Tag: idris elba

Musings On Marvel: Day Thor

On By troubledproductionsIn Musings On MarvelLeave a comment

Director: Kenneth Branagh (Henry V, As You Like It)

Budget: $150million

Box Office: $449million

  • This is one of two I was looking forward to the least. (The other was Thor 2)
  • Giant weird lightning tornado, yup, driving into it seems like a smart thing to do.
  • “Where did he come from?” where did he go? Where did he come from, cotton eye joe.
  • Wait, that battle only occurred in the 900’s, yet we have no record of it? We have records of the Roman Empire, Genghis Khan, and Madonna’s birth certificate,  all of which are from before then. It’s not as though we were all walking around shovelling faecal matter into our faces until the 1500’s. This is one of MANY reasons I hated After Earth. That film showed a bunch of massive evolutionary changes that apparently happened within a 1000 years. Seriously, America? I know you have trouble with evolution and that but still. Oh, and don’t be like “stop being anti-America and hating for no reason, thinking we’re stupid”, you have a lot of schools that don’t teach evolution, and it took forever for a film about Charles Darwin to get released over there because, for some reason, evolution is still a controversial subject over there. You have too many politicians who are, to put it kindly, f*cking morons. And yes, I know this isn’t the best time to be discussing this, but I’d much rather suffer the wrath and ire of creationists than pay this piece of shit film any more attention than it deserves.
  • Wow, they must have the best future technology, they don’t even need to build their houses out of bricks they just use CGI.
  • “When I’m King”, Thor there, pretty much quoting the kids TV show Horrid Henry there.
  • Shut up, I have a niece, so I have to watch kids tv sometimes. Even if it’s awful, very very awful.
  • What time does the lead from this film wake up? Thor thirty.
  • “its power has no equal”, except Captain America’s Shield.
  • “do you swear” fuck yes I do.
  • “But you’re not King!” all that was missing from that was “neh neh neh neh”
  • I like how Loki steals that scene despite not saying a single word just by pulling a “Jim from The Office” face.
  • “What’s this?” What’s this? There’s something in the air.
  • This film has Idris Elba and Anthony Hopkins. This film doesn’t deserve them.
  • “you’re nothing but a boy trying to prove himself a man” ok that’s a pretty good line.
  • Ouch, that looks painful, gonna be thor in the morning.
  • Wait, so Thor flew through a big guy, tearing a hole in them, and yet didn’t get any blood on him?
  • Apparently a lot of Anthony Hopkins dialogue in this scene was improvised by him. More reason why Anthony Hopkins is awesome.
  • How does the hammer decide who is worthy? Hammers are notoriously bad decision makers. Plus it could be a nazi and we end up with it going back in time to get picked up by Hitler. Can you imagine Hitler with Thors Hammer?
  • Note to self: write a story about various historical assholes getting superpowers. SpiderStalin, The Incredible Cromwell, The Iron Lady.
  • The lead from this film is awful at birthday present, but it’s the Thor’t that counts.
  • So it’s taken half an hour for us to get to the beginning? Yay.
  • “we can tell you’re hammered”. HAH! Get it, because his weapon of choice is a hammer. That’s sooooooo fucking funny and not at all “comic relief dialogue which just seems a bit stupid really, and is better suited to online commenters and bloggers than actually being a line in the script which expects us to take this seriously”.
  • “she hit him with her car” “yeah but she tasered him” “yes I did”. Why are the police not questioning these two? At the very least you’ve got dangerous driving, then assault with a weapon.
  • Guy tries to pick up giant hammer that’s encased in a big rock and then looks confused when he can’t pick it up.
  • This towns name translates to “ancient bridge”. Either it’s a massive coincidence that this is where the bridge turns out. Or the people who named it somehow knew about the Asgardians and the war they fought on another continent of which there’s no documentation that survives today.
  • People are queuing up to attempt to lift up a hammer? This town seems boring as shit.
  • Wait, did Laufey never realise his child was missing? Okay it was hinted that he knew, but surely he would have told everyone else, you know, during the battle. “oh, and that guy there, that’s my son” and cause dissension and fighting among the ranks of the soldiers of Asgard. Plus wouldn’t this revelation have made sense earlier? Or at least in flashback, as it provides Loki’s motivation after he’s already turned heel.
  • “How can you eat an entire box of pop tarts and still be hungry?” I manage it, and I’m barely a Norse God, although I do have a pretty impressive hammer.
  • “you missed all the excitement down at the crater”, Yeah, people attempting to pick up a hammer, such a shame he missed that.
  • And wait, they’re referring to it as a “satellite”, nobody ever uses the phrase “hammer shaped”? Even if they don’t know it’s a hammer, they would still use that phrase when describing it.
  • This town has a furniture company called “OK furniture”, doesn’t inspire confidence in the stuff they sell.
  • What is it with people in these movies sitting on rooftops?
  • That’s waaaaaay too many puppies for a pet shop in such a tiny town.
  • More jokes about Thor using antiquated language. But here’s the problem, he’s using relatively new language compared to when they left earth. Here’s an excerpt from The Canterbury Tales: “In Flaundres whilom was a compaignye, Of yonge folk that haunteden folye”. That was written in the 1390’s, so over 200 years AFTER they left to go home. Language was very different back then and it’s next to impossible  language here and language on a different planet would evolve and change in such similar ways.
  • This government secret site has poor security.
  • Hey it’s Hawkeye, being slightly less effective than he is in future films.
  • Chris Hemsworth mudwrestling, he’s still got his shirt on thought so keep your pants on, ladies.
  • “I’m starting to root for this guy”, what, because he beat people up? Damnit Hawkeye you’re easy to win over, no wonder it was so simple for Loki to brainwash you, he probably didn’t even need to do magic he just needed to lift a heavy thing and punch a stranger in the neck.
  • Thor’s brother is very good at being invisible, in fact you could say he’s good at keeping it low-key.
  • Low-key, loki, get it?
  • Don’t worry I’m sick of these puns too. I’m nearly thirty years old and I’m sitting here making terrible puns whilst watching a film. What am I doing with my life?
  • “I come from a place where magic and science are one and the same thing”. 1) This was handled MUCH better in Artemis Fowl. Actually, Eoin Colfer writing Thor would be f*cking incredible. 2) They actually haven’t shown that much scientific advancement really. I mean, they have a few things but they’re lacking even more.
  • “Do not mistake my appetite for apathy” That’s on my coat of arms.
  • “It’s Xena, Robin Hood, and Jackie Chan”. Soooooo mildly racist.
  • I think we’re supposed to think that Loki is a bad guy here, but Idris Elba was swinging a sword at him and aiming to kill him. The fact that all Loki did was freeze him and not kill him kinda of makes him a hero, surely?
  • For something called “The Destroyer” it’s really weird that he’s only a threat for like 10 minutes of a near two hour film.
  • I wish there was more focus on Sif, there’s a definite lack of strong female characters in these films and I’d rather they focused on her and not Natalie Portman.
  • How come whenever Thor flies through the air he lands and his hair is always immaculate? He’s traveling at hundreds of miles per hour with no wind resistence, his hair would be everywhere and they’d be dead insects all over his face.
  • So Loki put the gatekeeper in ice and just left him there? He could have at least moved him, put him away in a cupboard or something.
  • Yeah the rainbow bridge looks impressive, you know what looks better? Rainbow Road
  • Thank god that’s over. Oh wait, the end credits scene.
  • Don’t people get a blue gaze in their eyes when Loki controls them? Yet he doesn’t.
  • Post-credit scene sets up Avengers movie, almost completely forgetting they still have a Captain America film to do.

