Oh May Movie, we love you

Thor was better, by far, than I could have imagined. I was completely taken aback at how it managed to balance being so funny with being so completely serious, and captivatingly so. I hope Kenneth Branaugh is proud of himself. He did actually manage to meld an almost assuredly mindless action film with something possessing more gravitas in order to generate a popcorn flick that still made you feel ways about stuff.

A lot of credit must be given to the leads, Chris Hemsworth and Tom Hiddleston. "What is my motivation?" may be a cliche, but cliches are cliches for a reason, and it seems like both men took the time to really probe at the corners of their characters. This may have been especially hard to do for Thor, who starts off as something akin to a high school football hero making the most of his big fish, small pond status (right before being slapped with the reality of the real world that doesn't give a shit that he can throw a ball however many feet). There's almost no "there" there, and while that's sort of the point--Thor has a lot of growing up to do--Hemsworth still managed to find shades of uncertainty, even self-doubt in his character. In particular, ( minor spoiler )

One criticism I've heard is that Thor's maturity comes too fast. Indeed, it may--especially as regards the obligatory romantic subplot--but there's very little unnatural to it because you can pick up the threads that were woven, quite deftly and subtly, earlier in the movie. You have to be paying attention. For all that I admit to drooling over the man's body (oh how I drooled), I found myself most excited by his eyes. Hemsworth does a lot of emoting through significant gazes, and they are often just as sexy as the rest of him. (Oh so sexy. Holy God.)

Tom Hiddleston has a much richer part as Loki, and, as the antagonist, he should, really. Loki is a difficult character because, unlike some trickster archetypes, he doesn't really stand a chance of being misunderstood in a brainless bit of fiction. Loki is always the one you're going to suspect, and you'd be right to because he's probably doing something very naughty. Which is funny because most of what would have been Loki's mischievous ways starts off being only the hearsay of other characters. He's accused of having a "silver tongue" even though the worst you could say of him for most of the movie is that he has a politician's gift for extraditing himself--and others--from situations that might reflect poorly on him. For the most part, too, Hiddleston plays Loki as a straight-shooter with a sense of playfulness. An occasionally dangerous sense of playfulness, but not an unsympathetic one. He may even have been right to pull the prank he does at the beginning, ( minor spoiler )

Loki is incredibly savvy, very observant, and very atypical in his antagonism. He is not malicious, not needlessly so, but he knows where to stick which pokers to stir the pot the best effect. All of the credit can be given to Hiddleston for that, as far as I'm concerned. Looking at trivia about the film on the IMDB, I read that Hiddleston put himself on a very strict diet so that he would physically have a very hungry, sharpish aspect. And, now I think of it, he absolutely did. So you have this aura of starving, ravenous ambition at the edges of a performance where Hiddleston is otherwise very open--his face seems completely honest (the better to fool you with, my dear). You can believe his every emotion to be sincere even as his actions scream of duplicity. It's really a nuanced bit of character writing enhanced by a phenomenally minimalist performance.

That there is even this much to say about performances is a testament to the effort to make something more of Thor than just about anyone could have expected. There's more X-Men 2 to this than there is, say, Iron Man, despite my liking both. Iron Man is a tad skimpy on the thoughtfulness at times in favor of action and humor. I think Thor manages to combine that with the consideration of causes and effects, especially as regards statecraft, and it comes out the better for it. In the end, will I want to rewatch Iron Man more often? Oh, probably, but that doesn't take away the fact that Thor achieved something here. Captain America, the bar has been raised.

(Also: ZOMG CHRIS HEMSWORTH IS SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO HOT. I cannot overstate how entirely distracting that man is. All weekend, if I would let my mind drift it drifted to this. And I really like what's going on around them hips in this shot. Goddamn, boy. I maintain that if you are female and claim to be heterosexual and you don't think he's hot, you are lying. All the ladies were aflutter after the MAY MOVIE, and with good reason. Personally, much as I want to lick that rise of muscle just over his pants in that one shot, I was as much in love with the bee-ee-ee-youuu-tiful eyes he has. Because they are very pretty. Very, very, verily.)

I swear this isn't about Thor's body

I shouldn't have this much to say about Thor. At least this isn't about Thor really?

After the debacle that was shoe-horning in Black Widow into iron Man 2 and all the Avengers stuff that Jon Favreau clearly wanted nothing to do with, I was, despite my abiding love of Clark Gregg as Agent Coulson (who I think is way more interesting than Samuel L. Jackson as Fury), quite done with the crossover stuff to a degree. I knew that there would be some Avengers stuff in Thor, especially a much talked-about cameo by ( spoiler! )

. The aspect of a cameo, in particular, annoyed me because it would either be a throwaway scene that stopped the momentum entirely or would be a literally nothing scene where you couldn't tell who or what you were supposed to be excited about.

As it turned out, the cameo was more the latter than the former, but it worked for me. It was just significant enough that you went, "Wow, we seem to be more involved with this one guy than we have any of the other faceless SHIELD agents," and no more involved than that. If you didn't know who it was, you didn't really notice. This is in direct contrast to the very heavy presence of SHIELD in the movie. Some people felt that it was still being studio-mandated or whatever into being. I think that setting up Agent Coulson as a means to throw Thor and his human companions in together a little more firmly really helped instead of hurt the film.

A.O. Scott's review was extremely negative despite the fact that he, for the most part, conceded that the movie was good. It's funny because he was especially upset that the movie was good and it exists, in part, to be a prologue to the Avengers movie. There's a point to be made there, that this movie, however good or bad it may be, is part of a money-making scheme that obligates you to return for more later to get the entire payoff. I understand that, but that's more a criticism that should be lobbed at a not-great movie that boosts its popularity by demanding that you see it in order to understand what comes later (Iron Man 2) versus one that is good and has some elements that will set up a later movie (but doesn't require that you see it for something else). Look, Marvel made its bones on its crossovers, but people liked those crossovers. Yes, it's a crass commercial calculation, but if it also pleases the audience, it isn't just about money.

All this is a long way of saying that my antipathy towards the advertising for The Avengers has been mostly dissipated. In fact, I think I threw myself firmly in the opposite camp and now I want alllllll the franchises to go into a blender. I think I, in all seriousness, endorsed an Ocean's Eleven/The Fast and the Furious crossover. I would love to see Vin Diesel and George Clooney plot a heist together. For real.