Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah (1991)

Title: Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah (1991)

Director: Kazuki Omori

Review:

I never thought I would be saying this but there is such a thing as a ‘Mecha-King Ghidorah’. Yes ladies and gentlemen, you read that right a ‘Mecha-King Ghidorah’. What is a ‘Mecha-King Ghidorah’ you ask? Well, basically, a King Ghidorah is an alien creature brought to earth by a group of time travelers from the future. But a Mecha King-Ghidorah is actually the robotic pimped up version of that! But I’m getting ahead of myself, and you should find out for yourself what a ‘Mecha-King Ghidorah’ is. A regular King Ghidorah is a three headed golden dragon that can fly and shoot lightning bolts out of each of its three heads. Never thought I’d end up typing that either, yet here I am talking about ‘Dorat’s’ and ‘King Ghidorah’s’ and Godzilla! That’s right my friends, I’ve finally decided to go deeper into the world of Godzilla films! I recently watched and reviewed the original Gojira (1954) a couple of weeks ago and enjoyed that one so much that I’ve decided to go even deeper into Godzilla films. It looks like this will be ‘A Very Japanese Summer’ here at The Film Connoisseur, I will take this opportunity to announce to you guys and gals out there that starting in June 2011, The Film Connoisseur is going to go Japanese! I have lots of Japanese films lined up for you guys this summer 2011! Their will be lots of anime, lots of Kaiju, lots of everything Japanese, so look forward to that in the coming months! But now, the task at hand: my review for Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah!

In this film time travelers from the year 2204 (called ‘The Futurians’) land their spaceship on Mount Fuji. They tell the Japanese that they have come to warn them that Godzilla is going to end up destroying Japan. But fear not! These Futurians have a solution to the Godzilla problem! They can travel back in time to 1944 to destroy Godzilla before he was Godzilla, in this way avoiding the destruction of Japan at the hands of the beast. Problem is, these Futurians actually have an ulterior motive for traveling back in time…they want to eliminate Godzilla and replace it with an even deadlier creature: King Ghidorah! Their ultimate goal is the destruction of Japan. You see, in the future, Japans economy surpasses that of many countries in the world. It becomes the most powerful country in the world! Even more powerful economically then the United States, and the Futurians don’t like that! Their plans are to set King Ghidorah loose upon Japan and completely annihilate it! Will the Futurians achieve their goals of destroying Japan and putting an end to Japan’s future economic reign?

How Godzilla films started, and what they evolved into are two very different films in my book. While the original Gojira was a mostly a straight forward monster movie, its sequels evolved into something else altogether: I’m talking about films in which two giant monsters fight each other to the death! That’s right, starting with the very first Godzilla sequel Godzilla Raids Again (1955) these films turned into films about monster against monster. In fact, while monster vs. monster movies are quite common place today (think Alien Vs. Predator and Freddy Vs. Jason) Godzilla Raids Again was actually the first Japanese film of its kind! It depicted Godzilla going up against a monster known as Anguirus, the first monster that Godzilla ever faced. Fast forward 28 films later and that’s all Godzilla has ever done! Fight other monsters! What makes these movies interesting though are how different and totally out there each of these monsters are. Case in point King Ghidorah!

Since I’m not watching these films in order, I learned that this film I’m reviewing today is actually the fifth time that Godzilla has fought King Ghidorah, so I guess I have a lot of catching up to do. But seriously folks, King Ghidorah has to be one of the coolest creatures that Godzilla has ever gone up against. In fact, King Ghidorah has gone down in Godzilla history as the main bad ass of the series, Godzilla’s ultimate arch-enemy. Cool thing about this movie is we get to see King Ghidorah’s origin story, and I bet you guys are just dying to find out where a three headed, winged, golden dragon that shoots golden lightning bolts out of its mouth came from aren’t ya? No worries, its all here. And speaking of origins, we also get to see how Godzilla came to be! I mean, yeah, we all know that Godzilla is a mutation caused by the radiation that came from nuclear bomb testings, but what was he before? What did he mutate from? This movie answers us those questions in the form of Godzillasaurus! That’s right, Godzilla was once a dinosaur!

