THOR- Review

Looking at the scoreboard as Marvel Studios doggedly continues to ramp up next year's blockbuster event, The Avengers, it becomes clear that not every part of the puzzle is coming together. The Incredible Hulk will feel disparate because Mark Ruffalo is going to replace Edward Norton as Bruce Banner, and Iron Man 2 proved that you can't let Tony Stark be Tony Stark while SHIELD are pottering around and teasing summer 2012.

So it's surprising then, that the God of Thunder turns out to be the most grounded character yet established for the upcoming Marvel team-up extravaganza. Thor introduces its titular character as an arrogant and short-tempered warrior from another dimension, called Asgard. He's heir to his father Odin's throne, but when he recklessly breaks a truce with Asgard's old enemies, the Frost Giants, he's exiled to Earth and relieved of his powers. Thor must prove himself worthy of his heritage in time to stop a threat that could consume both Asgard and Earth.

If ever one of the Avengers was going to be a tough sell, it would be Thor. After the Iron Man films and The Incredible Hulk spent time establishing the hyper-reality of the science behind their outlandish protagonists, Thor as a character is a straight-up god. Many of his allies are also gods, and many of his foes are demons or monsters. Handily, Thor manages to rejig elements of the character in order to establish Asgard as another dimension, which is apparently easier to swallow than polytheism.

Put it this way- I don't know that I could immediately see him working alongside Tony Stark, but after seeing the film, that's Tony Stark's problem and not Thor's. Chris Hemsworth brings the character to life in an astonishingly endearing fashion, making him a hugely entertaining spectacle as he's all discombobulated on Earth but also making him a genuine, certified hard-arse. He's the central piece of the puzzle, but he can't claim all of the credit for why Thor works so well.

Kenneth Branagh might not seem the obvious choice to direct a film like this, until you allow the more dramatic elements to breathe. I'm not saying that the royal rumblings between "All-Father" Odin and his two sons Thor and Loki are Shakespearean in scale, but they do require that we treat them seriously. Branagh lends the material the gravitas that it needs, casting Anthony Hopkins and Tom Hiddleston in the supporting role. Hopkins is admirably restrained for a god who wears a golden eyepatch and Hiddleston masks his character's intentions behind benevolent and nebbish expressions while maintaining an air of inscrutability that makes him a really effective character.

Luckily, Branagh doesn't skimp on the funnies either. When it's meant to be, it's a very, very funny film. It's not to say that the gorgeous Kat Dennings, who serves as the designated comic relief character, is always on the mark, but then most of the comedy comes from the culture clash, which rings out all the way through. The comedy serves to temper the full-on fantasy elements, in which a beautifully designed Asgard neighbours other realms, with names you won't remember ten seconds after they're mentioned. The weakest segment of the film is the early stuff before Thor's banishment, which feels like expendable backstory more than epic storytelling.

I'm finding it difficult to nail what makes Thor so special, but unusually I think it's probably something to do with the romantic throughline. Having annoyed me for the last couple of films I've seen her in, Natalie Portman returns to form as the scientist who gets more than she bargained for when the God of Thunder topples out of the weather anomalies she's been chasing. Portman plays it klutzy, but there's a real sweetness to her character, and her chemistry with Hemsworth really helps to ground the most ungrounded character in the Avengers' ranks.

Thor confidently strides across a rainbow bridge between full-blooded sword and sorcery fantasy flick and genuinely hilarious fish-out-of-water comedy. Crucially, it feels more like a tee-up to The Avengers than anything else we've seen so far, without ever letting Agent Coulson and the SHIELD crew overwhelm our hero. It's smashing fun on an unexpectedly grand scale, and a triumph in direction from Kenneth Branagh. A bold, boisterous and brilliant opening to the summer blockbuster season.

Thor is showing in 2D and 3D at cinemas nationwide from tomorrow.
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If you've seen Thor, why not share your comments below?

I'm Mark the mad prophet, and until next time, don't watch anything I wouldn't watch.

Stark Contrast

As something of a regular disclaimer, it's only my opinion here- others are available. As ever, mild spoilers may occur in the process of reviewing, but never so far as to spoil any major plot developments. That said, the Iron Man review will contain SPOILERS, because if you haven't seen the first one yet, I doubt you'd be here.

