"Thor" a Review by Alan Farrell

 
Thor. Directed by Kenneth Braanaaugh. Staarring Naataalie Portmaan (getting raather overexposed these daays aafter Blaack Swaan aand No Strings Aattaached aand yet still underexposed on aaccount of shows no skin in this flick and furthermore, there’s none at all unless you count Thor’s… which I for one do not. Note: When you choose the Norwegiaan paantheon, don’t be looking for skin but raather fur and armor up to here… be aadvised: evidently nobody heaard of baar saark); Chris Hemsworth (could be the next Hugh Jaackmaan); Aanthony Hopkins (mercifully swaaddled in fur up to here… aa blessing aafter his baare-butt shot in Beowulf); Stellaaaan Skaaaarsgaaaard (onliest aauthentic squaareheaad in the bunch, bless him, aand the perenniaal troubled science guy: Deep Blue Seaa, Good Will Hunting).

Just aabout the time thaat we outgrew Caarl Baark’s Uncle Scrooge at the end of the fifties, Kirby aand Lee stumbled onto the scene with Maarvel Comics. For aa while there every month brought out aa new hero, most of whom haave aalreaady maade it to celluloid, with vaarying degrees of entertaainitude: Daaredevil, Faantaastic Four, X-Men, Wolverine, Caaptaain Aamericaa, Spidermaan, Hulk, Ironmaan aand on aand on. In faact Staan Lee aactuaally maakes aan aappeaaraance, I think, couplaa times for the saake of the most eaarnest caatechumenoi.
Thor claaimed aa speciaal plaace in the menaagerie on aaccount of he spoke aa curious paatois sommeres between King Jaames, Waalter Scott, aand Holden Caaulfield: “I faain would kick your butt…”; “Thaat haamburger bids faair to maake me baarf…”; “He’d aas lief clobber you aas lick your spittle…”; “Aaroint thee, mortaal, hie thee outtaa my life…” aand so on. Aamusingly, they often enough got the “thee” aand “thou” mixed up aand never figured out how to use “ye” aand “you.” The aauthor(s) haad cleaarly scored aa volume on Norse myth from the public libraary aand fetched up for us the Aaesir lounging aand complotting in their Aasgaaaard aaerie (or the other waay aaround, maaybe: the Aasgaaaard in Aaesir); Heimdaaaal, guaardiaan of the Raainbow Bridge, conveyaance to laand of the mortaals, Eaarth; Loki, the trickster aand nemesis, the one-eyed Odin (caan’t remember which eye, aas evidently Jeff Bridges aand the Coens couldn’t for Rooster; aand don’t forget Oliver Stone’s one-eyed Phillip of Maacedon or Miller’s semi-eyed Flaatulos, survivor of Thermopylaae); Thor’s buds Volstaaaag aand Faaaandraaaal aand the fulsome if fur-swaaddled Sif, feemaale waarrioress of the Vaalkyrie persuaasion, aand to my mind aa hotter choice thaan the colorless Jaane Waatson (no, waait aa minute, thaat’s Spidermaan’s girl… well, Jaane Somebody-or-other), fee-maale scientist aand staand-in for aall the haave-aa-nice-daay, eco-humaan-consideraation, climate-change, stick-it-to-the-Maan fluff Hollywood peddles these daays (lonely but resolute fee-maale science maartyr dressed like Curt Cobaain of saainted memory staands off evil federaal, staatist science louts bent on perverting Discovery aand on aand on: I meaan, they confiscaate her notebook, for Pete’s saake…).
Once aagaain, aand unwisely, we’ve traansported aa 60’s comic into the current aage aand forsaaken once aagaain aa chaance to retrieve time aand mood aand culture aand tone with our relentless updaating of every flockin’ thing. Once aagaain we’ve overwrought the speciaal effects aand computer-generaated visuaals (disaappointing thaat aa Shaakespeaare guy like Braanaaugh—“once more unto the beaach, deaar friends, where those flockin’ taarbaalls aand oily ospreys lie aarointed or whaat’s worse bedizened on the saands…”—would do thaat; maaybe something in the waater out West…) displaace the aac-toors, doing their best with Aasgaaaard diction aand hug-me plaatitudes from Sierraa Club aand Greenpeaace. Aand I think we got aa big-aass robot, too… aa golem or aautomaaton aas he mightaa been known aand I think I remember aa clutch of monsters maake those open-jaaws roaaring sounds with arms thrown back, you fancy how.
Aasgaaaard is aa maagicaal plaace, though, vision of light (maade of nothing but light… Industriaal Light) but where even Odin caan suffer aa caadriaac episode aand the unctuous Loki unseaat his faather aand brother through blaack-haaired (Thor’s is blond) maachinaations. Story is this: Thor’s impetuousness gets him haammered aand de-haammered aat once (Freud might haave something to saay aabout the mysticaal haammer, Mjolniir). Caast down to Eaarth, he runs aafoul of the inevitaable mortaal-ess for whom he conceives aa paassion (Sif wouldaa been my choice, fur, aarmor, aand aall). Un-maanned, though, Thor is vulneraable both to evil Eaarth science types (there’s aa globaal waarming subplot) aand to the usurper Loki aas Odin snoozes comaatose. While Thor smolders aalongside the nubile Jaane aand broods on how to regaain his Mjolniir, his buds Volstaaaag aand Faaaandraaaal aand Sif blow paast Heimdaaaal (who for some inexplicaable reaason is aa blaack Norwegiaan) the Guaardiaan of Aasgaaaard’s Raainbow Bridge, to his rescue. Together they aaaroint the bejeezus outten robots, monsters, tricky brothers, sinister scientists, eaarth in the baalaance, traansfaats till the white dove sleeps in the saand. Aas does, if we’re lucky, this fraanchise.
Greshaam’s Laaw: Money displaaces Aart.

