The Last Movie I Saw

I wasn't really planning to see the latest Marvel Comics property come to life on the big screen-- namely Thor-- mainly because I was never a big fan of the character in his pulpy newsprint incarnation; but I ended up going anyway when a friend suggested it. It's amazing to me how much is being invested in these comic book characters these days. Thirty plus years ago, when I was a real comics geek, I could not have imagined such slick entertainment obviously intended for a mass audience based on these characters. And now that they're near ubiquitous (Captain America is coming later this year), and even though I find them generally entertaining, I still find they lack something of the rollicking spirit of the stories I read as a kid. Now that's probably due to changes I've undergone as I've gotten older more than anything else, but that can't fully explain it. Quentin Tarantino seems to grasp how essential the pulpy elements are in transferring these fantasies to the screen, and that was always abundant during the Silver Age period of comics (roughly the late fifties to early seventies). These newer versions seem consumed with the spectacle, which was part of the original equation (maybe especially in work done by artist Jack Kirby, who had a big hand in shaping Thor's Asgard), but was never the whole thing (how could it be when they were printed on such cheap paper?). I don't mean to imply that humor and heart are totally missing from Thor (or Iron Man or Spider-Man or X-Men, etc.), only that they seem side-notes to the sweeping vistas of CGI-created netherworlds. Luckily, Natalie Portman (and to a lesser extent Kat Denning) are around to help ground this film a little bit, but when you have the likes of Anthony Hopkins chewing up scenery in full Nordic splendor, then the girls seem mere accessories despite offering the only hope of a story that is in any way relatable to real life (and yes, I get the incongruity of hoping to find some of that in a super-hero flick, but that's what Stan Lee led me to expect all those years ago).