Thor

Director: Kenneth Branagh
Starring: Chris Hemsworth, Natalie Portman, Tom Hiddleston, Anthony Hopkins, Stellan Skarsgard, Kat Dennings, Idris Elba 
Running Time: 114 min.
Rating: PG-13

★★ (out of ★★★★)

Even if writing Thor off as a complete waste of time is probably something I should wait on doing until officially viewing The Green Lantern or Captain America: The First Avenger, the fact still remains that it's pretty underwhelming. It's yet another 2-hour commercial for Marvel Studios, who still seems more interested in promoting their other superhero properties than focusing on the task at hand. At this rate, considering the amount of time and effort they've spent promoting next year's The Avengers, that movie could turn out to be the second coming of The Dark Knight and no one outside its core fanbase would even care since it's been shamefully shoved down our throats for three years. They're at it again here, indulging in silly clues and distracting cameos. It's a big misstep, but hardly the worst of Thor's problems. Not when you have a sleep-inducing backstory for the protagonist, an overabundance of distracting CGI effects and a charisma deficient villain. Things get a little better once the story starts to play out and at least the most prominent role is well cast, but Marvel really needs to get its act together moving forward. As a mix of action-comedy and fantasy, Thor's somewhat original in its approach, but a disappointment just the same.

Most of the first hour is spent on Thor's origin story, and it's a drag. Information that could have easily been dispensed via voiceover or even a brief flashback over the opening credits feels like it's given nearly half the running length of the movie, in addition to those voiceovers and flashbacks. I understand the desire to give a detailed backstory so we care and it's commendable (it definitely worked for Christopher Nolan in Batman Begins), but the problem is that Thor's is silly. It's a weird and not entirely successful mix of mythology and comic books, with a Shakespearean style family feud thrown in for good measure. That the director is Shakespeare veteran Kenneth Branagh explains a lot, as does the presence of Sir Anthony Hopkins as King Odin of Asgard, father to Thor (Chris Hemsworth) and Loki (Tom Hiddleston). When the quick-tempered Thor stages an attack against Laufey, the Frost Giant King, breaking a long-standing peace agreement, Odin banishes his arrogant son to Earth. He's discovered in the New Mexico dessert by scientists Jane Foster (Natalie Portman), Erik Selvig (Stellan Skarsgard) and Darcy Lewis (Kat Dennings). As he adjusts to life on Earth S.H.I.E.L.D agent Coulson (Clark Gregg) is brought in to investigate, while back on Asgard Loki looks to benefit from his older brother's misfortune, scheming his way to the throne.

The scenes on Earth work much better than those on Asgard, if only because there are some decent comic moments with Thor trying to get used to life in 21st century America and Hemsworth's performance, while not as spectacular as everyone's been claiming, is solid. He looks the part and has surprisingly decent comic timing so it's difficult coming up with alternative actor choices that could have worked any better. Hemsworth (known primarily for his brief role as Captain Kirk's father in 2009's Star Trek) does what he can with the material he's given, even if there's no escaping the fact that a lot of the lighter Earth-bound scenes contrast in tone to the mythological fantasy nonsense it's interspersed with. Hiddleston's Loki comes off as more of a whiner with daddy issues than any kind of serious threat and the intended love connection between Thor and Portman's Jane falls flat and feels thrown together and underdeveloped. If they really wanted to go in that direction it would have been better to eliminate Skarsgard and Denning's characters to narrow the focus on Jane, but considering Denning delivers the film's best one-liners, she may have been indispensable. Given how much she's improved as an actress over the past few years, it's a shame to see Portman take on such a thankless role, but a relief that it likely would have been just as forgettable in anyone else's hands.

