Age of Fandom.

Among the two biggest reveals at this year’s San Diego Comic-Con: Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel 2 will feature a Bat-Man (although not Christian Bale) and Thanos, teased at the end of the first film, is apparently stepping aside for the time being for Joss Whedon’s Avengers 2: Age of Ultron, based on a Brian Michael Bendis run happening this year.

All well and good, I suppose, and more indication that comic fandom is now completely mainstream. Still, while I have high hopes for the amiable weirdness currently surrounding James Gunn’s Guardians of the Galaxy, it sure feels like Hollywood is churning out a lot of mediocre, uninspired, and by-the-numbers product this year.

Maybe I’m just getting old, and I suppose Shane Black’s Iron Man 3 was decent enough fun, but I found both Star Trek: Into Darkness and Man of Steel loud, dumb, and disappointing, to the point where I haven’t felt all that inclined to pony up for World War Z and Pacific Rim, which looks like more of the same: smash-mouth visuals struggling to overcome dismal writing, and 9/11y spectacle used for fake-gravitas.

Hopefully Elysium will give this summer an Inception-like jolt. As it is, we’re halfway through 2013 and the only must-see film I’ve caught is Before Midnight.

Bad Girls, Angry Gods, Rainy Nights, Dead Men.

I have yet to see Harmony Korine’s Spring Breakers, but it seems like it’d make a decent double feature with this one: Emma Watson leads a pack of ne-er-do-well teens into the mansions of LA’s idle rich in the first trailer for Sofia Coppola’s The Bling Ring, also with Katie Chang, Israel Broussard, Claire Julien, Taissa Farmiga, Georgia Rock, and Leslie Mann. Eh, ok. On the bright side, this doesn’t have to be very good to be far better than Somewhere.

Back from the recent unpleasantness in New York, Thor (Chris Hemsworth) makes a Faustian bargain with Loki (Tom Hiddleston) to save Natalie Portman and/or Earth from the clutches of Christopher Eccleston in first trailer for Alan Taylor’s Thor: The Dark World. Returning for more Asgardian shenanigans is pretty much the entire cast from the first film, including Anthony Hopkins, Idris Elba, Tom Hiddleston, Rene Russo, Ray Stevenson, Jaimie Alexander, Kat Dennings, and Stellan Skarsgard.

The inimitable Tony Leung does his best Neo impression in the rain in our first look at Wong Kar-Wai’s The Grandmaster, also with Zhang Ziyi. This is a lousy teaser, and the muddy, gray jump-cuttiness of it all is inauspicious for the director’s first foray into martial arts. But, hey, Tony Leung.

Ryan Reynolds (nee Hannibal “Blade 3” King, Deadshot, Green Lantern) looks for a comic book hit at last, while Jeff Bridges channels his recent Crazy Heart/True Grit turns to make a mortgage payment or three, in this ho-hum trailer for Robert Schwentke’s R.I.P.D., also with Mary Louise-Parker and Kevin Bacon. Looking like highly derivative MIB territory here, and Schwentke — the director of Red — does not inspire confidence.

Get Bin Mandarin.

The Iron Man 3 bandwagon continues to roll on with the full trailer for Shane Black’s third installment of the franchise. Clearly, Kingsley’s Mandarin is going at least quarter-Bin-Laden…So will Tony have to team up with Jessica Chastain and venture back down the torture well, then?

Iron’s Bane.

Ben Kingsley lounges as Iron Man arch-nemesis The Mandarin in the spiffy character poster for Shane Black’s Iron Man 3, due out this April. The rushed-to-the-screens second installment obviously didn’t live up to the promise of the first (and worse, it wasted Sam Rockwell.) But this one could right the ship, and I’m glad to see Guy Pearce and Rebecca Hall joining the story as well.

The Axes of Evil.

“This series is an experiment where a dictator, a psycho, a murderer (sometimes they are the whole package) or even a suspicious figure from real life is mashed with a comics bad guy – strangely related some way or the other with his counterpart.” Brazilian artist Butcher Billy’s Legion of Doom, by way of Normative.