Ladies and gentlemen, Godzillasaurus!

I just want to go down in saying how much fun I had with this one. I didn’t expect to enjoy these films so much. I loved seeing a three headed winged dragon with golden skin flying above Tokyo! So far, the best thing about these Godzilla movies is how completely outlandish their stories can get. I mean seriously, on this film, just when you think you have seen it all, boom, the movie gets crazier! Take for instance the fact that one of the Futurians is actually a freaking cyborg that runs at lightning fast speeds! It’s a hilariously cheesy image, but it’s totally insane, and therefore completely entertaining. The time traveling angle, the changing of past events to alter the future and the muscle bound cyborg in the film (called M-11) let’s us know that this particular Godzilla film was very influenced by The Terminator (1984). A couple of these Godzilla movies were heavily influenced by American films, for example in Godzilla vs. Mothra (1992) there’s this Indiana Jones type character that goes around getting relics and avoiding booby traps! Hell, some scenes in Godzilla vs. Mothra were completely ripped off from Raiders of the Lost Ark and Temple of Doom! On Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah they only rip off The Terminator. It’s obvious that Japanese love American movies just as much as we love theirs, they even make a Spielberg related joke when two American soldiers see a spaceship pass above them and one of them says “Let’s keep this between us, it’s a story you can tell you’re kids Major Spielberg!”

Mecha-King Ghidorah!

I have to say that I loved seeing Godzilla destroying building after building, fighting off giant monsters from the future and kicking all sorts of ass. I mean, yeah it’s guys in suits, the plot holes concerning time travel are as gargantuan as Godzilla himself, and some of the dialog is god awful (“Take that you dinosaur!”) but the creativity involved in this film is astounding. The miniatures are very elaborate, and the fun level is way up high. I don’t know if this particular film is one of the best Godzilla movies out there or not (because I haven’t seen them all) but all I know is that I had tons of fun with it! I mean how kick ass was it to see Godzilla grabbing Ghidorah by its tail and slamming him on the floor repeatedly? Very kick ass that’s how kick ass! If this film is any indication of what I can come to expect from other Godzilla movies, then I’m in for a damn fun time! And if some of you out there have never seen a Godzilla film, I’d say that this one is a good place to start. Just remember to bring your ‘suspension of disbelief’ with ya for the ride!

Rating: 3 out of 5

The Bicycle Thieves (1948)

Title: The Bicycle Thieves (1948)

Director: Vittorio De Sica

Cast: Lamberto Maggiorani, Enzo Staiola, Lianella Carell

Review:

The Bicycle Thieves is a great example of how a film can stretch its running time however its filmmakers want to. A film can span the time of centuries, or years even, just the same as it can show us what happens in the span of a day, or an hour. In The Bicycle Thieves, director Vittorio De Sica chose to show us the events that transpire during a day in the life of a working class hero. Antonio Ricci is a man who like most men during the post Word War II era Italy, were struggling to find a job. The film effectively captures that time when people stood outside of factories, waiting for patrons to offer them a job on the spot. Patrons would choose two or three people for work, the rest would have to turn around and go home, empty handed. As I write this the world is currently going through a tough economical time as well, so of course I could identify with the overall feeling that the film conveys. There is a heart wrenching scene in which Antonio takes his son Brunno for dinner and on the table next to them is a family with money eating a luxurious dinner with wine. Antonio and Brunno can only afford to eat a mozzarella sandwich with a glass of water. Brunno eats his sandwich as if it was the last in the world, gobbling it up. Antonio sees this and asks his son to eat slower, not to eat the whole thing in one bite, but quickly after saying this he realizes what a stupid request that is. The kid is hungry, of course he's going to gobble up that sandwich, so he let's the kid eat in peace.