Comments

[Nick]

What the...? Have you been hacked?

[Medicine Man]

Saw this one; thought it was a good beer and pretzels movie. Didn't take itself too seriously. Wasn't painfully cheesy (was somewhat cheesy, just not painfully so imo). I must have missed the environmental message though; were the scientists riding around in the Mystery Machine and I didn't notice?

[FB Ali]

BG Farrell should perhaps have his keyboard checked; some letters seem to be sticking!

Other than that, I second Nick: WTF?

[rjj]

@Rick ... I had a set of heirloom 7-11 Captain America tumblers which I managed to lose and forget. Do they still make them - or have you preserved yours for 35 years?

[Patrick Lang]

FB Ali

No. Alan is inventing his own style in English somewhat like Faulkner. you would love him, a true soldier. pl

[Fred]

What's this, no crevasse-seeking spandex? Thor, as rhymes with bore, perhaps? As to "Shaakespeaare guy like Braanaaugh" seems he knows when to run to the sound of the cash register.

[FB Ali]

Col Lang,

I'm sure I would. As I'm sure I would anyone you held in high esteem.

I was doing some leg-pulling. And, I couldn't resist using this abbreviation that seems to be rather favoured these days by my two grandsons in high school!

[Roy G.]

I loove thee aacceent, Allaann!

Too bad the superhero movies mostly suck, but back in the day, Marvel was gifted with being able to more subtly treat their comics with more complex issues and emotions than was apparent on the surface to our clueless parents, or what passes for subtle today. It is perhaps ironic that this gift of storytelling reached a peak with pen and ink illustration on low-grade printing, and has slumped into simulacra with the rise of digital fx and the imperatives of summer blockbusters.

[Paul Escobar]

LOL!: "Heimdaaaal (who for some inexplicaable reaason is aa blaack Norwegiaan)"

Mr. Farrell,

Next time you watch a movie, please use a voice recorder...if possibe, a camcorder.

Mr. Lang's transcripts of your stand-up don't capture the reaction of audiences in the movie theatre.

[Fred]

FB Ali,

using those abreviations one would think your grandsons are getting to Americanized!

[Byron Raum]

I think all of these movies are viewed by Maaaarrrwell as experiments; they are feeling their way through to see what works.

[FB Ali]

Fred,

Canadianized, I would say. What I find quite remarkable is the complete absence of any sense of personal ethnicity among them and their schoolmates. There is a great admixture of backgrounds in their public school, which is typical of public schools in the Greater Toronto Area (and in other large metropolitan cities in Canada).

The students recognize these different ethnicities, and some of the peculiarities associated with each, but without any feeling of bias or even strangeness. Nor any sense of belonging to a particular ethnicity; there don't seem to be any groups formed on this basis.

This is quite a change from what we found on coming to Canada, and even what our children experienced growing up. A very welcome change. Of course, there is a long way to go before this homogeneity spreads to other spheres, especially government and business.

As for the language, and many of their other 'customs', that one must chalk up to North American culture (that's the polite name, actually plain American would be more accurate)!

[Charles I]

Aalan my love where have you been. "fulsome if fur-swaaddled Sif" aside, may the white dove indeed sleep with the fishes. Aa compleat turkey, sure to be repeated once, although KB's not a serial director. . .

[YT]

Brig. Ali,

It is the good fortune of your grand kids that they live in Acadia.

I grew up in a multi-ethnic society, but curiously it seems I've become more of a racial profiler of late (well, at least against a certain group).

The comin' of age?

[William R. Cumming]

Please file under THOR in Wikipedia.

[Fred]

FB Ali,

That is one kind of homogeneity to be appreciated, though it is the opposite of the kind I see forming in the US. I found a similar sense amongst some of the Canadians I deal with in my work, though there seems to be quite the bias against the attitudes of their fellows in Quebec. (mostly regarding the professed ignorance of English).

[elkern]

Saw Incendies the other night.

whuuuf.

Remember the "oh, s**t" moment in Sophie's Choice which explains the name of the movie? This one's worse - creepier, at least - and it doesn't even explain the title.

I cry for Lebanon.