{"id":184942,"date":"2011-12-03T20:44:00","date_gmt":"2011-12-04T01:44:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2011\/12\/03\/pay-per-view-review\/"},"modified":"2011-12-03T20:44:00","modified_gmt":"2011-12-04T01:44:00","slug":"pay-per-view-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2011\/12\/03\/pay-per-view-review\/","title":{"rendered":"Pay Per View Review"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Well, we got around to seeing yet another movie on PPV, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt0800369\/\">Thor (2011)<\/a>. <\/p>\n<p>Chris Hemsworth \u2026 Thor<br \/>Natalie Portman \u2026 Jane Foster<br \/>Tom Hiddleston \u2026 Loki<br \/>Anthony Hopkins \u2026 Odin<br \/>Stellan Skarsg\u00e5rd \u2026 Erik Selvig<br \/>Kat Dennings \u2026 Darcy Lewis<br \/>Clark Gregg \u2026 Agent Coulson<br \/>Idris Elba \u2026 Heimdall<br \/>Colm Feore \u2026 King Laufey<br \/>Ray Stevenson \u2026 Volstagg<br \/>Tadanobu Asano \u2026 Hogun<br \/>Josh Dallas \u2026 Fandral<br \/>Jaimie Alexander \u2026 Sif<br \/>Rene Russo \u2026 Frigga<br \/>Adriana Barraza \u2026 Isabel Alvarez<\/p>\n<p>This really isn&#8217;t a film.  It&#8217;s a lead-in to the upcoming <a href=\"http:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt0848228\/\">Avengers<\/a> movie. Barely worth it as PPV, but I&#8217;m really glad I didn&#8217;t drop 40+ dollars on a movie tickets for the family, and lord knows what on drinks and snacks.<\/p>\n<p>The two best performances are from  Stellan Skarsg\u00e5rd, who does a really good job of portraying a Swede (go figure), and Kat Dennings, who embraces her inner sidekick when her wailings for her lost iPod sounds just like my daughter.<\/p>\n<p>Chris Hemsworth&#8217;s Thor is an affable, though rather a thick oaf, which suits the script.<\/p>\n<p>Natalie Portman is winsome and smart love interest, which is kind of her sweet spot of acting.<\/p>\n<p>One of the truths of these movies is that the really interesting character is the villain.&nbsp; Well, not this time.&nbsp; Tom Hiddleston&#8217;s Loki is just weak.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m not sure how much of this is the script, which cannot decide whether or not he is misguided or malevolent.<\/p>\n<p>Anthony Hopkins plays Anthony Hopkins playing Odin.&nbsp; (Meh)<\/p>\n<p>The movie takes place in two places, Earth and Asgard\/Jotunheim.<\/p>\n<p>The Asgard\/Jotunheim bits are dull.  It&#8217;s stilted, and dull. At least they don&#8217;t to the &#8220;thee&#8221; and &#8220;thine&#8221; bit that I remember as the speech of Asgard when I last read the comic in the 1970s.<\/p>\n<p>Basically the lands of the Gods and the Frost Giants seems to be little more than an excuse for excessive CGI. <\/p>\n<p>There are a couple of funny bits, some car accidents and what can only be described as a &#8220;hammer time&#8221; party.<\/p>\n<p>For most of the movie, S.H.I.E.L.D. seems to be more sinister than benevolent.<\/p>\n<p>Overall, I would give a 5.5 out of 10, a firm &#8220;Meh&#8221;. <\/p>\n<p>Pix after the break:<\/p>\n<p><a name='more'><\/a><br \/><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/img337.imageshack.us\/img337\/839\/mv5bnzkymdk3nzm5nf5bml5.jpg\" width=\"200\" \/>  <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/img846.imageshack.us\/img846\/6201\/mv5bmty5mjk1ody1nv5bml5.jpg\" width=\"200\" \/> <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/img338.imageshack.us\/img338\/9792\/mv5bmji0ndeymzizn15bml5.jpg\" width=\"200\" \/> <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/img834.imageshack.us\/img834\/4894\/mv5bmtu0njawnzuwnl5bml5.jpg\" width=\"200\" \/><br \/><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/img607.imageshack.us\/img607\/2707\/mv5bntq4oty2odi0nv5bml5.jpg\" width=\"200\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Well, we got around to seeing yet another movie on PPV, Thor (2011). Chris Hemsworth \u2026 ThorNatalie Portman \u2026 Jane FosterTom Hiddleston \u2026 LokiAnthony Hopkins \u2026 OdinStellan Skarsg\u00e5rd \u2026 Erik SelvigKat Dennings \u2026 Darcy LewisClark Gregg \u2026 Agent CoulsonIdris Elba \u2026 HeimdallColm Feore \u2026 King LaufeyRay Stevenson \u2026 VolstaggTadanobu Asano \u2026 HogunJosh Dallas \u2026 FandralJaimie &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[993,1065,1064,1189],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-184942","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cinema","category-entertainment","category-media","category-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184942"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=184942"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184942\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=184942"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=184942"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=184942"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}