On the plus side, he involvement of S.H.I.E.L.D.(Avengers plug #1) Clark Gregg's Agent Coulson wasn't quite as distracting as I expected, but still kind of insulting when you realize we haven't been made to care about Thor to begin with.  As for the inevitable Samuel L. Jackson cameo (Avengers plug #2) as Nick Fury, it at least takes place after the film, avoiding the nightmare that occurred at the end of The Incredible Hulk a couple of years ago when a huge, showboating cameo in the final scene nearly upstaged the entire picture, pissing on the title character for the sake of promoting you know what. But there is a cameo during this film from an Oscar nominated actor (Avengers plug #3) that I won't reveal, but that I had to check what character he was and why he was there probably doesn't bode well for the impact it had, at least for more casual viewers who actually want to see a movie about Thor.

Over the closing credits there's actually a message (Avengers plug #4) reminding viewers to "See Thor in The Avengers." Thanks for the heads up. I'm willing to bet most of the people reading this review (and many others) don't even know what The Avengers is. If Marvel really wanted to promote that film a good start would have been to make this one as good as possible so we'd actually look forward to seeing Thor in it. This does some things right, but there's this inescapable feeling of it being just a teaser for something else, which isn't okay since that's what trailers are for. All movies are made to make money, but I shouldn't be able to tell that while watching them and those decisions shouldn't adversely affect the product on screen. The downside in the entertainment industry to the economic crisis is that everyone's playing it safe, not looking how they can creatively improve the movie they're working on, but promote the next one they haven't gotten to yet. And that, despite some inspired direction by Branagh, is the main problem with Thor. It feels like it exists to generate revenue for the studio rather than excitement for audiences watching it.

Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist

Director: Peter Sollett
Starring: Michael Cera, Kat Dennings, Ari Graynor, Alexis Dziena, Aaron Yoo, Rafi Gavron
Running Time: 90 min.
Rating: PG-13

*1/2 (out of ****)

On the surface Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist is safe and vanilla, lazily chugging along to its predictable finale. Look closer though and you’ll see it’s actually a whole lot worse that that. What’s the point of watching a character go through the motions of a contrived script so he can discover what’s fairly obvious to us in the opening minutes? Maybe to remind us yet again that Michael Cera enjoys playing really awkward characters, a point made very abundantly clear in every scene. What a relief that Cera’s holding up the Arrested Development movie so he can star in junk like this. At worst I expected the movie to be a mildly entertaining diversion but it turns out it hasn’t gotten nearly enough credit for how bad it is.

When it ended I came to the epiphany that this isn’t merely just a bad film, but one that reflects our times in the most negative way possible and represents the alarming direction pop culture has been going in lately. The “playlist” in question may as well be that of tween girls who love listening to Miley Cyrus and The Jonas Brothers. They watch American Idol every week….and vote. Ryan Seacrest is their hero. And now this can be their movie, which is fine. They should enjoy it. But why does it have to pretend to be something deep?

If the film were upfront and honest about its goal to dispense disposable, cotton candy flavored entertainment it would still be a colossal failure, but its raw nerve in pretending to actually be meaningful makes it far worse. It’s so careful not to offend or challenge that it’s almost a perfect match for our politically correct era. And in desperately trying to please audiences of all genders, races, nationalities and religions with its cornball story and stereotypical characters, it pleases no one, especially me.

Earnest hipster Nick (Cera) is urged by his two best friends and bandmates to hit New York City in an effort to get his mind off of ex-girlfriend Tris (Alexis Dziena) and hopefully find their favorite band, Where’s Fluffy, who are playing a secret gig. It’s worth noting that Nick’s two friends (played by Aaron Yoo and Rafi Gavron) are gay (or rather gay stereotypes), if only because the film itself can’t seem to stop dwelling on that pointless information. By writing them as broad caricatures it comes off as if they offensively shoved the characters into the story to meet a gay best friend quota. Norah (Kat Dennings) ends up joining them on this adventure to search for her missing (and very drunk) pal, Caroline (Ari Graynor). I usually love movies that take place over one night and throw different characters together for the sake of an important mission. Maybe that’s why I found myself so turned off by this forced, contrived scenario involving important “clues” written on napkins and public restroom grossness.

