Thor

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The release of this silly but enjoyable new movie based on the Marvel superhero Thor, the ancient god of thunder, has triggered an extraordinary explosion of Thor-related puns online. Thousands of critics and bloggers all over the world have been competing to get in the best Thor joke. They have wondered if our troubled hero is entirely Thor about his destiny. They have noticed that certain things are a bit of a Thor point with him. They have remarked that bad things happen to good mythic superheroes, Norse the pity.

This week, I became convinced that I had the best one: the supervillain that Thor should really face is … Mr Freeze. Thor, thaw, geddit? Look upon my matchlessly crafted play on words, ye Thor punsters, and despair. Yet the weird thing is that Thor really does appear to have ice-related opponents, the Frost Giants, leading me to wonder what is happening in the subconscious, psycho-linguistic levels of Stan Lee's mind.


The 27-year-old Australian star Chris Hemsworth plays the mighty thunder god himself, with flowing locks, and tungsten-hard abs. Up there in the halls of Asgard, this divine hothead is impatient with his wise, sonorous old dad Odin, played by Anthony Hopkins. Odin favours a Chamberlainesque peace with the Norse gods' ancient, malevolent enemies, the Frost Giants, despite the fact that these low-temperature villains have recently made a provocative trespass on to Asgard. Thor wants to get in there and kick some arse, to the unease of his prickly brother Loki, played by Tom Hiddleston.

Impetuously, irrepressibly, and without anything approaching a patriarchal say-so, Thor leads a posse of Norse god mates over the ancient bridge and prevails upon the Asgard gatekeeper, Heimdall, played by Idris Elba, to let them through, so that they can parley with the subzero baddies in their own icy domain. Inevitably, a fight kicks off and to punish his errant son for his diplomatic bêtise, Odin exiles Thor to earth where he is stripped of his powers, and must earn the right to regain them, and to wield his mighty hammer, Mjolnir, which has plunged down to earth with him. Like Excalibur, this can only be pulled out of the earth by a worthy candidate and so, like a fish out of water, or indeed like a Norse Crocodile Dundee, Thor must make sense of Earth, and he must also get it on with gorgeous earthling scientist Jane Foster – played by Natalie Portman – whose Scandinavian mentor (Stellan Skarsgård) tutors her in Norse myth.

Returning now to Stan Lee's subconscious mind, the Freudian implications of Thor's mighty hammer are plain enough. But ever since I bought the first UK edition of Spider-Man Comics Weekly in 1973, in which Thor was an eccentric supporting turn, I have wondered about that little leather strap that goes on the end of the handle. This is, presumably, to make the hammer a hands-free device. Thor will sometimes need to do things with both hands; it would be a bore to keep having to put the hammer down, and he scorns a Batman-style utility belt. So, as a child, I always expected a scene in which Thor was, say, queuing up in a canteen holding a tray with Mjolnir dangling mightily from one wrist. These former thoughts came back into my mind watching this – though at no point does Mjolnir's design-feature, the strap, actually get used. Perhaps when Thor 2 comes out, we will see him loop it round his hand for added crime-fighting convenience.


This movie is directed by Kenneth Branagh, and it is interesting to consider how, or if, this very intelligent and now unjustly maligned director has put his personal mark on the picture. I think he has, in the interesting way he has directed British newcomer Hiddleston in the ambiguous role of Loki. Hiddleston is a performer who came to prominence in the art films of Joanna Hogg, Unrelated and Archipelago. Making the leap to a commercial mainstream movie, it would have been very easy for Hiddleston to play Loki pretty much as a typical villain. But Hiddleston makes of this cartoon character something interestingly complicated: his Loki is nervous, sensitive, thin-skinned. Most of the Norse god characters stand around as if they are nothing more than action figures, but Hiddleston is trying to do something more. Inevitably, these nuances get a little lost in the mega-decibel thunder, but they are there, nonetheless. Now is the time for Branagh to direct another Shakespeare. My suggestion is Timon of Athens, with Hiddleston in the lead.

This Thor can be entirely ridiculous sometimes, and the world of Asgard does look sometimes like the digital universe of Tron, in the recent dodgy update. It underuses actors like Jeremy Renner and the Japanese star Tadanobu Asano in minuscule roles. But this is entertaining stuff, a serviceable summer movie and Asgard to be a good thing.
 
