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Thor (1x121)

: 27, 2011

Thor is the rare superhero movie that raises important questions. Namely, the important question “If Thor was considered the good superhero movie of 2011, just exactly how wretched must Green Lantern have been?” Yes, Thor, for all its critical acclaim, features not one, not two, but three distinct scenes of our hero being rendered unconscious for comedic effect all within five minutes of each other! (For the record, in order: Thor is tazed, injected and hit by a van. Rumor has it the Extended Cut features a scene where he is trampled by a hungry hippo.) No doubt this cartoonish buffoonery is the touch of acclaimed director Kenneth Branagh, whose intention for Thor seems to have been “Let’s bring out the Shakespearean elements of the comic book, but instead of soliloquies, we’ll have grunting, and instead of intrigue, more grunting.” Sadly, Branagh fails to deliver on the demands made by the most hardcore Thor fans, that he bring to the silver screen the short lived 1985 plot line where Loki turns Thor into a frog and he helps other frogs defeat some rats (this actually happened and you should look it up right now.) So you don’t get any frogs, but you do get fanservice, a thoroughly implausible love story and performance by Sir Anthony Hopkins that were it any more phoned in, would be conducted through two tin cans and a piece of string. Mike, Kevin and Bill needed a nice long Odinsleep once this one was over.