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Wednesday, May 4, 2011

"Thor": All hail the ripped Aryan goofball!

"Thor": All hail the ripped Aryan goofball!:

Do we actually want Shakespearean drama, or a simulacrum thereof, in comic-book movies? I think the only reasonable answer is "sort of," and that's exactly what Kenneth Branagh delivers in the massive but middling "Thor," an edge-of-summer tentpole production that delivers the goods, albeit in laborious fashion and at enormous expense. A whole lot of "sort of," dressed up in faintly fascistic regalia. I've got no problem with the continuing viability of the classic Marvel and DC Comics heroes, per se, although it's a little surprising. But their hegemonic control over the many-branched Yggdrasil of pop entertainment is starting to bug me.