Movies about poverty always get to me, I’m not exactly the richest guy in the world, so I understand what it is to struggle with a little bit of money, trying to stretch everyone of those dollars as much as you can. I understand the frustration of not having enough money to do all the things that you’d want to do. You watch your money vanish when you pay rent and utilities. To make matters worse, suddenly everything in the world is three times more expensive, and gas prices aren’t helping much either. I’m actually thankful that I don’t own a car in this day and age! I mean, pretty soon going on a car ride is going to be some sort of luxury, if it isn’t already! I could definitely understand the kind of world that Antonio and Brunno were living in, and because the film aimed for an extremely realistic approach to its story telling, it makes the film that much more believable and real to me, the situations in this film certainly ring true. The Bicycle Thieves brought to mind films like Charlie Chaplin’s Modern Times (1936) and also Ron Howard’s Cinderella Man (2005), both of which are films about the working class struggling to survive during the great depression. I know most of you have probably seen Chaplin’s Modern Times (and if you haven’t then what are you waiting for! It’s a masterpiece!) but I also strongly recommend Cinderella Man. If you like movies that will pull your heart strings, movies about people struggling to survive in harsh economic times, you will definitely appreciate it. The interesting thing about The Bicycle Thieves is that even though we have a protagonist whom we follow all through out the film, this is also a film about people and how we all go through the same situations together as a society. Almost every single frame of this movie is filled with “the people”, in that way, it reminded me of a Fellini film, which often times had scenes filled with busy streets and the noise of life happening.

Though The Bicycle Thieves is a movie about struggle, at first it isn’t all gloom and doom. Antonio does manage to finally get a job! A company offers him the job of putting up movie posters on the streets, unfortunatley,  the catch is you have to have a bicycle and Antonio does not have one! But he takes the job anyway. He makes a special effort and sells all his linen so that he can buy a bicycle! Antonio and his wife are both so excited, they make plans with the money that Antonio will hopefully  get once he gets paid. They are happy that they are finally getting some income! But, tragedy strikes when a thief steals Antonio’s bike right from under his noses! This bicycle was Antonio’s only way of making money for his family and now some two bit low life just stole it from him! It’s such a sad thing because we follow him through this whole struggle of getting the bicycle, only so that it gets stolen. And that’s where the films journey begins. It’s Antonio’s struggle, trying to find his bicycle.

Happy to have a job!

I noticed when watching The Bicycle Thieves how influential the film has been. This is a film that follows a father and his son through really difficult times, yet they stick together, looking out for each other. It’s the kind of film in which the father struggles emotionally because he knows what a terrible situation he and his family are going through. Maybe his son doesn’t realize it because he is a child, but the father, the father knows, and it saddens him. It immediately reminded me of films like Life is Beautiful (1997) and The Pursuit of Happiness (2006), both of which are films about a father and their son trying to survive through an extremely difficult situation. Through this struggle, they form a bond. The father finds comfort in his son, who in turn still looks up to him in spite of the situation, because no matter what, Antonio is his father and no matter how difficult the situation, that love for his father will always be there. I’ve always loved that premise of true love shinning through the darkness and the desperation, and there is a lot of that on The Bicycle Thieves. It occurred to me that this film also influenced Tim Burton’s Pee Wee’s Big Adventure (1985). It’s basically the same plot of a stolen bicycle and the ordeal to get it back. Pee Wee even visits a fortune teller same as Antonio does in The Bicycle Thieves! But of course, Pee Wee’s Big Adventure plays it for laughs, while The Bicycle Thieves took a completely realistic approach, still, the influences are definitely there on Burton’s film.

