Thor: The Dark World Shines with Humor and Tom Hiddleston as Loki

Thor: The Dark World (3 1/2 out of 5)

Directed by: Alan Taylor (The Sopranos, Mad Men)

Written by: Christopher Yost, Christopher Markus, and Stephen McFreely, story by Robert Rodat and Don Payne

Starring Chris Hemsworth, Natalie Portman Tom Hiddleston, Renee Russo, and Anthony Hopkins

Marvel adds another piece of its puzzle, to both the Avengers Universe, and to the story of the God, Thor.  Each film, has built on to the lore of where the story is about to go, with both mid, and final credits, except for Iron Man 3.  Together these films do such a great job of creating a cannon of stories which all feed into one big Universe, but to me Thor has been the most consistent franchise.

Thor: The Dark World starts with a story told from Odin (Hopkins) about a battle his father fought with the dark elves.  The dark elves lead by Malekith tried to send the universe into darkness using the Aether.  The warriors from Asgard are successful in stopping the dark elves, and hide the Aether "in place no one would find it."  Cut the the present day, and two years after Thor first showed up on Earth and entered Jane Foster's (Portman) life.  Foster and her intern Darcy (Kat Dennings) discover an anomaly like when Thor first showed up; she is sucked into a wormhole and she disappears.  Thor has brought peace to the 9 realms, and once he discovers Darcy's disappearance he goes to Earth to find her and brings her to Asgard, and the battle against Malekith begins again.

In briefly reading the negative reviews of this film, I have to say that critics/bloggers sometimes just need to let go. One person compared this to the recent release of Man of Steel, the difference is Man of Steel tried to take the Christopher Nolan approach, and become deeper more meaningful film experience.  Man of Steel was not.  One critic said "can't these movies be about someone saving a puppy and not the end of the Universe?"  No they can't.  Thor is the best example of live action comic book fun brought to life, the film franchise is the most consistent, increasing the magnitude of whats at stake, and getting into Asgard more than ever before.  

This was Alan Taylor's first feature film; he is a regular and highly acclaimed television director for shows like The Sopranos, Mad Men, Boardwalk Empire, and Nurse Jackie.  I think Dark World is a great accomplishment for him for two reasons.  The first is the action is great, and he realizes the humor within the script.  Two the film is better than the first, and even critics who knock this film agree.  Dark World achieves something wonderful, the film is beyond entertaining, and does not try to be something other than a good comic book movie.

At the end of the day the humor is what saves this film, Chris Hemsworth hanging his hammer on a coat rack, or jovially laughing after he bests a creature to bring peace to the nine realms.  Hemsworth was the perfect choice for Thor he is great.  While Hemsworth is great as Thor, the real scene Stealer is Tom Hiddleston as Loki.  Loki is locked away in Asgard, but released to help his brother defeat Malekith.  Hiddleston brings even more light, fun, and entertainment to this film; he is the best part of this movie.  There is one bit where he uses his mischievous cloaking to change both he and Thor into different characters, its one of the funniest moments, and great fodder. 

At the end of the day Thor: The Dark World, is a fun action packed, romp filled with a great blend of humor, that makes the movie an enjoyable experience.

Snow White and the Huntsman Fails to live up to the Fairy Tale Expectations

Snow White and the Huntsman (2 out of 5 Stars)

Directed by Rupert Sanders 

Written by Evan Daugherty, John Lee Hancock (The Blind Side), Hossein Amini (Drive)

Starring: Charlize Theron, Kristen Stewart, and Chris Hemsworth

The beauty of fairy tales is there are numerous versions, and even though there can be an origin story, fairy tales have been adapted through time to teach lessons or to of course continue the legend.  Snow White started as German tale, and was adapted throughout the years by a variety of people ranging from the Brothers Grimm to Walt Disney.  Although these two versions are not the only ones they are the most famous.  The Grimm Brothers created the magic mirror, and the poisoned apple.  While Walt Disney created a much less darker family friendly version where he was he was the person to name the dwarfs.  Who is surprised that Walt Disney love German fairy tales? I am not.