5 Of The Worst Comic Book Adaptation Castings

On By troubledproductionsIn ListLeave a comment

Yes, it’s time for the disappointing sequel to last weeks blog. I would explain what it entails but if you can’t gather what this blog is about from the title then you’re not really our intended audience.

5. Val Kilmer – Batman Forever

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Do I even need to explain why? I mean, look at him! I won’t do the unfair thing of posting a current picture of him and decrying that, I’m looking at a picture of him from the film. Awful, just awful. . Do you know who I blame for this miscasting? Not the director, not even the studio. I blame this man:

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Yup, Ethan f*cking Hawke. Now I know, I blame him for everything, but this time I have justification (unlike the time I blamed for the time I fell over a cat). He was offered the role and turned it down.

4. Jamie Kennedy – Son Of The Mask

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The original film was very much a product of its time, pushing the line between light and darkness, and launching the career of both Cameron Diaz and Jim Carrey. At the time it was the second highest grossing superhero film, and considering that it’s based on an unknown quantity it’s amazing that it took the studios so long to realise that if the film is good enough the fact not enough people know the source won’t matter (a lesson that it could be argued wasn’t truly utilised until Guardians Of The Galaxy in 2014). Now, let me just say here that I do really hate Jim Carrey, but that’s not based on the quality of his work, more the stupid idiotic things he says.

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Things like this

But credit where credit’s due, he’s a good clown. And that’s what this film needs, a clown, someone slightly elastic and otherworldy. And he does that very well. You cannot replace that with Jamie Kennedy, a person who’s done almost nothing of note outside of that E3 omnishambles. So yeah, on this note, Jim Carrey was the better option.

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3. Jim Carrey – Kick Ass 2

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Now this has nothing to do with his performance in the film, which was actually surprisingly good, and everything to do with his promotional work for the film. Which consisted of him disowning the film and telling people not to watch it. His reasoning was that after the Sandy Hook massacre, saying he could no longer support being in a film with that level of violence. Because before Sandy Hook there was never any violence, and certainly no mass shootings. Nope, not, a, single, one.

Whilst I have no doubt that Sandy Hook was a tragedy, for it to be the bit of violence that tips you over the edge is just strange. It’s almost naive to think there was no violence in the world before that, and his reaction is like a school child getting into politics “guys, guys, did you know there was a war years ago?” You read the script, you signed on to do it, in a world that was post-Columbine, post-9/11 etc you knew what you were doing. So for you to not fulfil your duties post-filming is just shameful. If you want your profession to be seen as a proper job, then actually do the thing you’re paid to do.

2 Idris Elba – Thor

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Now this is in no way a slight on his performance, or even a slight on him. In fact it’s the opposite, the reason I oppose this is because he’s too good for such a minimal role. And the fact he’s now such a badly written (barely even) supporting role is an insult to an actor of his quality. Now I don’t want to be a prick and say like “oh, he’s much better than that, proper actors shouldn’t do super hero films”, I just feel he could have played another role. The fact he has already been established in the Marvel Universe means he now can’t move into another role within the universe, one with a bit more gravitas (and screentime).

1. Robert Swenson – Batman And Robin.

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I know, it may be unfair as he’s not an actor. But I remember when it was announced that Tom Hardy was Bane, all that people were talking about was how big a failure the character was in Batman and Robin so this means that the film will surely fail with such a weak character. Now, I know he’s a devastating character in the comics, but most people who would be going to see the film aren’t going to have read the comics. All they will know about the character is what he was like in the film. Part of it was due to the way the character was written, but part of it was due to the casting as well. The fact they didn’t even cast an actual actor, instead casting an overweight wrestler, spoke volumes about how seriously the makers took the character, and it almost killed the chances of the character being taken seriously.