Frijj said:
The release of this silly but enjoyable new movie based on the Marvel superhero Thor, the ancient god of thunder, has triggered an extraordinary explosion of Thor-related puns online. Thousands of critics and bloggers all over the world have been competing to get in the best Thor joke. They have wondered if our troubled hero is entirely Thor about his destiny. They have noticed that certain things are a bit of a Thor point with him. They have remarked that bad things happen to good mythic superheroes, Norse the pity.

This week, I became convinced that I had the best one: the supervillain that Thor should really face is … Mr Freeze. Thor, thaw, geddit? Look upon my matchlessly crafted play on words, ye Thor punsters, and despair. Yet the weird thing is that Thor really does appear to have ice-related opponents, the Frost Giants, leading me to wonder what is happening in the subconscious, psycho-linguistic levels of Stan Lee's mind.


The 27-year-old Australian star Chris Hemsworth plays the mighty thunder god himself, with flowing locks, and tungsten-hard abs. Up there in the halls of Asgard, this divine hothead is impatient with his wise, sonorous old dad Odin, played by Anthony Hopkins. Odin favours a Chamberlainesque peace with the Norse gods' ancient, malevolent enemies, the Frost Giants, despite the fact that these low-temperature villains have recently made a provocative trespass on to Asgard. Thor wants to get in there and kick some arse, to the unease of his prickly brother Loki, played by Tom Hiddleston.

Impetuously, irrepressibly, and without anything approaching a patriarchal say-so, Thor leads a posse of Norse god mates over the ancient bridge and prevails upon the Asgard gatekeeper, Heimdall, played by Idris Elba, to let them through, so that they can parley with the subzero baddies in their own icy domain. Inevitably, a fight kicks off and to punish his errant son for his diplomatic bêtise, Odin exiles Thor to earth where he is stripped of his powers, and must earn the right to regain them, and to wield his mighty hammer, Mjolnir, which has plunged down to earth with him. Like Excalibur, this can only be pulled out of the earth by a worthy candidate and so, like a fish out of water, or indeed like a Norse Crocodile Dundee, Thor must make sense of Earth, and he must also get it on with gorgeous earthling scientist Jane Foster – played by Natalie Portman – whose Scandinavian mentor (Stellan Skarsgård) tutors her in Norse myth.

Returning now to Stan Lee's subconscious mind, the Freudian implications of Thor's mighty hammer are plain enough. But ever since I bought the first UK edition of Spider-Man Comics Weekly in 1973, in which Thor was an eccentric supporting turn, I have wondered about that little leather strap that goes on the end of the handle. This is, presumably, to make the hammer a hands-free device. Thor will sometimes need to do things with both hands; it would be a bore to keep having to put the hammer down, and he scorns a Batman-style utility belt. So, as a child, I always expected a scene in which Thor was, say, queuing up in a canteen holding a tray with Mjolnir dangling mightily from one wrist. These former thoughts came back into my mind watching this – though at no point does Mjolnir's design-feature, the strap, actually get used. Perhaps when Thor 2 comes out, we will see him loop it round his hand for added crime-fighting convenience.


This movie is directed by Kenneth Branagh, and it is interesting to consider how, or if, this very intelligent and now unjustly maligned director has put his personal mark on the picture. I think he has, in the interesting way he has directed British newcomer Hiddleston in the ambiguous role of Loki. Hiddleston is a performer who came to prominence in the art films of Joanna Hogg, Unrelated and Archipelago. Making the leap to a commercial mainstream movie, it would have been very easy for Hiddleston to play Loki pretty much as a typical villain. But Hiddleston makes of this cartoon character something interestingly complicated: his Loki is nervous, sensitive, thin-skinned. Most of the Norse god characters stand around as if they are nothing more than action figures, but Hiddleston is trying to do something more. Inevitably, these nuances get a little lost in the mega-decibel thunder, but they are there, nonetheless. Now is the time for Branagh to direct another Shakespeare. My suggestion is Timon of Athens, with Hiddleston in the lead.

This Thor can be entirely ridiculous sometimes, and the world of Asgard does look sometimes like the digital universe of Tron, in the recent dodgy update. It underuses actors like Jeremy Renner and the Japanese star Tadanobu Asano in minuscule roles. But this is entertaining stuff, a serviceable summer movie and Asgard to be a good thing.
Click to expand...
seb
 
Frijj said:
The release of this silly but enjoyable new movie based on the Marvel superhero Thor, the ancient god of thunder, has triggered an extraordinary explosion of Thor-related puns online. Thousands of critics and bloggers all over the world have been competing to get in the best Thor joke. They have wondered if our troubled hero is entirely Thor about his destiny. They have noticed that certain things are a bit of a Thor point with him. They have remarked that bad things happen to good mythic superheroes, Norse the pity.

