Thor

Seen Iron Man 2? That. Mostly. Only with magic.

In many respects, Thor needs no particular introduction, even if you don't read comics, because he's the Norse God of Thunder. He lives in Asgard, his dad is Odin, king of the gods, he fights ice giants a lot, that's him. Only not quite for the Marvel version. Presumably because of the theological implications of introducing Norse gods into an otherwise strictly Judeo-Christian, Asgardians aren't exactly gods; they're massively powerful, immortal, magic-wielding aliens. They used to appear on earth hundreds of years ago, because they were fighting a war against the Jotuns (ice giants), and Earth was a bit of a battle ground for this. Having freed Earth from the Jotuns, they left, only to take their place in myth and legend. So, inasmuch as there's any difference between a god and a massively powerful immortal that looks after mortals, and between magic and a Sufficiently Advanced technology, they're not really gods.

So, it's many centuries since the Asgardians beat the Jotuns, and peace has mostly reigned. However, following a minor incursion of three Jotuns into Asgard, Thor ignores his father's wishes, and travels to Jotunheim via Bifrost (the rainbow bridge of the gods, or a pandimensional wormhole projector, take your pick) to kick some ass, take some names, and demand some answers. This of course shatters the fragile peace, and for this Thor is stripped of his powers and exiled to Midgard. You know. Earth. Where we're from. There he meets astrophysicist Natalie Portman, who's kind of interested in this interdimensional wormhole thing that Thor's just appeared through. Additionally, SHIELD (the mob of secret service guys that Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) has been running behind the scenes in all the recent Marvel movies) turns up, interested in Thor's Hammer, Mjolnir, which has also appeared, and which due to a geas put on it by Odin, can only now be lifted by someone worthy, and who will gain the power of Thor if they do. (Shame they haven't got Captain America on the team yet, because he apparently qualified as worthy at one point.)

All of this mucking about is, of course, due to the machinations of Loki, Thor's younger brother, who's plotting to improve his position.

So, Thor must prove himself worthy, get his hammer back, and save the day. Easy.

As with all of this stuff, it's only ever going to work if it's fun. Fortunately, it's a lot of fun. Principal in making it all fun is new guy Chris Hemsworth. There may have been some suspicion initially that they were casting a relative unknown to keep the wage bill down when they finally got round to making The Avengers. However, these fears prove unfounded. He plays the role of a swaggering, arrogant seven foot tall mountain of Nordic muscle with gusto, but also with all the seriousness that it deserves - i.e. not that much. Hence, as much as this is a supernatural, superhuman, sci-fi action epic, it's also a bit of a fish-out-of-water comedy, which makes the whole thing eminently watchable inbetween the bits when things explode. Having said that, boy howdy do things explode.

I was wondering just what kind of a widescreen explodo-movie we could expect out of Dear, Dear Kenny Branarrgh. Turns out that despite the low-key pedigree of his earlier stuff, he's got an eye for a good special effect. One of the key special effects here is The Destroyer. The Destroyer is an enchanted suit of armour, about twelve feet tall, filled with magical flame which bursts forth as a lambent energy beam whenever it opens its visor. And under the direction of Loki, this engine of destruction is unleashed on a New Mexico town, which it proceeds to trash like a cross between a Toho Film monster and Gort from The Day The Earth Stood Still (the proper one.) It is deeply warming to see a sequence crafted to pay such homage to such classics of mayhem and destruction.

The film is perhaps not without its flaws - perhaps we linger on the human level stuff too long in the movie's midsection, leaving us with not enough time to enjoy Thor cutting loose and trashing stuff when his powers eventually are returned to him. But it's a small criticism. This is a film which takes the terribly restrictive box-ticking formula of the superhero origin movie, in which the hero isn't even the hero until the final 15 minutes, and makes something of it which is very entertaining. Looking forward to The Avengers all the more now.

Source Code

A couple of years back, we had Moon, a sci-fi thriller directed by Son-Of-David-Bowie-Used-To-Be-Called-Zowie-Bowie, Duncan Jones. And now we have Source Code, a sci-fi thriller by Director-Of-Moon, Duncan Jones. Important distinction; with Moon, Duncan Jones established in my mind an absolute right to be known in his own right as a creative force. And Source Code, therefore has the much tougher job of living up to the high standard of his own debut, rather than the relatively simple task of proving that he's more than a celebrity's kid.

Anyway, not to worry. Because while I couldn't hand on heart say that I think Source Code is as good as Moon, I couldn't say that about many other movies I've seen in the last two years. This is a tense sci-fi thriller, that is the mongrel son of Groundhog Day and 24, and an interesting hybrid it is!

Jake Gyllenhaal is Captain Colter Stevens (fine 80s action series name there), a helicopter pilot who, suddenly, bizarrely, finds himself Quantum Leap stylee, in the body of another man, a school teacher travelling to work by train with a female colleague. Not knowing how or why he is suddenly there, he goes into a bit of a panic, ending up in a bathroom of the train, where he sees in the mirror that his reflection is not of himself. Eight minutes in to his "leap", the train explodes.