Man Out of Time.

The high heel he used to be has been ground down…With the Blu-ray release around the corner, a worthwhile deleted sequence from The Avengers involving a melancholy Cap has made it online. (An alternate opening to the film is floating around as well, but it’s not nearly as interesting or well-executed. Seems more like a forgotten, high-concept Robin Sparkles video.)

2011 in Film.

Ten days into the new year, it’s past time to knock out GitM’s best-of-2011 list. To be honest, last year’s movie crop was somewhat underwhelming, and as always, there are a few more gaps I’d love to have plugged first — Cedar Rapids, Margin Call, Martha Marcy May Marlene, Take Shelter, Warrior — but, for what I saw last year, here’s the best of ’em…

Top 20 Films of 2011
[2000/2001/2002/2003/2004/2005/2006/2007/2008/2009/2010/The Oughts]

1. Midnight in Paris: Its wry take on the perils of nostalgia notwithstanding, my favorite film of 2011 didn’t aspire to be much more than a fun, low-key time at the movies. And that it was. One of the most carefree films in Woody Allen’s long and storied career, and featuring one of the best Woodster stand-ins in recent decades with Owen Wilson, Midnight in Paris was an amiable lark that entertained with a light touch and without resorting to the occasionally frantic enthusiasm of The Artist. In short, an unmitigated pleasure: In a so-so year for film, we’ll always have Paris.

2. Attack the Block: While this dubstep-fueled blend of sci-fi horror, Occupy London social commentary, and stoner humor may not be to everyone’s taste, Joe Cornish’s impressive debut was also a surprisingly fun movie and perhaps the purest adrenaline ride of the summer. In a year of big budget and often-suspect alien invasions, it was this lo-rent Block that best delivered the goods, bruv. Believe.

3. The Descendants: With carefully modulated performances from everyone involved, this well-observed dramedy about grief, infidelity, and family in Hawaii was Alexander Payne’s most humanistic film yet. And unlike, say, The King’s Speech or Shame, The Descendants for some reason never set off my usual annoyance with “poor little rich guy” tales — a testament to its emotional resonance.

4. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy: The Circus has been compromised: With great actors all over the place, Tomas Alfredson’s dark, circuitous and densely plotted adaptation of John Le Carre’s cloak-and-dagger novel, redolent of cigarettes, desperation, and Cold War paranoia, is the 2011 movie I’m most looking forward to revisiting in the future. Give Gary Oldman the Oscar already.

5. X-Men: First Class: In a better year, this movie would probably be hovering around the ten spot. But, in 2011 — a year that saw no shortage of superheroics at the multiplex — Matthew Vaughn’s Mad Men-era reboot of the X-Men universe was one of the more entertaining and successful-on-its-own-terms films to come down the pike, with James McAvoy, Kevin Bacon, and especially Michael Fassbender adding ballast to the proceedings. To me once again, my X-Men.

6. Contagion: Ahem…sorry to cough a fine spray of phlegm all over the keyboard and mouse you’re currently using. Where was I? Ah yes, Contagion, Steven Soderbergh’s highly creepy medical disaster movie, which carries all the more punch for being so grounded in daily reality. With Haywire and Magic Mike heading to theaters this year, hopefully Soderbergh will continue to postpone his much-publicized retirement, at least until the plague comes through.

7. Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol: Utilizing techniques honed at Pixar’s impressive animation stable, Brad Bird moved to the forefront of contemporary action directors and managed to revive both Tom Cruise’s waning career and a moribund franchise with this visceral and engaging thrill ride. This was easily the best pure action film of the year, or of the past several years, for that matter.

8. The Muppets: Overburdened with anachronistic 80’s nostalgia, yet leavened by a blissful infusion of Conchords — and, really, isn’t everything better with more Conchords? — Segal, Stoller, and Bobin’s heartfelt reintroduction of the Muppets was another very enjoyable evening out. I wasn’t much for the Walter framing device, but it was definitely grand to see Kermit, Fozzie, and the gang once more.