The producers of this film had famous people in mind for the role of Antonio. Actors like Cary Grant and Henry Fonda were considered for the role, but ultimately De Sica decided to use real people and not professional actors for the main roles. This in my opinion was a great move on his part. It added a level of authenticity to the film. We don’t have a distracting famous actor to take us out of the reality of the film, which is something that happens to me all the time. The actor chosen to play Antonio (Lamberto Maggiorani) was a factory worker before he made this film, so even though he wasn’t a professional actor, he knew what being part of the working class was all about. In fact, he lost his day job as a factory worker to be on this film. Ironically, he struggled to find work as an actor after he made The Bicycle Thieves. Still he managed to work on 16 films before he died in 1983! Enzo Staiola, the kid chosen to play Bruno just happened to be on the set when De Sica chose him to play Bruno, simply because of the way he looked and walked. It was De Sica’s choice to use non professionals for the roles. A bold move, because these were amateurs he was choosing to act on his film, and when using amateurs, you risk the acting on your film not being very good. But it was a move that payed off, the reality the film elicits is there, and a lot of it has to do with the fact that these are real people on screen. It helped that De Sica was good at directing actors, he probably knew how to handle them because he was an actor himself. De Sica had acted in many films before he directed The Bicycle Thieves, but he was a struggling actor himself; he wasn’t that popular at the time and was having trouble finding acting jobs. Reportedly, he wasnt making a penny as an actor,  so he went with directing another film. The result was The Bicycle Thieves.

Vitorrio Di Sica directs a scene

The film forms part of the Italian Neo-realistic movement. These were films that tried adding a new degree of realism to Italian cinema, they were shot on location, with non professional actors in the lead roles. Many of the scenes in The Bicycle Thieves were shot in plain day, with real people walking the streets of Italy. In fact, there is one scene where a car almost hits actor Lamberto Maggiorani, this was not planned that way, he was actually crossing the street, and that was a real car that almost hit him! I appreciate this kind of filmmaking because it’s exactly the kind of films I make. I didn’t even know it, but I must be part of a neo-realistic movement in Puerto Rican filmmaking! I wasn’t even aware of it! I also shoot on location with non-professional actors. We shoot with the real world as our background, same as The Bicycle Thieves, so I appreciated and connected a lot with how this film was made. This is a film that used the real Italy as its backdrop and it’s a real treat to watch! Since Antonio runs all over Italy pursuing his stolen bicycle, we get to see many different Italian landscapes. I loved how the Italian city landscape was captured in all its raw natural beauty. You get to see how people really were back in those days, the way they dressed, the cars they drove. On the Bicycle Thieves we see Italy in the 1940’s, the way it really was.

Seconds after Antonio realizes that his bike has been stolen!

This film is considered one of the best films ever made by many critics and filmmakers around the world. It has appeared on many top ten lists. A search of top films you need to see before you die will surely bring up The Bicycle Thieves. And I can see why. It is a film that shows what real people go through when they face economic struggles in the real world. I’m sure stories like these are floating around in the real world as we speak, so it’s a film that was made during the 1940’s but its themes still ring true in our day and time. That to me is a sign of a great film, when a film still shines, when it still amazes with its beauty, when it’s themes still speak as loudly as they did when it was made. For any true film lover, this is a film not to be missed.

Rating: 5 out of 5

The Blob (1988)

Title: The Blob (1988)

Director: Chuck Russell

Cast: Kevin Dillon, Shawnee Smith

Review:

Back when I was 12 years old I was really into reading movie novelizations. For those not in the know, movie novelizations come to be when a studio hires a writer to write a novel based on a films script. Usually, the novelization is released months before the actual release of the film, in this way, the film makes a little money off of the film even before it is released. Now when I was reading novelizations, it was a time when I was discovering just how much I could enjoy reading a book for pure pleasure. Novelizations aren’t necessarily considered the highest form of literature, on the contrary, they are considered the ‘bottom rung’ of literature, low brow entertainment; but to a fertile 12 year old mind like mine, they were awesome! Coolest part is that these little novelizations were released a month or two before the actual film was released, so I thought it was just fantastic to be able to read a film before anyone had even seen it. This was a time before internet, so reading novelizations was a way of knowing what a film was about even before it came out and for that reason alone, it was a special thrill for me to read these novels. The novelization for the 1988 remake of The Blob was one of the first few novels I read because I actually wanted to read it, not because I had to for homework. It was through this little novelization that I discovered the wonderful world of science fiction novels! They took my fertile imagination to previously unimagined places! From then on, I was hooked on sci-fi! To this day I still read science fiction novels, I am currently exploring the DUNE novels, I have made it to the fourth one so far! I’ve stopped reading movie novelizations since then (I find them too redundant) but I thank those novelizations for opening the doors to other forms of literature, and to the joys of reading a good science fiction novel.

