Sep
30
Remember that movie “Adventures in Babysitting?” It’s the one with Elizabeth Shue as a babysitter who takes her three precocious charges into the city to pick up a friend of hers from the bus station. At any rate, one of the kids — the little girl — is a ginormous fan of the Marvel superhero Thor. She even wears a winged helmet and carries around a plastic Mjolnir; for all you non-fans, that’s a hammer. In one of the most unusual plot contrivances I can think of, she manages to convince an auto mechanic, played by Vincent D’Onofrio, to give Elizabeth Shue her car back even though she’s short on cash and can’t afford to pay for new tires. How does she do this? Well, she’s certain he’s actually Thor and appeals to the superhero’s good nature. She even gives him her helmet. But he gives it back, telling her he’s already got one at home.
Can Kenneth Branagh top “Adventures in Babysitting?” Marvel Studios would like to think so. According to Variety, the studio is negotiating with Branagh, whose name always looks misspelled to me, to helm a Thor picture.
I’m not really much of a fan of Thor. His costume looks like some of the more garish outfits worn by any number of Image Comics oddballs back in the early-’90s and he talks like a guy who plays way too much WoW. People gripe that Superman is nearly invincible and therefore boring in that he has no weaknesses apart from Kryptonite. Well, I submit to them Thor. What the hell is his weakness? I believe he was turned into a frog once. But still, magical characters just don’t work for me as well as ones who are accidents of science or from outer space.
Marvel’s hellbent on making an Avengers movie, though, and needs to get “Thor” in the pipeline. I’m of the opinion that the suggestion of there someday being an Avengers film, so brilliantly executed in the post-credits scene at the very end of “Iron Man,” is more exciting than what will end up on the screen in 2011.
Maybe Branagh will bring something to the material that makes the character work. As he is in the comics, he’s basically a guided missile in human form. There’s not a lot of personality on display. Branagh knows from complex characters, having directed several Shakespeare adaptations. Maybe “Thor” will be the “Hamlet” of superhero movies. Or, maybe it’ll be the “Hamlet 2.” Either way, it should net the Odinson enough coin so that he can afford to quit his day job as an auto mechanic.
-Brad Lohan
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