Toon Talk: Hammer Time

Back in my comic book reading youth, The Avengers was always a must-read. A Justice League of America for the Marvel Comics set, the super group included such faves as Captain America, Hawkeye and Iron Man in spectacular battles that only the world’s greatest superheroes could win. One of the Avengers’ many-many members was the mighty Thor, the Norse God of Thunder. Although he had a cool weapon (an oversized hammer he called Mjolnir), his stoic nature and stilted, archaic dialogue (filled with “thee’s” and “thou’s” and such) never endeared him to me much.

So now that it has come time in Marvel Studios’ prolonged build-up to next year’s Avengers movie to introduce Thor to the movie-going masses, I was a bit skeptical that this chapter would be a sword-and-sorcery snooze fest. Thankfully, I was wrong, as Marvel has wisely followed the format of the two hit Iron Man movies and injected Thor (in theaters now) with plenty of humor and over-the-top fantasy sequences, enough at least to distract you from the fact that this is basically a feature length prologue to 2012’s main event.

Following in the footsteps of his fellow Aussie Hugh Jackman, relative newcomer Chris Hemsworth (best known stateside as Kirk’s father in the most recent Star Trek movie) gives a robust, star-making performance as the title character...

Click here to continue my Toon Talk review of Thor at LaughingPlace.com.

UPDATE: Thor is now available on DVD and Blu-ray from Amazon.com.