9. War Horse: Granted, putting animals in wartime peril is an easy way to get an audience emotionally invested. Still, Spielberg’s War Horse eventually overcame its early schmaltziness to become unexpectedly moving. And, if he’s up for more wartime shenanigans, perhaps Joey the wonder steed can get a cameo in Lincoln.

10. Hanna: When first putting this list together, I almost forgot this kinetic fairy tale, which, like Attack the Block, enjoys the benefit of a propulsive 21st-century score (here furnished by the Chemical Brothers.) One of the hidden gems of the spring.

11. Drive: I liked this Lynchian escapade less than a lot of critics. Its great opening scene aside, I found Drive to be all sleek surfaces and very little depth, and unfortunately the gorefest second-half never lives up to the meditative-samurai promise of the first hour. Still, the film looked great, and I look forward to seeing what director Nicholas Winding Refn comes up with next.

12. The Artist: There may not be much there there, and I wouldn’t pick it for Best Picture — but The Artist is a hard film to hate on. This is a movie that works overtime — and without the benefit of sound — to show you a good time.

13. Source Code: While it’s not nearly as layered or as satisfying as his first film, Moon, Duncan Jones’ Source Code is still a small, well-made Twilight Zone episode of a movie. And it shows Jones has the chops to stage more than one compelling science fiction tale — Hopefully, his next, as-yet-untitled sci-fi film will make it a trifecta.

14. Captain America and Thor: I have a sneaking suspicion Joss Whedon’s The Avengers (from which the pic above is taken) isn’t really going to work. Still, veteran hands Joe Johnston and Kenneth Branagh managed to conjure up surprisingly engaging films out of Cap and Thor respectively. In both cases, I had a better time than I had originally expected.

15. Jane Eyre: The first film on the list I didn’t actually see in the theater, Cary Fukunaga’s worthy retelling of the oft-filmed Charlotte Bronte novel succeeds mainly by playing up the Gothic horror elements of the story. It also enjoys some of the most lavish cinematography of the year (this side of The Tree of Life.)

16. Young Adult: Thanks in no small part to Charlize Theron’s praiseworthy turn as “that girl” from high school all thirty-something and curdled, Diablo Cody and Jason Reitman’s darkly funny tale of When Rom-Com Values Go Bad represents a career highlight for them both.

17. The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn: Granted, I have a childhood fondness for Herge’s world that predisposed me to enjoy myself at this film — I have no idea how this flick plays for folks who’ve never heard of Captain Haddock or the Thompson Twins. But speaking for myself, I had a grand old time, and was glad to see that mo-cap is starting to move past the dead-eyed trough of the Uncanny Valley.

18. Crazy, Stupid, Love: A smart and tightly-written romantic comedy that I just caught on Netflix this past weekend. Crazy, Stupid, Love doesn’t break any new ground per se, but it’s still quite good for what it is — and given how terrible 21st century rom-coms can be, that is no small thing.

19. 50/50: Here’s another small-bore film that won’t light the world on fire. Still, Jonathan Levine’s cancer dramedy, thanks to Joseph Gordon-Levitt and work in the margins from Angelica Huston and Matt Frewer, works surprisingly well at straddling a delicate balance in tone between Apatowish bro-humor and Lifetime movie-of-the-week.

20. Bridesmaids: For better or worse, 2011 was a year in film that almost relentlessly looked backwards: From Midnight to Muppets to Hugo to The Artist, this was a year that wallowed in nostalgia for days gone by. (The future, it seems, brings either aliens or humanity-destroying plagues.) So, while Beginners, Win Win, The Trip, Hugo, or The Ides of March could’ve gone here, last spot goes to Paul Feig, Kristen Wiig, and Annie Mumolo’s funny, feminist reconception of the gross-out comedy. Let’s hope more mainstream films in years to come, comedies or otherwise, actually manage to pass the Bechdel test.