This is the novelization that started me off on sci-fi when I was a kid

When I finally got around to seeing The Blob (1988), I was thrilled to see the film I had read come to life on the silver screen. Did the film live up to what I had imagined? It sure did! This movie did not disappoint! The Blob begins in typical sci-fi movie fashion: a meteor containing a parasitic living organism falls to earth. At first, the organism is no bigger then a basketball, but as it continues feeding, it gets bigger and bigger, until by the end of the film the pink and slimy Blob is as big as a mountain! The first person to encounter The Blob is a curious homeless person who decides to investigate the meteors crash site. Unfortunately for him The Blob decides to jump out of the meteor and adheres itself to the homeless mans hand! It then begins to feed on it! Then, as the homeless guy runs scared onto the road, a couple of teenagers accidentally run him down with their car! They don’t realize that the Blob is attached to the homeless man’s hand so they take him to the local hospital to be taken care of. The Blob ends up eating the old man and one of the teenagers in the hospital! Soon after that The Blob escapes the hospital and begins to roam free through the little town of Arborville looking for more humans to devour! Will anyone believe the teenagers before it’s too late?

Let’s get right to the point, what I loved the most about this movie were the make up effects. After The Blob starts slithering around town feeding on people, this movie is a non stop roller coaster ride of gore and gooeyness! Every single death in the film is its own gruesome spectacle. Want to see what a guy looks like when The Blob sucks his entire body down a kitchen sink? Look no further! How about seeing the Blob devour an entire audience inside of a movie theater? Or how about watching The Blob swatting humans like they were flies? Or maybe you’d be interested in seeing bodies dissolve inside The Blob’s slimy mass? It’s all here to titillate your desire for gruesomeness! Only a film from the 80’s could have this much slimy gory fun in it. And damn it, this movie made me miss the good old days when CGI was not king. In fact, in fact CGI was nothing more then a zygote in the belly of cinema! By that time, CGI had only been used in films like TRON (1982), Young Sherlock Holmes (1985), Flight of the Navigator (1986), The Last Starfighter (1984) and Willow (1988). Because of this absence of CGI, the effects in The Blob have a tangibility to them, they look organic, alive. An effect that I doubt could have been achieved as effectively with CGI. A friend of mine said it best while watching this one “they just don’t make them like this anymore!” Everyone was commenting how much they missed films from this era of filmmaking.

There is not much in the way of themes with this movie, this more of a straight forward monster movie. There were no pretentions here of making a deep film, this is just a film about a monster making its way through a small towns population. And speaking of small towns, the fact that this film takes place in a small town U.S.A. is what makes this film so eighties. For some reason, many movies from that era took place in the suburbs, or in a small town where everyone knows each other. Movies like Gremlins (1984), Explorers (1985), E.T. (1982), The Goonies (1985), Killer Klowns from Outerspace (1988), where films where cops are nice guys who used to be somebody’s boyfriend, where the sheriff is this ultra sweet dude, and there’s always a homey diner where the waitresses are like moms. You know the kind; these are films where the town treats each other like family and when impending doom comes along, the face it together! By the way, the whole diner sequence where the blob comes out of the kitchen sink was completely stolen by the guys who made Alien Vs. Predator: Requiem (2008). That film copy pasted a lot from many other films and one of those films it stole heavily from was this remake of The Blob! There’s a whole scene in AvP:Requiem which takes place in a diner that plays out exactly the same way it did in The Blob. Just switch The Blob for an Alien and you’ll see what I mean. Then again, do yourself a favor and skip AvP: Requiem, it’s a really sucky movie anyways.