He then finds himself in some sort of capsule, being talked to by a female Army captain, who wants to know if he can tell them anything about the explosion, and who is very cagey indeed about how he suddenly and unexpectedly appears to be part of this mission. (She does not, sadly, tell him to take his protein pills or put his helmet on, though). The science it seems is that they've managed to sync him with the last eight minutes of this guy's life, quantum-entanglement-style, and that he can go in and relive that eight minutes in any way he likes, and explore all the possible variants of those eight minutes. This, they hope, will allow him to discover who set the bomb, and thus help them catch him before he kills again - the train bomb itself has already happened, and can't be changed, only relived.

Hence, we have a 24-style thriller played out in an endlessly repeated 8 minute loop, Groundhog Day style. And in addition to the mystery of the bomb on the train, Stevens has also got the mystery of just what the hell is this Source Code project, and how did he come to be involved in it?

Like I say, this isn't as good a film as Moon. But it *nearly* is, and I would recommend any film you could make that claim about. See this film, and eagerly await whatever Duncan Jones comes up with next.

Unknown

Another one of those US-made ersatz Euro thrillers that Liam Neeson seems to be so fond of making these days. This one seems to be something of a cross between The Bourne Identity and Frantic, but of course, not nearly as good as either.

So, Neeson is Martin Harris, a biotechnology professor from the US. He's in Berlin for a conference, and to meet a German biotechnology professor he's been corresponding with. When he and his wife are checking into the hotel, he realises that his briefcase has been left at the airport (and somehow not blown up in a controlled explosion by the German security services) and so he rushes back there to find it. As he rushes, the taxi he's in has an accident and goes off a bridge into a river. He languishes in a coma for about a week, wakes up, and rushes off to find his wife, who he realises must be going spare, since the hospital weren't able to ID him, and she presumably couldn't find him.

He arrives back at the hotel, however, to find that she's got over him and moved on with her life, to such an extent that she's got a new Doctor Martin Harris for a husband, played by Aiden Quinn (who's a lot chubbier than you remember him) and everybody including her swears blind that they have no idea who Neeson is. Aiden Quinn's got all the proof on his side that he's the real Martin Harris, and Neeson sort of just staggers out of there in confusion, assisted from the premises by hotel security.

And thus starts his quest to work out what the hell is going on.

Now. Here's a thing. I can score highly on a standard IQ test. Higher, perhaps, than my intelligence merits. This is the case because I am test literate. I know these tests of old, I know the forms, I know the tricks. Hence, when it comes to IQ tests, I appear more intelligent than I am. And it seems that perhaps, the same is true of identity based espionage thrillers. Throw me the absolute basics of the plot, and I'll tell you what the twist is. And I can tell you, with no exaggeration, that I was able to tell you exactly what was going on in this film after watching the trailer. And I'm not patting myself on the back here; chances are, if you saw the trailer, and are moderately espionage-thriller literate, you will too.

Liam Neeson, however, despite his absolute veteran status in this kind of film, does not spot the twist immediately, so it's down to him to plod ponderously through the plot until the third act, at which point everything becomes clear to him, and his need to challenge the fake-Martin-Harris and prevent Disaster becomes all too urgent, and it's all over bar quite a bit of shouting.

It's not a badly made film, but there's little original about it, and perhaps that's why it's so easy to see through. It's like a jigsaw that's much easier because you're intimately familiar with the picture you're trying to put together. As such, it's destined to go down in history as "That thriller Liam Neeson was in. No, not that one, the other one."

Killing Bono

Neil McCormick is a boy with a dream; he's a Sixth Former in Dublin, and he's got his sights set on megastardom. Paul Hewson is a friend of his at school, who also has his sights set on megastardom. Hewson, of course, becomes Bono, and front man of the biggest band in the world(tm). McCormick becomes bitter.

Specifically, having once rubbished Hewson's chances of making it, and telling him that his own band will soon be on Top of the Pops, and having prevented his brother joining the band that would go on to be U2, he has to sit back in his garage with the no-hopers in his band while watching U2 produce a hit album. And thus starts McCormick's quest, as he will stop at nothing to make his band as big as U2 - nothing, that is, except accept several very generous offers from Bono to help him along. This, then, is not so much a film about U2, as about one man's futile battle against an oblivious and uncaring music industry, and against his own pride and hubris.

The portrayals are a lot of fun. Ben Barnes, who has previously wasted our time playing Prince Caspian in the Narnia films, turns in a pretty epic comedy turn as McCormick, reminding me a lot of a young Ed Byrne. His brother Ivan is played by Robert Sheehan, previously the irritating gobby one in Misfits, who isn't the least irritating or gobby here, and is a really sweet, trusting puppydog, trusting his brother to steer their music career, while not realising the catastrophic decisions that are being made on his behalf. There's a lot of quality support; Peter Serafinowicz as their clueless management, Peter Pothelswaite in a lovely turn as their landlord in London, and Martin McCann as The Mighty Saint Bono Himself. The portrayal of Bono is actually pretty key to the story; he's very generously portrayed as a lovely, supportive, helpful friend to McCormick, who is quite willing to give him a helping hand, no matter how many times McCormick throws it back in his face; this only serves, of course, to make McCormick's self-destructive pride even more amusing.

