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[Movie] Thor: The Dark World

[Seven pages of frantic key smashing later…]

I will keep myself pretty spoiler free for now. There is SO MUCH MORE I want to say, but I need to think, and not have two extremely generous beers flowing through my bloodstream, and see this movie a few more times before I can reach Pacific Rim levels of nerdly overthinking.

As usual for these kinds of movies, there is a MacGuffin. And it’s a silly MacGuffin, though not quite to the level of red matter thank goodness. But the McGuffin really doesn’t matter in the slightest. What matters is that this movie is having fun. And you get to have fun with it. The Dark World filled me with Nutella-flavored glee.

And it’s pretty. Oh gosh is it pretty. And so much snark. So, so much snark. This is the movie I wanted in every way.

I’d actually started getting worried that it would be a bit too much Loki (yes, I do believe there is such a thing despite the fact that he’s my favorite You Little Shit of a character ever) just considering the released footage and the fact that you literally cannot turn around without seeing Tom Hiddleston promoting the movie, to the point that it would almost be a bit creepy if he weren’t an adorable life model decoy made out of sunshine, curly blond hair, and swan-murder. But no. The amount of Loki is perfect and viciously jocund.

And Jane is most excellent. Have I mentioned I like Jane? Because science. This movie finally made me buy Thor/Jane, which I appreciate after being left in such a state of Meh after the first movie. Jane got to be the smart, strong in her own way character I always wanted her to be.

Really, I don’t have a lot of complaints other than I would have always loved more. At least we got a bit of time with all of the side characters. (Darcy-senpai!) They did the best they could cramming that much awesome into 112 minutes. The movie definitely didn’t feel that long, which is always a very good sign. The only reason I knew time was passing as such were the increasingly plaintive signals of distress coming from my bladder. (I did mention the two generous beers thing, yes?) And it had a bonus unexpected mini-heist movie right in the middle because why the hell not. Really, I’d love to see a bit more genre play like that, it was fun.

And there are some excellent cameos that made me repeatedly slap my housemate’s leg but it’s okay she still likes me anyway. If you liked the first Thor, I have little doubt you’ll like this one even more. Because this movie is honestly more fun, and determined in that special way Marvel movies have mastered to be a motherfucking comic book movie, exuberant and larger than life and unabashedly cheesey.

Stay all the way to the end of the credits. All the way. There are two extra scenes. (Marvel, this is getting a bit silly, when will it end?)

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movie sexism you need to do better

Hey Thor 2: Star Wars Called, It Wants Its Poster Back

I had about three seconds of excitement yesterday when Marvel dropped the new Thor: The Dark World poster on Twitter. I’m so excited about that movie, I can barely stand it. And I really loved most of the posters there were for the original Thor. So… yay! And here it was!
thor poster
Well. That’s sure a thing. I don’t like the composition (she says as if she has more artistic ability than the average potato).It’s really… busy. Unlike the posters for the first movie. But more than that… wow. It feels really familiar. Reeeeeeeally familiar.
iron man poster…wow. Yeah. But no, that wasn’t what I was thinking about. We have to go back further. Much further. Like maybe…
star-wars-return-of-the-jedi_movie-poster-01A bit like this, perhaps. Except while they put Leia in the stupid-ass bikini, at least she’s not clinging to anyone. But of course, Star Wars really owes its artistic allegiance to far pulpier roots…
UFO_MovieArt_01
Just as an example. That’s art from a release called UFO from the 70s. Though then we need to add a little side of this just for full replication:
eileen-dreter-barely-a-lady-cover-art-by-jon-paul-ferraraAnd there you go.

Why the hell are we still doing pulp movie clingy woman and manly men posters in the year 2013? There is just so much about the poster that I really, really don’t like. About both the TDW and IM3 posters, really. I’m not a big fan of women with their necks broken, to start with. But the position is so classic clingy damsel in distress oh let me lay my hands on your manly manly chest so you can save me. I loathe it. Particularly because in IM3, Pepper was pretty fucking awesome. She saved Tony’s ass twice. She was not the damsel in distress.

That gives me hope that maybe the TDW poster is a big troll just like the IM3 poster kind of was. (Or maybe we’ll get an awesome joke poster for Captain America 2, like this idea.) But it just upsets me on a basic level to see another awesome female character turned into the visual clingy appendage of the guy. I actually like Jane as a character. She kind of fell by the wayside when I first watched Thor because I was too busy losing my shit over the complexities of Loki. But in subsequent viewings, I’ve come to really like Jane.

In a super hero movie, it’s nice to have some normal human characters around who aren’t just living furniture. That they’re regular people means yes, they occasionally need their bacon saved by the super hero, because that’s what super heroes do. But both Pepper and Jane are eminently competent women, and they solve some great plot problems by being excellent at what they do. While I didn’t really buy the Thor/Jane romance in Thor, I loved that Jane was the one who decided to kiss him. I loved that she was impulsive and smart and very much had a life and a being outside of the whole romance angle.

The one thing that I’m still mad at Thor for was what I felt was the lazy writing. We need some redemption–quick, have him instantly fall in love with someone and that will make him a better person because boobies are magic! It was cheap, formulaic, and trite. I’ll still be seeing the new movie who knows how many fucking times because Loki. And Sif. And Loki. And Frigga in armor. And Loki. But I’d love to not give myself a headache from rolling my eyes through the rest of the movie. At this point I’m already assuming that Jane will get kidnapped by Malekith and Thor has to almost die again to save her life because obviously Malekith blowing shit up across the Nine Realms isn’t sufficient motivation for the man to be self-sacrificing. Barf. (I’d love to be wrong, by the way.)

I’m sick of shit like that. I’m so sick of it. It’s ultimately disrespectful (if that’s the right word) of two really awesome characters. It reduces Jane to just being an object to motivate Thor, and it reduces Thor to someone who can only stir himself to do great and noble things and grow as a person if his dick warmer is in danger.

Really. Do better.