This year has provided a lot of obsession over the Snow White myth.  Lost creators Adam Horowitz and Edward Kitsis, put Snow and the Evil Queen at center stage for the battle over fairy tale land and Storybrook in the ABC series Once Upon a Time.  Ginnifer is a great Snow White/Mary Margaret, but the show does not have as much magic in my opinion.  In March of 2012 Tarsem Singh brought Mirror Mirror which centered around a lighter version of Snow White, with Julia Roberts as the Wicked Queen.  I skipped Mirror Mirror looking at the preview made me want to laugh and not in a good way.Then came what appeared to be the darkest most action packed story to date from Rupert Sanders in his directorial debut.  Each version has taken liberty with the story and showed the beauty of adapting a story, but have each of these versions tried to hard, or complicated the myth? Possibly.

Snow White and the Huntsman opens with a narration from Chris Hemsworth with Snow's mother pricking her finger on a red rose that lived within the fallen snow.  As in the fairy tale Snow's mother dies and her father is consumed with grief.  In this version an army takes advantage of his grief, and attacks, in that attackhe finds a beautiful female prisoner, and makes her his bride.  On the weeding night this beautiful bride named Ravena (Theron) kills the king and takes the kingdom for her own; she then holds Snow White (Stewart) captive in the tower until she escapes and the Huntsman (Hemsworth) is sent to track her down.

Sanders took a on a lot in his directorial debut, one of the most grandiose in art direction and production design, not to mention some incredible visual effects, including some intense battle scenes.  While the art direction was superb it could not save the poor writing.  This film went big, but left the heart of the story behind.  With three screenwriters pulling the string the film felt overlong and burdened with far too much adaptation of the original myth. Why did we meet Snow White's boy hood friend the "prince" if he would serve no real purpose? Why did they make this queen like Maleficent from Sleeping Beauty?  While Theron was easily the most entertaining part of this film, the writers took the character a few steps too far. They explored all of the magical lands/area, but where were they and what was their connection to the kingdom?  These unanswered questions proved to bog down the film immensely. 

The film ended up being number one at the box office because of the intense action packed trailer, which probably brought in more guys.  The only problem was that Ravena tricked you enough into believing the film was more than it was.  The film slows down in the middle, almost too much, and focuses on a less than convincing Stewart as Snow White.  Stewart is one of the weakest actresses working today; she is an unconvincing female lead who has never grown up, she should be in Peter Pan.  I love watching Hollywood become creative with fairy tale myth, but they have to remember quality over quantity, and this film fails to live up to the fairy tale expectations.

The Avengers Assemble to Create One of the Most Entertaining Comic Book Films

The Avengers (4 out of 5 Stars)

Directed and Written by Joss Whedon (Serenity, Buffy the Vampire Slayer)

Starring: Robert Downey Jr.,  Chris Evans, Mark Ruffalo, Chris Hemsworth, Scarlett Johannson, Jeremy Renner, Tom Hiddleston, Clark Gregg, Colbie Smulders and Samuel L. Jackson

At the end of every Marvel film seeing Samuel L. Jackson show up as Nick Fury to recruit for "Avengers Initiative" made me an incredibly giddy fanboy.  I have read comic  books since as long I can remember.  I primarily used to read the X-Men titles, but ever since Avengers Disassembled  (2004), I have been hooked on this super team.   As a little kid I used to play with the action figures, and played the video games, so for me there was a lot of pressure for this film to live up to my childhood hopes.  It did.

Without giving too much of the film away, the film starts with the evacuation of a SHIELD base.  Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) is racing to the base with his second in command Agent Maria Hill (Colbie Smulders) tells him the Tesseract, an energy source of unknown potential, has activated and opened a portal through space.  Loki steps out of the portal takes the Tesseract and escapes.  Fury has a bunch of hologram screens with government officials telling him he should not go forward with the Avengers Initiative it was disbanded, but of course they need "Earth's Mightiest Heroes" to save the planet, and the story takes off.