The Internet is abuzz with reviews of Iron Man 2, the definitive beginning of the 2010 summer blockbuster season. With such widespread interest in the sequel, there's only one thing your Mad Prophet could do, true believers. That's right- go back and review Iron Man. You know, because this blog started just shy of the opportune time to do a review of that film. Nah, there will be a quick snifter at Iron Man 2 as well, so sit back and enjoy a blog post that scrutinises the ongoing adventures of Tony Stark.
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Iron Man begins with Tony Stark being ambushed by a terrorist group whilst in a military convoy in Afghanistan. He's a billionaire and genius, and his talents are understandably coveted by America's enemies. While in captivity, he pulls a Doc Brown by using the materials provided to create something much more awesome than he's meant to- in this case a mechanised suit of armour capable of dealing heavy firepower. Through these experiences, Tony's eyes are opened to the effects of his work, and when he returns to America, he vows to develop the armour and right his own wrongs as the titular superhero.

In the time since the film came out, Jeff "The Dude" Bridges has publicly decried Paramount's initial handling of the film, setting a release date and even starting shooting before they had a script or a cast locked down. In the same breath, he said that the film turned out as well as it did thanks to the improv skills of director Jon Favreau and leading man Robert Downey Jr. Certainly they make Iron Man the all-out riotous bit of fun blockbuster cinema that it is. You have to remember that Iron Man is no Superman or Spider-Man. With the upper tier characters spoken for, film studios are turning to lesser known characters, making this an unlikely hit when it originally came out.

Of course it's also the film that largely gave Downey the stardom he finally secured in the last few years. He earns every bit of it with his sardonic portrayal of Stark, making the audience like him from barely a minute after the film starts. Favreau wisely keeps him on screen for as long as possible, because in a superhero film where the alter-ego is entirely concealed by a suit of robot armour, there's little room for performance in major action sequences.

Save for a few ingenious finishing moves, there's little to show that Stark is Iron Man, resulting in a number of open-helmeted exchanges when he does don the suit. On which note, it's nice to see they partially employ practical effects for the suit, and that it's near impossible to tell the difference between the effects and the physical suit.
Also to be applauded is his chemistry with literally everyone on screen. He sparks off of Gwyneth Paltrow as his long-suffering assistant Pepper Potts without the film resorting to a traditional romantic conclusion. He mocks Terrence Howard's Colonel Rhodes without ever letting the audience lose sight of the fact that they're best friends. Downey is perfectly cast as Stark and is simply one of the best things about this film.

The plot rattles along wonderfully, especially considering they improvised much of it, and the only real problem stems from Iron Man being a second-tier Marvel hero. The first-tier heroes are often so well-known because they also have everyone's favourite villains. In Iron Man's case, his nemeses are more often bigger or more metal versions of himself- another guy in a suit.

Even if the action climax fizzles out, it picks up for one of the better final scenes of any modern blockbuster- a complete subversion of the angst around preserving a secret identity when you have superpowers. Tony telling the press "I am Iron Man" leaves the audience wanting more from the film from the second it cuts to the credits. And who could blame any audience? This is a witty, gloriously acted and hugely enjoyable film that stands up on repeat viewings and doesn't adhere too closely to superhero genre formula. Iron Man defies expectations by pleasing both comic fans and broad audiences, setting up both the origins of the character and some pretty intense anticipation for a follow-up.
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It's that intense anticipation that threatens to overshadow Iron Man 2 for me. Beginning simultaneously with the first film's ending before skipping six months on, the sequel picks up with Tony being massively popular for the Iron Man brand and for "effectively privatising world peace." Opposition stirs within the US government, who want to replicate the armour for military usage, and across the globe, where a resentful Ivan Vanko plots vengeance on Tony. Whipping up an arc reactor of his own, Vanko embarks upon a mission to prove to the world that Iron Man is not indestructible...

On my first viewing? I don't think it's as good as the original. I wouldn't call it a disappointment, but it's just missing something. I will be seeing it again to check I wasn't compressing it under the weight of my expectations, but here's my review for now. The first hour or so is really pretty dull. The highlight, an fight scene at the Monaco Grand Prix, has been flogged to death in the marketing, and so has little impact in the context of the film. After a promising opening, it becomes bogged down in extended scenes of sub-poena hearings and corporate mix-ups, which is not what you want from a film called Iron Man 2.