Most Disappointing: Had I more faith in Zack Snyder beforehand, this would go to his thoroughly terrible Sucker Punch, and, alas, the unfortunately botched Green Lantern came close to taking this spot as well. In the end, though, this goes to Jon Favreau’s misfire Cowboys and Aliens. Cowboys! Aliens! Daniel Craig! Harrison Ford! And yet, this one came out duller than dirt.

Worth Netflixing: The Adjustment Bureau, Beginners, The Conspirator, A Dangerous Method, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Pt. 2, Hugo, The Ides of March, J. Edgar, Rise of the Planet of the Apes, The Tree of Life, The Trip, Win Win

Don’t Bother: Battle: Los Angeles, Blue Valentine (2010), Friends with Benefits, Limitless, Meek’s Cutoff, Shame, Sherlock Holmes: Game of Shadows, Somewhere (2010), Super 8, Water for Elephants

Best Actor: Gary Oldman, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy; George Clooney, The Descendants; Michael Fassbender, Shame
Best Actress: Rooney Mara, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Charlize Theron, Young Adult; Mia Wasikowska, Jane Eyre
Best Supporting Actor: Uggie, The Artist; Christopher Plummer, Beginners, Eric Bana, Hanna; Benedict Cumberbatch and Tom Hardy, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
Best Supporting Actress: Shailene Woodley, The Descendants; Jessica Chastain, The Tree of Life, Melissa McCarthy, Bridesmaids, Cate Blanchett, Hanna

Unseen: 30 Minutes or Less, Albert Nobbs, Anonymous, Another Earth, Apollo 18, Arthur, Arthur Christmas, Atlas Shrugged, A Very Harold and Kumar Christmas, Bad Teacher, Barney’s Version, Beastly, The Beaver, Bellflower, Biutiful, Carnage, Cars 2, Cedar Rapids, The Change-Up, Colombiana, Conan the Barbarian, Coriolanus, The Darkest Hour, The Debt, The Devil’s Double, The Dilemma, Dolphin Tale, Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark, Dream House, Drive Angry, Dylan Dog: Dead of Night, Everything Must Go, Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close, Fast Five, Footloose, Fright Night, The Guard, The Hangover Pt 2, Happy Feet 2,The Help, Hesher, Horrible Bosses, I Am Number Four, Immortals, Incendies, In the Land of Blood and Honey, In Time, The Iron Lady, I Saw the Devil, Jack and Jill, Killer Elite, Kung Fu Panda 2, Larry Crowne, The Last Circus, Like Crazy, The Lincoln Lawyer, Margaret, Margin Call, Martha Marcy May Marlene, The Mechanic, Melancholia, Moneyball, Mr. Popper’s Penguins, My Week with Marilyn, New Year’s Eve, Our Idiot Brother, Paranormal Activity 3, Pariah, Paul, Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, Priest, Puss in Boots, Rango, Real Steel, Red State, Rio, The Rum Diary, Sanctum, Scream 4, Sleeping Beauty, The Smurfs, Something Borrowed, Straw Dogs, Take Me Home Tonight, Take Shelter, The Thing, The Three Musketeers, Tower Heist, Transformers: Dark of the Moon, Twilight: Breaking Dawn, The Way Back, Warrior, We Bought a Zoo, We Need to Talk about Kevin, Winnie the Pooh, Your Highness, Zookeeper

A Good Year For

Jessica Chastain (Coriolanus, The Debt, The Help, Take Shelter, Tree of Life)
Electronica Soundtracks (Attack the Block, Drive, Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Hanna)
Film History Buffs (The Artist, Hugo)
Ryan Gosling (Crazy, Stupid, Love, Drive, Ides of March)
Marvel (Captain America, Thor, X-Men: First Class)
Michael Fassbender (A Dangerous Method, Jane Eyre, A Dangerous Method, Shame, X-Men: First Class)
Tom Hiddleston (Midnight in Paris, Thor, War Horse)
Parisian Nostalgia (Midnight in Paris, Hugo)
Scene-Stealing Dogs (The Artist, Beginners, Tintin)
The Sex Lives of Depressed People (Shame, Somewhere (2010))
Emma Stone (Crazy, Stupid, Love, Friends with Benefits, The Help)