Performance wise this movie did pretty good. Kevin Dillon plays Brian Flagg, the rebel without a clue who dresses like James Dean and wears his hair like Paul Stanley from KISS. He has some of the funniest lines on the whole damn movie. For example, at one point Shawnee Smith, who plays Meg Penny wants to hide from The Blob in a building and she tries to open the door, but realizes it is locked. Brian Flagg’s answer? “That’s okay, I have the key!” and he throws a brick to the glass door! Hilarious! Another scene that had me cracking up was when Flagg is taken to the police station because he is blamed for the homeless mans murder. He tells the cops he wants to leave because he has done nothing wrong and that either way, he wants these cops out of his face! Then, one of the cops gets close to his face and says something like “this close enough for ya?” and then Flagg proceeds to lick the cops face in total disrespect of authority! Flagg’s lines are the funniest! Shawnee Smith plays the quintessential 80’s daddies girl. She seems total innocent and naïve, but when her family and town is threatened by The Blob, she grows a pair and kicks some ass! Along with Sigourney Weaver in Alien (1986), Shawnee Smith in The Blob is one of those cinematic babes that kicks butt and takes names. Another performance I enjoyed was Del Close's 'Reverend Meeker'. I like the world play on that name, it refers to the bibles teachings about the meek inheriting the earth. On this film Reverend Meeker belives that The Blob is part of Gods Day of Reckoning and that somehow, the slimy creature is part of the fulfillment of bible prophecies! He’s character is played like a religious fanatic gone mad, I loved it. Plus, the character forms a cool part of the films creepy cliffhanger ending, gotta love those cliffhanger endings! Bill Mosley has a blink or you’ll miss it cameo in this movie as a paranoid member of the CDC.

Now, speaking of the creative team behind this flick; The Blob was directed by Chuck Russell a director who’s also responsible for my favorite entry in the Nightmare on Elm Street films: Dream Warriors (1987). He also made The Mask (1994) with Jim Carrey. Chuck Russell as a director was on a roll for a while, he even made Eraser (1996) with Arnold Schwarznegger, which isn’t Arnies best film, but it isn’t his worst either. Sadly, the guy hasn’t made anything worth watching since those days, unless you liked Bless the Child (2000). The screenplay for this remake was a collaboration of many writers. Two writers did early screenplays, but the final script, the one that they used for shooting the film was written by both Chuck Russell and Frank Darabont, so I guess in total, this film had four writers. Darabont’s one of my favorite directors, he knows a thing or two about what makes a good horror film, or just a good film period. He wrote and directed The Mist which was my favorite horror film of 2007. He also wrote the screenplay for The Fly II (1989), which to me is a great sequel to Cronenberg’s 1986 remake. He had collaborated before with Chuck Russell in Dream Warriors, on that project they both worked the same way they worked on The Blob, Darabont wrote the script, and Russell directed. So it’s good to know we have a solid creative team behind this film.

Finaly words about The Blob: this movie is pure fun from beginning to end. It wont bore you because every five seconds there’s some sort of slimy gory death going on. I consider this remake as one of the good ones, along with remakes like John Carpenter’s The Thing (1982), The Fly (1986) and Zack Snyder’s Dawn of the Dead (2004) this is a remake that both brings something new to the table, and at the same time improves on the originals flaws. The make up effects are very imaginative and numerous, once The Blob is on the role, the movie is non stop till the end. Sadly, this movie wasn’t a huge hit. It cost 19 million dollars to make, and it didn’t make as much in theaters, sadly. But as it often happens with good movies (and this is a good movie within its genre) this film later discovered its audience on VHS and DVD. Look for reviews of this one on the internet, and more often then not they will be positive ones. Bad part about this movie not making much bank at the box office is that we never saw the sequel that was promised with the films cliffhanger ending. Bummer. A couple of years ago Rob Zombie was interested in making a remake of this film, and I got excited about that, unfortunately, the project still lingers in development hell. But we still got the film on dvd to watch and enjoy, so if you haven’t seen it yet, and your feeling like watching an effects filled monster movie, with funny dialog and cool deaths, look no further than The Blob.

Rating: 4 out of 5

Fast Five Behind the Scenes Video (Shot and edited by The Film Connoisseur!)