Norah has harbored a secret crush on Nick for a while now, even though she knows him only through the mix CD’s Tris has thrown in the trash. They’re destined to be together, but Nick is a little slow to figure it out because he’s still distraught over being dumped by Tris. One of the film’s biggest failures is in convincing us that he and Tris could at any time have been a couple, or even dated. Another big mistake comes a few minutes later when we’re expected to believe Norah would be drooling over the gawky, socially inept Nick as he robotically performs onstage. Cera is most effective when his awkward tendencies are played for comic effect but here we’re supposed to believe those same qualities would have girls swooning like he was Brad Pitt. Say what you want about Juno, but at least it was never dumb enough to try that. Cera’s at his best when playing characters that stumble into situations or are out of their element. If this is any indication, romantic leading man roles are just not for him. His performance at times borders on being insufferable, though it’s hard to pinpoint a specific thing that makes it so. It’s more everything, from his delivery to his annoying, awkward (there’s that word again) pauses.

The choice of Cera for this role is worth examining though because it very much reflects a larger problem. It reeks of a choice made by a group of studio suits who thought his casting would appeal to the tween girl demographic, yet be just geeky enough so their boyfriends would tag along without complaint. Forget about whether he’s right for the part. It’s a safe and inoffensive decision. That’s all that matters.

Remember when teen movies were smart and appealed to all audiences? One came out not too long ago. It was called Charlie Bartlett and it co-starred Kat Dennings. Here though she’s just playing a watered down version of her far more interesting character in that film. The script makes little effort to give Norah a history or any reason for existing other than to fall in love with Nick and go through the motions of the contrived scenario. Dennings is a good actress (she more than held her own with Robert Downey Jr. in Bartlett) who will probably headline a great film someday but there’s only so much she can do with material this vacuous.

Seemingly out of nowhere the writers also thought it would be a good idea to make big deal out of the fact that Norah is Jewish and has a famous music executive as her father. At least the latter detail leads to the only decent, real-feeling scene in the film but the former earns its place about as well as Nick’s two gay best friends. I’m waiting for the day where we can have gay and Jewish characters in movies without the constant need for the filmmakers to point it out. That would be something to celebrate. It’s bad enough to litter the story with stereotypical characters but to then stick a label on them like “Gay” or “Jewish” is just plain offensive. Though by dwelling on it here it seems like I've fallen right into their trap, which just annoys me more.

Dzienza is playing an even dumber than usual “high school slut” stereotype, nearly identical to her annoying character from Fool’s Gold. I can’t think of anyone who saw that film who was clamoring for more of her. Ari Graynor (who looks about twice the age of her contemporaries in the film) isn’t funny, nor is her character’s drunken misadventures. They’re just disgusting and I found every second she was onscreen to be a repulsive experience. The only minor character who works is Norah’s ex-boyfriend, well played by a cast against type Jay Baruchel, but he’s not around enough to make any kind of impact.

Considering the title of the film is Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist and unmemorable music seems to constantly be playing on the soundtrack, it doesn’t figure into the plot much at all. We’re supposed to believe these two are “musical soulmates” but other than a one-minute conversation in the car about the topic we’re not given any inkling as to what kind of music they love, why they love it and what it means to their lives.

I shudder even mentioning movies like Say Anything or Almost Famous in a review for this, but that does seem to be the tone Lorene Scafaria’s brain dead screenplay and Peter Sollett’s direction is going for. It really is trying to be a teenage version of Before Sunrise, which is what makes this so insulting. You either go all the way with something like that or you don’t attempt it at all. But this film wants to have its cake and eat it too, laughably believing it’s provoking real insight and introspection. The story is adapted from a popular young adult novel (by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan) but that doesn't mean it had to be dumb. Hopefully it played out much better on paper because from all indications that’s where it should have stayed. The only thing infinite about Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist are the amount of problems with it.