A Bad Year For

Gimmicks to Fill the Seats (3D, Reserve Seating)
Tom Hanks (Larry Crowne, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close)
Missions in Budapest (MI: Ghost Protocol, Tinker Tailor)
Movies starting with S (Shame, Sherlock 2, Sucker Punch, Super 8)

2012: 21 Jump Street, Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, The Amazing Spiderman, American Reunion, Argo, The Avengers, Battleship, The Bourne Legacy, Brave, Bullet to the Head, Butter, Cabin in the Woods, Casa de mi Padre, Chronicle, Cloud Atlas, Cogan’s Trade, The Cold Light of Day, Contraband, Cosmopolis, Damsels in Distress, The Dictator, Dog Fight, The Dark Knight Rises, Dark Shadows, The Dictator, Django Unchained, Dredd, The Expendables 2, The Five-Year Engagement, Frankenweenie, Gambit, Gangster Squad, GI Joe: Retaliation, The Grandmasters, Gravity, The Great Gatsby, Great Hope Springs, The Grey, I Hate You Dad, Haywire, The Hunger Games, Hyde Park on Hudson, Inside Llewyn Davis, Jack the Giant-Killer, John Carter, John Dies at the End, Lay the Favorite, Les Miserables, Life of Pi, Lincoln, Lock-Out, Looper, Magic Mike, The Master, Men in Black 3, Mirror Mirror, Moonrise Kingdom, Neighborhood Watch, Nero Fiddled, Only God Forgives, Outrun, Paranorman, The Pirates: Band of Misfits, Premium Rush, Prometheus, The Raid, Rampart, The Raven, Red Dawn, Red Hook Summer, Red Tails, Rock of Ages, Savages, Seeking a Friend for the End of the World, The Silver-Linings Playbook, Sinister, Skyfall, Snow White and the Huntsman, Take This Waltz, This is Forty, The Three Stooges, Total Recall, Twilight: Breaking Dawn Pt. 2, Warm Bodies, The Wettest County, The Wicker Tree, The Woman in Black, World War Z, Wrath of the Titans, and…

No hat, no stick, no pipe, not even a pocket handkerchief! How can one survive?

We Need a Hero.

When Hal Jordan took a bullet for Steve Rogers by being the inevitable middling comic book movie of the season, the path was open for Marvel to go three-for-three this year. And, hey, they pulled it off! Matthew Vaughn’s X-Men: First Class is still the most fun and self-assured of this year’s comic book crop, but Joe Johnston’s Captain America: The First Avenger is another solidly entertaining summer outing, and as good a Cap movie as Thor was a Thor movie. In the end, I probably preferred this film of the latter two, both for its four-color propaganda poster flavor and because I just prefer Cap to the Asgardian — but it’s really a toss-up.

If anything, The First Avenger is more faithful to its titular character, since Johnston, unlike Branagh in Thor, plays this period piece straight, without the likes of Kat Dennings and Clark Gregg providing a security blanket of 21st century irony. Speaking of which, Chris Evans has already shown he exudes star presence in movies like Sunshine and Scott Pilgrim, and he was easily the best thing about otherwise bland comic-book flicks like Fantastic Four and The Losers. But, in the past, he’s always skated by on his snark, and I was worried Steve Rogers might be turned into a self-aware, wisecracking Spiderman sort to accommodate that. But, no, Captain America here is noble, earnest, and maybe a tiny bit dull — exactly as he should be.

In this incarnation as in the original comic, Steve Rogers is a puny kid from Brooklyn whose spirit is willing and flesh is weak: Even as his best friend James “Bucky” Barnes (Sebastian Stans), and seemingly every other able-bodied American male in the borough, head off to fight Hitler and Japan in the Big W-W-I-I, Rogers is rejected from one recruiting office after another for being a tiny, wimpy asthmatic. That is, until a German emigre named Dr. Abraham Erskine (Stanley Tucci) overhears Rogers again trying to serve his country for the umpteenth time. Perhaps, Erskine decides, this brave little man might be the perfect candidate for America’s top-secret Super Soldier program, conveniently headquartered in New York City. (Not to be confused with the Manhattan Project.)