Hello my dear readers, today I offer you a special treat, a little video I shot while they were shooting Fast Five in Hato Rey Puerto Rico. This is the biggest money making movie at the moment, and 90% of it was shot right in front of my job! Check it out, hope you enjoy it! I know I enjoyed seeing such a big budget film being shot right before my eyes! There was more to that day, but I ran out of batteries! Sorry about the titles being in spanish, but you can still enjoy the visuals. 

THOR (2011)

Title: Thor (2011)

Director: Kenneth Branagh

Cast: Natalie Portman, Anthony Hopkins, Chris Hemsworth, Stellan Skarsgard, Kat Dennings, Rene Russo

Review:

Thor is the second big summer movie of 2011 (first one was Fast Five) and honestly it’s one of the ones I was most looking forward to seeing. I’ve been a life long comic book fan and I love all things related to the wonderful world of sequential art, I love comics as an art form almost as much as I love movies. When we get down to it, comics and films are extremely similar in many ways. In Thor’s case, I was curious to see how they would translate all the cosmic grandness of the city of Asgard and the Gods that inhabit it. The previews gave me a good sign, I liked what I saw, and the fact that Keneth Branagh was directing the film gave me good vibes since Branagh is a director that has made films that can be considered some of the best films based on Shakespeare’s most important works like Hamlet (1996) and Henry V (1989) among others. So the film was in the hands of a guy who understood drama and stories about family feuds between royalty. The cast was shaping up to be nothing short of impressive, Natalie Portman and Anthony Hopkins? Awesome! Plus this Chris Hemsworth guy really looked the part! Still, the question remained: how would all this translate to the world of films? Would the transition be a smooth one? Would it work?

Thor and his brother Loki

Story wise, Thor sticks pretty close to the kind of stories we could find in Marvel’s comic books, mainly, the eternal fight between Thor and his brother Loki. On this film we first meet Thor when he is about to be crowned King of Asgard by his father, King Odin, played by Anthony Hopkins. Problem comes when the Frost Giants of Jutenheim decided to crash the party and steal the Casket of Ancient Winters, an ancient relic that is the source of the Frost Giants chilling powers. Thankfully, the Frost Giants are stopped before they manage to steal the trinket. The event ignites an anger in Thor who from that point on wants to do nothing more then go to Jutenheim and kick the Frost Giants collective asses! Odin advices against it, because he being the wise King that he is, would rather preserve the truce between both kingdoms instead of starting another war. Thor doesn’t agree with that course of action and so he convinces some of his warrior friends to go to Jutenheim anyways to stir up some trouble. When Odin hears of Thor’s disobedience, the Mighty Odin’s anger is stirred and so he ends up not naming Thor King of Asgard after all! Instead, he rids Thor of his god like powers, takes away his magic hammer (called Mjolnir) and banishes Thor to earth. Odin hopes that this banishment will teach Thor a lesson or two on humility and what makes a good king. Will Thor learn his lesson? And what evil scheme does his envious brother Loki have in mind?

So finally I got to see Thor, sadly, it was not all I hoped it would be. Mind you, I didn’t think it was an awful movie, I just thought it was kind of a disjointed tale. Not all together, kind of a mish mash of ideas not well strung together. Maybe what this movie suffered from was having too much story to tell in too little time. The story is epic in scale, yet at times you feel that things are happening way too fast, as if the movie was going through some beats to simply keep things going at a brisk pace, so the kiddies won’t get bored with lots of babbling. I have to admit, I didn’t like how fast the movie was going. I mean, the film had everything it needs to be epic, the story deals with Gods! Unfortunately, the film doesn’t give us any breathing room and because things happen so fast, events just don’t come off as believable. To me this was meant to be the Gone with the Wind of superhero movies, you know, a grand old tale taking its time to hit those beats, but with some character development, some depth. Instead, things happen briskly and fast, you don’t have time to absorb it all. Ladies and gentlemen, meet the first Marvel movie suffering from Attention Deficit Disorder! Movie goes something like this: Thor’s going to be King! Boom! Bad guys crash the party! Boom! Thor is banished! Boom! Thor learns humility! Boom! Thor gets his powers back! Boom! He goes back to Asgard to kick ass! Boom! Movie is over! Boom! Boom! Boom! We go from one beat to the next in a very unbelievable pace. I mean, yeah most films cut a few corners here and there to go through their story, but this one was ridiculous.