So, really, this is a film that ticks all the boxes, it's funny, charming, warm, and never tries to treat the subject matter too seriously. U2 got lucky, and encountered the right combination of factors to propel a pretty good local garage band into the big time. The portrayal of McCormick's band (under various names) is of a pretty decent outfit who change with the times, being variously punk, rock and new romantic as time goes on, and who plausibly *could* have been the bigger band, had the cards been dealt differently. The message, then, is that you can never tell what breaks you're going to get in life, that it isn't fair, and that you should never let pride make you refuse a helping hand. Wise words for us all there, I think.

Sucker Punch

In some senses, you've got to hand it to Zack Snyder. Whatever else you say about him, this is a man who can Get Stuff Done. With 300 and Watchmen, he delivered what many at the time believed impossible - comic book adaptations which were faithful to the source, and which neither the fans nor the mainstream thought were totally horrible. Whether they showed much art or creativity is debatable, but he does have something of a knack for reading something, liking it, and making a film that looks just like it. So, with Sucker Punch, we're in uncharted territory. Since it's entirely his creation, written and directed by him, Sucker Punch might be a faithful reproduction of the inside of Zack Snyder's head.

And may heaven help him if it is.

The Plot:
A wicked stepfather has (probably) murdered the mother of two girls, and subsequently finds that they inherit all; there's a bit of a tussle which reveal him as an evil fat bastard rapist, and we end up with the younger daughter dead, him injured, and the older daughter being accused of having gone mad, and incarcerated in a mental asylum from the 1950s. Once there, the evil stepfather bribes an orderley to have her lobotomised. The doctor who will perform the procedure arrives in five days. She has that long to escape. At this point it should be noted that all the inmates are women, all the orderleys are men, and there's a woman psychologist working with the girls.

And then it goes a bit weird, as it seems that she genuinely has gone mad, and the perspective of the whole film shifts and they're no longer inmates in an asylum, they're exotic dancers/hookers in a bordello, and our protagonist is the new girl, who's to be handed over to a high-roller who likes virgins in five days. At this point we learn her name, and the names of four other girls at the asylum/bordello. They are "Baby Doll", "Sweet Pea", "Rocket", "Blondie" (not blonde) and "Amber". Already, it's beginning to look that this delusional fantasy-scape that Baby Doll is trapped in is very much out of a man's head, rather than any plausible female character's.

Anyway, the girls dance for clients, being taught to dance by a bordello madam who resembles the psychologist, and when Baby Doll dances, she goes into one of a series of linked fantasy scapes in which she is now a warrior fighting in one of a series of slightly linked scenarios. Opponents include 10 ft tall samurai golems, clockwork steam-powered WWI German zombies, orcs, dragons, robot gunmen, and so forth. Again, these are all looking like male fantasies to me.

Throughout all this, there is an escape plan hatching, in a slightly Inceptionish way; in her war fantasies, she sort of works out what she needs to assemble to escape, and in the bordello fantasy she assembles these items, all the while evading the orderley/bordello owning gangster.

Essentially, what this film looks like is what would happen if you gave a geek going through puberty some mescaline, transcribed his babblings, then filmed it, stitching it together into a narrative structure that attempts to explain why it's otherwise totally incoherent. As a film, it succeeds in only two areas. First, when we're having our fantasy war sequences, for all that it's utter nonsense, and actually admitted by the plot to be just a hallucination, it all looks pretty spectacular. Zack Snyder knows how to make an action sequence look pretty damned epic, and all this is pretty much 300 without the taste and restraint. So, on the pure eyecandy "women in lingerie with guns shooting steampunk zombies" front, Great Success. Second, although the film pays a debt to a number of "multi layer reality" films, like Inception, eXistenZ, and the majority of the back catalogue of Terry Gilliam, there is a sense of originality here - nobody else is doing stuff remotely like this, even if it is pretty debatable whether anyone at all should be.

Downsides - well, frankly, the whole asylum/bordello thing is pretty queasy exploitation stuff, along the theme of "Fat ugly men abuse beautiful young girls who are forced to dance for their amusement." It's the kind of thing that might, maybe, in the hands of a director and cast with sufficient talent, transcend the "ick" factor, and say something interesting. In the hands of Zack Snyder, I'm afraid it comes off looking rather cheap and tawdry, with nobody coming out of it looking particularly unsullied.

I've long held the opinion that it's perfectly fine for a film to be stupid, so long as it's fun, but for far too much of this film, it just isn't. The good fun bits that are fun do not outweigh the bad bits that aren't. I'm looking forward to Zack Snyder's version of Superman, but he should never, ever, be allowed to write a script ever again.