THOR (7) -- by naudy

Natalie Portman has sad eyes. This is a problem because when she wants to look like she's happy, or excited, or attracted to someone, or basically any emotion which requires something other than sad eyes, she looks creepy because she always has sad eyes. Sad eyes while smiling equals grasping and desperate and panic-stricken. In the photo you should see above, Thor has just kissed her hand and she's supposed to have gone all squishy over it. Does she look swoony to you? Probably not. To me she looks like he just carefully licked her cuticles and now she thinks he's a complete nutter. (Note: there is no cuticle licking in this film.) I had thought that the wide-eyed panic one sees in her portrayal of Padme in EPISODE 1 came from being trapped in a movie directed by George Lucas. (Who, after all, made HOWARD THE DUCK.) Turns out, she just has sad eyes and it makes her look crazy when she tries to be flirty. It's not a debilitating condition, these eyes. It should just limit her range of films to intense stuff like V FOR VENDETTA, BLACK SWAN, and LEON:THE PROFESSIONAL.

THOR is three movies in one. First of all, it's a 3D movie. That means there is a ton of the swoopy, shooting-through-the-sky shots which look so cool in 3D. I didn't see it in 3D 'cause I couldn't be bothered but one can see how it was crafted to be good in that format. And, "well-crafted" is the best term for this film. It was outrageously beautiful and totally dedicated to the vision of the artistic directors. This film even had a "Food stylist" and I actually noticed it. Pumpkins are lovely. So are neatly wrapped Whoppers from Burger King. I even noticed the color palette and use of light between the three different environments. Asgard is gold and orange. The ice planet is blue and dark. New Mexico is overexposed windy big sky mid-century pastel. New Mexico incidentally has some mid-century furniture which, while striving to look like thrift store castaways, are expensive high-quality vintage pieces. Trust me, no one operating on a research grant can afford to buy lawn furniture that old and ugly. And airstream trailers are expensive. Am I criticising 'cause it's not realistic? Nope. I'm just appreciating the amount of cash they spent to make it look like it was cheap. =)

Secondly, this film is a broad Shakespearean father-sons play. It's slightly cheesy, totally predictable and I didn't mind. I don't know how it works, but Kenneth Branagh is in charge so it does work. What the previews don't tell you is that THOR is mostly a sci-fi movie about immortal alien royalty set on another planet. There's all sorts of noble things happening in massive halls and battles on ice planets and confrontations between powerful men and it's fairly engaging. I am happy Mr Branagh did this film. A film with overtones of Henry V is fantastic. (It could, after all, have been more like EPISODE 3, REVENGE OF THE SITH.) The only downside to this was my sister yelling "Johnny Weir -- on ice!" whenever the character Loki was around. To be fair she does have a point. Tom Hiddleston who plays Loki looks like this:

Johnny Weir looks like this:
Thirdly, and last, this film is part of the buildup for THE AVENGERS which comes out next summer. You see Agent Coulson really early in the film and we like it when we see Clark Gregg because we know he works for SHIELD. He complains about Tony Stark, other mysterious folks are focused on for no obvious reason, and everyone in the theater waited for the credits to end so Samuel L. Jackson could show up and say something cryptic. I don't know what THE AVENGERS will be like but odds are I'll go see it, especially since Samuel L. Jackson won't be carrying a purple light saber.