, Volstagg.

My only issue with this was that Kenneth Branagh was seated comfortably in the director's chair on this one. He pretty much turned Frankenstein into an overly stylized version of the most juicy bits of Mary Shelly's magnum opus, so I'm sure that with the advent of special effects in the modern Hollywood realm he's done the same here. Hell, just look at the trailer.

Then again, trailers are normally farmed out to production houses that do nothing but take the best bits of existing material to make a film look far cooler than it actually is. I thought that Bad Company just might be a genre busting film. After all, Anthony Hopkins AND Chris Rock - what could go wrong.

Oh, wait, this movie has Tony in it too. Fuck.

And while some critics, both professional and non, will claim that Marvel is scraping the bottom of the barrel at this point, I have to maintain that I have loved Thor since I was in grade school. Of course, his storyline became much grittier and hard edged during the last 12 years, but I'm not expecting to see that from Branagh's "vision" of the film.

When it comes to comic adaptations, one has to look more at the writer(s) than the director. At this point, we need to be worried.

The writing team's resume includes such cinematic masterpieces as:

Agent Cody Banks and Fantastic 4: Rise Of The Silver Surfer.

There's really no saving grace to the writing or initial story process of this film, even though one of the guys did work on Babylon 5.

Unfortunately, this will more than likely be a film to wait to get at your local Redbox machine or stream live from Netflix.

God Of Thunder On Film.

Not entirely sure what to think about this right now.

Kenneth Branagh has pulled out of directing a production of Hamlet in London's West End so he can take on Marvel's Thor movie.

It was reported last month that Branagh was in talks to helm the Thor project, based on the comicbook in which the Norse thunder god has a human alter-ego in disabled doctor Donald Blake.

A report today by Whatsonstage now confirms that Branagh has landed the job of director for the Hollywood superhero film, saying he has had to pull out of directing Jude Law in Hamlet at Wyndham's Theatre from June 3 to August 22 2009. Branagh is currently starring in Ivanov at that theatre.

Whatsonstage said: "Branagh has had to withdraw because of commitments to the forthcoming feature film Thor, a project he's recently undertaken."

source



While THOR has never been as visible a comic character as, say, Spiderman or The X-Men, that doesn't make him any less relevant.

Couple that with the fact that Branagh did an "ok" job with Mary Shelly's Frankenstein back in the early 90s and you could have a mixture as deadly as eating 3 Twinkies and chasing them with a double-shot of Jim Beam.

For those unfamiliar with the Thor mythos in the Marvel Comics world, here's a brief description:

Thor's father Odin decides his son needs to be taught humility and consequently places Thor (without memories of godhood) into the body and memories of an existing, partially disabled human medical student, Donald Blake. After becoming a doctor and thoroughly believing himself to be the young surgeon Blake, he later discovers Thor's disguised hammer and learns to change back and forth into the Thunder God. The real Blake's persona remains elsewhere until many years later, after Odin becomes satisfied of Thor's humility and lifts the spell, thereby removing the need for a mortal alter ego. The mortal experience, however, shapes Thor into an honorable and courteous individual, who is loyal to all comrades.

We've got lots of time to wait on this, and there's sure to be more to be learned as pre-production approaches.