…or, you know, “Thunderstruck” by AC/DC? I mean, there’s the whole Iron Man II precedent and everything! The Foo Fighters under the credits didn’t quite cut it for me.

As you might have guessed, I finally got around to seeing Thor this weekend. And unsurprisingly, I really, really liked it. It was easily the most “comic-booky” looking of the Marvel shared-universe films so far; Asgard looked as if it sprung directly from the brain of Jack Kirby into shiny CG modelling. There was even a little bit of Kirby Krackle worked in there if you looked hard enough.

And for you DC fanboys, the film version of the Bifrost was essentially a Boom Tube. I wonder which one of the nine realms is the Fourth World?

In terms of performance, hiring a director known for his Shakespearian adaptations was probably the way to go; the Thor-Odin-Loki dynamic as conceived by Stan & Jack (and Larry) was pretty much a Bard pastiche anyway – Branagh’s direction brings just enough gravitas to it to keeping it from flying straight off into the camp end of the pool, while still maintaining a sense of fun about the whole thing. This feel is helpeed considerably by Hemsworth and Hiddleston bringing more acting skill to the party than usually studio-mandated for this sort of big budget project, and the film is all the better for it. Natalie Portman and Kat Dennings? Cute and all, but kind of superfluous (if necessary to move the plot along). Both have done better (and you know, worse, in Natalie’s case); I just wish they had more to do in this film besides look at the hero in rapt admiration or be the comic relief, because they’re both more than capable at their craft (although, as Carrie notes, the film technically passed the Bechdel test with the first scene).

Also, lots of nice little nods to the comics legacy with Blake MD and “Journey Into Mystery.” Hawkeye was obviously shoehorned in at the last minute, but you know what? I’m okay with planting seeds.

So yeah, I had fun with it.

One little piece of fanboy speculation – I wonder if the multiple chin clefts on the frost giants were intentional? Change those guys from blue to green, and you’ve pretty much got a skrull. Probably nothing, but I know I’m not the only one who noticed that.

Otherwise, the weekend was pretty quiet, and that’s pretty much the way I wanted it.