Director/Writer Joss Whedon who is best known for his TV series Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel was the perfect choice to direct this film.  Whedon is the eternal fanboy in the director's chair, and perfect person to pen this screenplay.  Whedon knows the comic book world well; he has continued to write the Buff, and Angel comics, he has also created a series entitled "Fray"which takes place in the future of the Buffy world.  Whedon has done writing for Marvel comics as well.  In 2006 Whedon helped relaunch the title series "The Astonishing X-Men" and under his writing it received numerous honors and was one of the best written 24 issue arc of the decade.  I had walked away from comics for a few years, but I credit Whedon's writing on this X-Men series to be the reason I returned to comic books.

Fans have been clamoring for Whedon to step behind the camera for years, with a variety of different comic book films, but he waited for the perfect moment.  Whedon's only other film credit is Serenity, but boy does he know what he is doing.  Whedon makes you feel as though he is one of the fans; he knows the comic book crowd and how to make them happy with both his direction and writing.  As a comic book fan he made the film speak to me, and put into full realization everything I had always imagined this experience to be, and he is especially good at bringing the different cast members together.

From Tony Stark's (Robert Downey Jr's) one-liners, to the Hulk smash the cast meshed well together.  The core four Avengers (Thor, Captain America, Iron Man, and Hulk) were the best part.  I read Whedon wants to shrink his cast down in the next film and I have a feeling it will involve these four and maybe one more new cast member.  I enjoyed Hawkeye; he was cool, but without his own film you lose the characterization.  The Black Widow kicks ass and Johansson was better in this than in Iron Man 2, but I still  did not care about her character's development because of the lack of depth behind her.  Other than that I may have given a few fan boy shrieks, but this movie was just great.

Avengers Assemble: Thor aka Donald Blake

Thor is exactly who you him to be, God of Thunder from from Norse mythology.  Thor first made his appearance in 1962.   The world of Marvel comics used their anthology based on science fiction/fantasy entitled Journey into the Mystery  to launch Thor; he first debuted in issue # 83.  Two of the four men created Iron Man came together to create Thor for Marvel, and they were the brilliant Stan Lee and Jack Kirby.

In the book Excelsior! The Amazing Life of Stan Lee he talked about the birth of Thor in congruence with the creation of Thor.  Lee wanted to combat the fact the fact that he had created Hulk who had this eternal strength.  Stan Lee stated this:

"[H]ow do you make someone stronger than the strongest person? It finally came to me: Don't make him human — make him a god. I decided readers were already pretty familiar with the Greek and Roman gods. It might be fun to delve into the old Norse legends... Besides, I pictured Norse gods looking like Vikings of old, with the flowing beards, horned helmets, and battle clubs.  ...Journey into Mystery needed a shot in the arm, so I picked Thor ... to headline the book. After writing an outline depicting the story and the characters I had in mind, I asked my brother, Larry, to write the script because I didn't have time. ...and it was only natural for me to assign the penciling to Jack Kirby.."


This is a fascinating look into the creation of Earth's most powerful heroes and his origin.  Journey into the Mystery was later re-titled Thor.  Marvel knows how the capture lightening in a bottle, and has told some great stories over the years, and while I have never been an avid Thor reader, the film got me more interested in his character.


Like within the the film Thor was sent down to Earth in the body of a human who had lost his memory.  The human name he took was Donald Blake.  Blake became a doctor and fell in love with a nurse name Jane Foster.  The basics are there in the film.  Good job Marvel!  Soon Blake used his Hammer to combat aliens and his arch nemesis and half brother Loki found him on on Earth, and the battle raged on.  Loki became the first villain the Avengers faced in the comic book, and he will be the first villain the team faces in the film.


It seems as though the film did a job with the lore and story from the comic book with Thor.  I would have like them to focus more on the world Thor comes from, Asgard, but Kenneth Branagh did a great job with this film.  Chris Hemsworth played Thor like no one else could, and he was beautifully brilliant (key word beautiful).  The real scene-stealer in the film was Tom Hiddleston who played Loki; he played Thor's jealous half brother with humor and venomous rage well.  I am excited to see Loki back on the screen in a few more days!