It had better work, since Nazi Germany already has a Super Soldier of its own. That would be Johann Schmidt (Hugo Weaving), a.k.a. The Red Skull, head of Hitler’s deep-science division HYDRA. And, while Hitler wastes time “digging around in the desert” (heh), Schmidt has located the all-powerful Cosmic Cube in Eastern Europe, where it had been under guard by Mr Filch/Walder Frey. Now, with his right-hand man Arnim Zola (Toby Jones), Schmidt threatens to use this powerful device to (wait for it, wait for it) take over the entire world. Can anyone stop his dastardly plan? Anyone, anyone? Rogers?

So, ya, pretty standard set-up, of course. Along the hero’s journey, Captain America suffers through boot camp (led by Tommy Lee Jones, who’s phoning it in but who at least isn’t doing his Two-Face schtick.) He gains a costume, a shield, a squad (the Howling Commandoes), and the attentions of a plucky and beautiful British agent, Peggy Carter (Hayley Atwell of Cassandra’s Dream.) And he learns, more than once, that war isn’t a USO show, and that with great power comes great sacrifice…but let’s save those spoilers for The Avengers.

Speaking of that forthcoming super-team, there’s plenty of chum in the water in The First Avenger for Marvel fans, from Howard Stark (Dominic Cooper here, not Roger Sterling) to the aforementioned Cosmic Cube to a great first shot of Jones’ Zola, which pays homage to his four-color incarnation. When it comes to real, not comic-book, history, however, The First Avenger is obviously a bit fast and loose with the era. Several years before Truman desegregates, the Howling Commandoes are a multiracial brigade, and in fact the entire US Army seems integrated. And while Peggy has to put up with some macho bravado, she still seems unencumbered by the sexism of the period.

Still, given that this is a movie about a guy wrapped in Old Glory who continually punches Hitler in the face, the rose-tinted ahistoricism didn’t bother me all that much. Captain America is a propaganda vehicle by design — arguably the best section in the movie has him being taken on a Flags of our Fathers-style USO tour. And like Superman’s commitment to truth, justice, and the American Way, Cappy has always been more about who we as a nation should be than who we actually are, so I found myself more willing than usual to forgive the film some well-intentioned anachronisms. If anything, I’m glad The First Avenger didn’t choose to make Cap an overly militaristic hero. Instead, he’s a unassuming kid from Brooklyn, given great power, whose patriotism mainly consists of just trying to do the right thing.

Hammer Don’t Hurt ‘Em.

Well, I’m sure it helped that, between the series of underwhelming trailers and the general hokiness of the source material, I went in with expectations calibrated at about shin-level. Still, I was surprised to discover this past Friday that Kenneth Branagh’s corny but amiable adaptation of Marvel’s Thor — which I caught IN THREE DIMENSIONS (the third of which adds next to nothing, by the way; save your money) — is totally and utterly not-bad.

That may seem like I’m damning this first of four comic book tentpoles this summer — along with X-Men: First Class, Green Lantern, and Captain America: The First Avenger — with faint praise. But, hey, sometimes ok is a good thing. There’s not much reaching for depth here: Branagh’s Thor is smart and self-referential enough to know that, once you get past all the family strife, Norse brooding, hubris of Gods, and whatnot, this is just a breezy, early-May popcorn film, and it keeps a light touch accordingly. The Dark Knight, this isn’t.

As such, and perhaps not surprisingly, Thor — the story of a fallen deity’s misadventures in the American Southwest, and the brother who betrayed him back home — feels more in keeping with the Make-Mine-Marvel larkiness of Iron Man. (And although IM was a much better film, Thor is more successful and self-contained a story than the rush job that was Iron Man 2.)