After that second hour though, the film becomes preoccupied with selling the forthcoming Avengers film. The convergence of all the Marvel characters here takes up a sizable chunk of the second act, when I'd really much rather have seen a film solely about Iron Man. It wouldn't be fair to say it suffers from Spider-Man 3 Syndrome, but it does stretch itself massively to cover numerous plot points about SHIELD when giving proper focus to the narrative at hand would have been more satisfying. Despite the flab, it's a decent narrative with some strong action beats, but it seems divorced from the sense of fun that made Iron Man so good.
Of the cast, I can't really declare any faults. Downey is once again superb as Tony, becoming ever more isolated as the tide of opinion turns against him, but special mention should go to Sam Rockwell. Assess your wants and needs, and I guarantee you there is nothing you want as much as Justin Hammer wants to be Tony Stark. He's an incompetent shadow to Tony's genius and Rockwell knocks it out of the park completely in every scene he's in. Don Cheadle makes a better Rhodey-cum-War Machine than his predecessor Terrence Howard right from the off, and Mickey Rourke proves an interesting casting decision, playing Vanko. His righteous anger is pretty much the length and breadth of his character, but Rourke sells it well, proving a threatening screen presence throughout.

Downey has always been fast-talking as Tony, often speaking at the same time as an equally flustered and garbled Gwyneth Paltrow, but it really jars this time around in the early instances of their dialogue together. If there's one character who's perfectly legible and well-covered throughout, it's Happy Hogan, played by... director Jon Favreau. Expanding a cameo from the first film, he gets lots of dialogue in this one, gets involved in action scenes and at one point is pinioned between Scarlett Johansson's legs. If you have to do a cameo, make it more like Hitchcock and less like Shyamalan. I do have to wonder where director Jon Favreau's head was this time around, other than locked between ScarJo's thighs in that one scene.

Is Iron Man 2 solidly entertaining? Ultimately, yes, but it's not a patch on the first one. The unconventional ending of the first film is countered with a bog-standard denouement for two certain characters and a final scene that's kind of copied from the ending to one of the Star Wars films. And just prior to those scenes, we have a villain face-off similar to the end of Iron Man- as mentioned earlier, his opponents are invariably other robots, and that's the case here. I'll hand it to Favreau though, it still seems fresh if not entirely as enjoyable as what's gone before. And it held my attention throughout, so it's visually top-notch even if the meat in the story is a little thin at the outset.
It's funny really, how Iron Man proved a winning formula with little planning and a largely improvised production and this one didn't. The signs of aforethought are all too clear in Iron Man 2, and the half-hearted attempt to recapture that formula turns it into just that- a formula. There aren't many original thrills, but it has a better cast giving better performances than many other films you'll see this summer. Thankfully it hasn't attempted to stray into the intangible territory of "darkness" that many Hollywood sequels try to broach, but sadly it doesn't really try anything else new either.
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With the caveat that I may well be kinder to the sequel on a second viewing, let me know what you think of the Iron Man films with a comment below!

I'm Mark the mad prophet, and until next time, don't watch anything I wouldn't watch.

Review: X-Men Origins- Wolverine

If you have a broadband connection, you've probably seen it already! If you've seen X-Men 2, you've probably seen it already! But it's here in cinemas now!

Yes, X-Men Origins- Wolverine is being advertised as the first X-Men movie that centres solely around Wolverine, which is odd as the other three all centre around Wolverine too. But nevertheless, we press on to my review of the film I've seen three times now- twice in the cinema and the other was the "workprint" at the beginning of April. I use "workprint" in inverted comments because despite what Fox claimed, the finished product has nothing different besides finished special effects, which don't do an awful lot for the complaints the fans have had. As always, the IMDB forums are the hub of the hysteria, with histrionic post titles such like "Will there be a wing for this movie opened in the Holocaust museum?" Moving onwards now though, to a review that contains a fairly big spoiler or two, along with major spoilers for the other three X-Men films, which I presume you've seen if you're reading a review of the prequel.

X-MEN ORIGINS- WOLVERINE

Who's in it? Hugh Jackman (Australia), Liev Schreiber (Defiance), Lynn Collins (The Number 23) Danny Huston (How to Lose Friends and Alienate People), and Ryan Reynolds (Adventureland).

What's it all about? Does what it says on the tin, although a more truncated and sensible title might have just been Wolverine. Basically, James (Jackman) and his brother Victor (Schreiber) are on the run from an early age, both having an extraordinary lifespan thanks to their mutant powers of regeneration. Although they usually apply their unique skills to warfare or mercenary work, James/Logan/whatever he's called in any given scene wants out. But when his newfound domestic harmony is cruelly destroyed by Victor, he sets out for revenge on his brother with the aid of an indestructible metal bonded to his skeleton.

Any good? One thing I will establish to begin with is that I have all the goodwill in the world towards Hugh Jackman. He's a good actor, I usually enjoy his films, and he seems like a nice guy in real life- he was kind enough to buy $8,000 worth of breakfast for fans when he heard they were camping out overnight outside a US theater to see this film. So there's certainly no Coxian hatred for him here, and that goes for most of the cast. Liev Schreiber, Danny Huston, Lynn Collins and Ryan Reynolds all turn in terrific performances, and its certainly not any fault of the cast that this film turned out so bland and predictable.