This week, I became convinced that I had the best one: the supervillain that Thor should really face is … Mr Freeze. Thor, thaw, geddit? Look upon my matchlessly crafted play on words, ye Thor punsters, and despair. Yet the weird thing is that Thor really does appear to have ice-related opponents, the Frost Giants, leading me to wonder what is happening in the subconscious, psycho-linguistic levels of Stan Lee's mind.


The 27-year-old Australian star Chris Hemsworth plays the mighty thunder god himself, with flowing locks, and tungsten-hard abs. Up there in the halls of Asgard, this divine hothead is impatient with his wise, sonorous old dad Odin, played by Anthony Hopkins. Odin favours a Chamberlainesque peace with the Norse gods' ancient, malevolent enemies, the Frost Giants, despite the fact that these low-temperature villains have recently made a provocative trespass on to Asgard. Thor wants to get in there and kick some arse, to the unease of his prickly brother Loki, played by Tom Hiddleston.

Impetuously, irrepressibly, and without anything approaching a patriarchal say-so, Thor leads a posse of Norse god mates over the ancient bridge and prevails upon the Asgard gatekeeper, Heimdall, played by Idris Elba, to let them through, so that they can parley with the subzero baddies in their own icy domain. Inevitably, a fight kicks off and to punish his errant son for his diplomatic bêtise, Odin exiles Thor to earth where he is stripped of his powers, and must earn the right to regain them, and to wield his mighty hammer, Mjolnir, which has plunged down to earth with him. Like Excalibur, this can only be pulled out of the earth by a worthy candidate and so, like a fish out of water, or indeed like a Norse Crocodile Dundee, Thor must make sense of Earth, and he must also get it on with gorgeous earthling scientist Jane Foster – played by Natalie Portman – whose Scandinavian mentor (Stellan Skarsgård) tutors her in Norse myth.

Returning now to Stan Lee's subconscious mind, the Freudian implications of Thor's mighty hammer are plain enough. But ever since I bought the first UK edition of Spider-Man Comics Weekly in 1973, in which Thor was an eccentric supporting turn, I have wondered about that little leather strap that goes on the end of the handle. This is, presumably, to make the hammer a hands-free device. Thor will sometimes need to do things with both hands; it would be a bore to keep having to put the hammer down, and he scorns a Batman-style utility belt. So, as a child, I always expected a scene in which Thor was, say, queuing up in a canteen holding a tray with Mjolnir dangling mightily from one wrist. These former thoughts came back into my mind watching this – though at no point does Mjolnir's design-feature, the strap, actually get used. Perhaps when Thor 2 comes out, we will see him loop it round his hand for added crime-fighting convenience.


This movie is directed by Kenneth Branagh, and it is interesting to consider how, or if, this very intelligent and now unjustly maligned director has put his personal mark on the picture. I think he has, in the interesting way he has directed British newcomer Hiddleston in the ambiguous role of Loki. Hiddleston is a performer who came to prominence in the art films of Joanna Hogg, Unrelated and Archipelago. Making the leap to a commercial mainstream movie, it would have been very easy for Hiddleston to play Loki pretty much as a typical villain. But Hiddleston makes of this cartoon character something interestingly complicated: his Loki is nervous, sensitive, thin-skinned. Most of the Norse god characters stand around as if they are nothing more than action figures, but Hiddleston is trying to do something more. Inevitably, these nuances get a little lost in the mega-decibel thunder, but they are there, nonetheless. Now is the time for Branagh to direct another Shakespeare. My suggestion is Timon of Athens, with Hiddleston in the lead.

This Thor can be entirely ridiculous sometimes, and the world of Asgard does look sometimes like the digital universe of Tron, in the recent dodgy update. It underuses actors like Jeremy Renner and the Japanese star Tadanobu Asano in minuscule roles. But this is entertaining stuff, a serviceable summer movie and Asgard to be a good thing.
Click to expand...
Is there any bucking in it?
 
Our lass f***ing loves Chris Hemsworth, she watches owt he's in and said she would let him do anything to her. I have no doubt that wasn't said in jest.

Can't blame her to be honest. He's a proper good looking fucker..
 
Yes, it's canny. Not Citizen Kane by any stretch, but then it's not meant to be. If you watch the other Marvel films it'll fill in a few gaps.
 
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