Like Iron Man, Thor is a comic that — Walt Simonson’s epic run in the 80’s notwithstanding — I’ve remained mostly agnostic about over the years. With all due respect to the Nordic pantheon from whence he came, Thor has just never been all-that-interesting a comic book character to me. He’s…a guy…with a hammer. Nor, for that matter, are his powers very well-defined. So, ok, he’s strong and can kinda sorta control the weather. But there’re a lot of generic strongmen running around the Marvel universe — Hulk, Hercules, Colossus, Juggernaut. What makes Thor different?

With that in mind, Branagh and his team of screenwriters make the smart move of dropping the “trapped as mere mortal Dr. Donald Blake” part of Thor’s origin and taking what’s distinctive about the character — mainly, his Asgardian roots and his noble, if a bit dense, nature — to fashion a fish-out-of-water story instead. Most of the humor that keeps the movie humming along — say, Thor going to the pet store to find a Lockjaw-type large steed on which to ride through the desert — ensues from this wise decision to skip canon and tell a rollicking Thor story (Thory?) instead.

The film also benefits from a bevy of actors, including but by no means limited to Chris “Papa Kirk” Hemsworth as the titular thunder god, who can managed the dual feat of conveying comic book gravitas when it is required and delivering moments of pure cheese with a wink and a nod. Anthony Hopkins, of course, is an old hand at this sort of thing by now, but his Odin is matched well by Tom Hiddleston’s impressive turn as Loki, the God of Mischief. (Let’s face it, Loki was always a more interesting character than Thor anyway, almost by design, and perhaps the most visceral geek thrill I got out of Thor was seeing Hiddleston — in the iconic horned helmet — lounging on Asgard’s throne like something out of Milton.) And a number of other actors here match the same wry and knowing tone perfectly, from Idris Elba’s Heimdall to Clark Gregg’s ubiquitous Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D to Stellan Skargard, here in the often-thankless role of skeptical science guy/mentor to the love interest.

Speaking of the love interest, Natalie Portman continues her post-Black Swan year-of-many-films here as super-physicist Jane Foster, and she’s decent enough at it. At the very least she doesn’t exhibit the deer-in-a-headlights stare that accompanied her last venture into FX-heavy fandom, the prequels. If there’s a weak link here, it’s probably — and sadly — Rome‘s Ray Stevenson (who already did time in the Marvelverse as the Punisher, in the one with McNutty) as Volstagg of the Warriors Three, a.k.a. Falstaff in the comics, Gimli in this film. I like Stevenson, but he’s mostly just miscast here. A more rotund individual (Oliver Platt? Mark Addy?) probably could’ve sold the character better.

Still, the very fact that the Warriors Three are traipsing around the margins of a big summer movie just goes to show what an embarrassment of riches comic book fans are enjoying at the multiplex these days. Even if I’m not much of a fan of Thor per se, I have to admit I definitely enjoy watching the world-building Marvel is engaged in as a studio right now. (Here, various Marvel denizens are name-dropped, and another Avenger shows up briefly mid-movie — You’ll know him when you see him.)

Like the comics they’re based on, these pre-Avengers films have permeable borders. It’s like nothing we’ve seen before at the cinema, and the ambition is thrilling. Of course, there will be a backlash eventually — one of these comic book films is going to bomb, and bomb big. But, surprisingly to me at least, Thor doesn’t signify the end is near. To the contrary, it shows that if you get a good director, good writers, and good actors who take their source seriously — but not too seriously — the comic book experience is actually pretty translatable to the big screen. The ball’s in your court now, Hal Jordan.

Agent With Shield.

Among the trailers I’ve missed in recent weeks is this — arguably the most promising-looking comic book film in the summer of Thor, Green Lantern, and X-Men: First Class — the teaser trailer for Joe Johnston’s Captain America: The First Avenger, with Chris Evans, Hayley Atwell, Tommy Lee Jones, Stanley Tucci, Sebastian Stans, Toby Jones, and, above, Hugo Weaving looking pitch-perfect as the Red Skull. Granted, Johnston’s The Wolfman was terribad, but I’m holding out hope for this one (and to be fair, Johnston was basically a hired gun on Wolfman, coming in four weeks before shooting to replace Mark Romanek.)