Oddly enough, I've also heard good things about director Gavin Hood's other work, so the only reasons I can think of for his short-changing of everything Bryan Singer set up in the first two X-Men movies are the terrible script and the interference of Tom Rothman. I could do a whole other blog entry about how Tom Rothman has destroyed so many franchises with his douchebag meddling, so I'll stay focused on the script. If when you sit down to watch Wolverine (I'm calling it that, rather than the correct but unnecessarily long title), if you have sudden deja-vu at dialogue such as "This isn't what we signed up for", "I'm so cold" or "Let's do this", then fear not. Those are just lines that have appeared in plenty of other action films over the years and have been uselessly regurgitated by screenwriters David Benioff and Skip Woods, the latter being the writer of such classics as Hitman and Swordfish. And sloppy narrative is where this film falls down.

Without wanting to outright list spoilers in order to prove my point, you'll notice if you keep your mind working during this film that scene-by-scene, the film constantly contradicts itself. A character dies in one scene, and the next has his mates talking about how he knew his attempts to catch Wolverine wouldn't work, so he prepared a better idea. Why didn't he then use that idea to go after Wolvie instead of getting killed? If this were any other action film, I'd be appalled at myself for picking it apart in such cerebral manner, but I only remember the first two X-Men films. Bryan Singer worked hard in those films to establish the continuity as outside of the realms of our own world as it is, but still maintained a general common sense about the proceedings. Guess who rushed out the third X-Men film without Singer, leading us down the path to this film? Tom Rothman. Promise I won't mention him again, because he makes me mad enough to go on a really huge tangent.

So you can't even really defend Wolverine by saying it's a park-your-brain X-Men film. There should be no such thing- the series at its best (i.e. with Singer at the helm), has a lot to say about racial equality and discrimination while still keeping the action element, but Wolverine has simply thrown all that out. Literally in some cases, as they make no effort to match Logan's operation with what we saw in flashback throughout X-Men 2. Come to think of it, X-Men 2 covers Wolverine's origins pretty conclusively. The only loose end is General Stryker, played then by Brian Cox and nailed in Wolverine by the excellent Danny Huston, telling Logan that he volunteered for the operation, and that only he can help him restore his memory of why. Logan doesn't care and leaves Stryker to die, so why are the audience expected to care any more than Logan does? I don't know about you, but perhaps that was my problem with this film when I first saw the trailers. It's unnecessary.

What do we have then, in Wolverine? Besides mindless action without any common sense or logic in the narrative, we have another plethora of mutants being introduced and then ignored to play second-fiddle to Logan. They even bring back a younger Cyclops just to give him less screentime than anyone else again. Then again, not all the supporting cast are neglected- Gambit is well-served by Taylor Kitsch's performance, and Blob is a cameo that actually works, because it's a comic-relief scene that's reminiscent of the 90s cartoon series. But what's unforgivable is dressing a Black-Eyed Pea who can't act up as a cowboy and then casting him as John Wraith, and then giving him more screentime than three or four much more capable performers cast as even more short-changed characters. And worse, although Schreiber is terrific, his dynamic with Jackman isn't really given much scope for development beyond the latter shouting "VICTOOOOOOR!" right before they start fighting again. Over and over again. And there really is a special circle of hell for how Wade Wilson is mistreated, especially given how well Ryan Reynolds portrays him. Whatever that thing at the end is, Woods and Benioff- that's not Deadpool.

Wolverine is not entirely without merit, however negative the bulk of what I've just written seems to say otherwise. The cast is largely excellent, soldiering on with the material they're left with. Additionally, there seems to be a good film struggling to get out between the numerous action sequences, but even if that's true, it can't escape the fact that this film is an unnecessary exercise in Fox renewing its licence to the X-Men franchise. The Last Stand killed any shot they had at continuing the franchise in a linear method, so they've gone back to the beginning. I only hope the planned Magneto and First Class (centring around young Cyclops, Beast et al) are given a lot more thought than this rushed, cheap-looking mess of a film. Watch X-Men 2 instead- still the gold standard of the franchise.


(yes, it falls between 3 stars for the cast alone, and 2 stars for everything else, so I had to invent another star rating)
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Normal service will resume as normal this afternoon, with the long-promised reviews of 17 Again, The Boat That Rocked, Crank: High Voltage, Observe and Report and Race to Witch Mountain.