Yet, in spite of this the movie has many positive things going for it. First up, Chris Hemsworth as Thor was the best choice they could have made, I mean the guy IS Thor! He’s plays the role with the right level of arrogance, but at the same time, he’s got a likability to him. A lot of what makes the character work is the wardrobe which is excellent, they really nailed the look for Thor. He looks like he could have leapt off the comic book page and on to the screen, literally. Same goes for the wardrobe of the Gods, impressive stuff! Cool looking helmets, awesome capes, armor with muscles…I mean these guys look powerful, and at times, the design of their armor reminded me of something Jack Kirby (comic artist legend) could have cooked up himself. Actually, he did cook these characters up back in the 60’s when the first issue of Thor was printed. He worked alongside Stan Lee in creating these stories based on the Norse God of Thunder. By the way, Stan Lee has a hilarious ‘blink or you’ll miss it’ cameo in the film.

In terms of art direction, the film excels as well. I mean, I loved the way Odin’s throne room looked! In fact all of Asgard looks appropriately gargantuan. A city filled with huge glistening statues and steps upon steps upon steps! Loved how everything is so spacious and gigantic, pretty impressive film in terms of art direction. Same goes for the visual effects which were pretty astounding. In fact, in spite of the films flaws, I think I will be seeing it again simply to enjoy its visual flair. Aactually, the films art direction and all those scenes with Thor fighting other Gods reminded me of those scenes from Master of the Universe (1987) that took place in Eternia, that was a film that also had Gods fighting each other over ultimate power.

These Marvel films have all enjoyed a connectivity to them. They all end up connecting with each other somehow, like one big cinematic comic book! This one is no different. On this one they mention Tony Stark and Bruce Banner a.k.a. The Hulk. We get to see the agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. trying to make sense of Thor and his Hammer, plus, as in most of these Marvel movies, Samuel L. Jackson shows up as Nick Fury. We even get to very quickly meet Hawkeye (played by Jeremy Renner) a character we will no doubt be seeing a lot more of in the upcoming The Avengers film which is being filmed as I type this. I’m sure I don’t need to tell you guys to stay after the credits role for that extra tacked on ending that connects us to The Avengers, which should be premiering summer 2012 if the world doesn’t end first! That was a joke by the way. But seriously folks, that Avengers movie better be something awesome, they’ve been hyping it in every single one of these Marvel movies!

Natalie Portman plays Jane Foster, an astrophysicist who discovers Thor when he first falls from Asgard. This isn’t the performance of her life, but I’m sure you guys weren’t expecting that either. I wish they would have given her a meatier role on this film, something more intense, something that involved her a bit more in the proceedings. She deserved something more dramatic and intense. Unfortunately, she gets lost in the shuffle between Asgard and Earth and all the Gods. Same can be said for Kat Dennings. She’s cute as hell, but her character is only in the film to make facebook and IPod “jokes”. Honestly, she’s one of the most worthless characters in the whole film.

Kenneth Branagh directs a scene

My final word on Thor is that it was a good superhero movie that could have been better had it not been shy with its running time. Sadly, many of these summer movies gotta play by that rule of making the film short enough to squeeze as many showings as possible in a day. The studios gotta squeeze these films for all the can and a short running time assures them that a film will make as much money as it can in theaters. In the end, that’s the only problem I had with this flick which is kind of weird because Thor is a film that comes to us from a director who knows a thing or two about character development in films. If only he hadn’t succumbed to the pressures of making fast paced film to please the studio! Still, its worth the price of admission for the spectacle it offers. 

Rating: 4 out of 5