Mea Culpa -- How Wrong I Was

[found at HiddleMemes]

Years ago when I heard that Sir Kenneth Branagh was going to direct the Thor origin movie, my first thought was "how the mighty have fallen!" Man, Branagh must really be in need of money, I thought, if he was going to "slum it" by directing a comic book adaptation. Clearly, such material was far below both his time and his talents.

So when the movie came out, I went to it solely out of curiosity to see how the great director was going to humiliate himself with such tawdry material. And of course I was absolutely blown away by the Shakespearean vision, sweep and grandeur that he brought to the story. Branagh elevated the entire movie to the heights of three-dimensional tragedy while preserving necessary lighter elements with which to offset the brutal archetypal sibling rivalry as both brothers lose everything they hold dear, everything they believe to be true about themselves and everything that gives meaning to their lives.

And Branagh's casting decisions were almost all brilliant -- not just Tom Hiddleston, but Chris Hemsworth, Anthony Hopkins and Idris Elba as well. His only misstep was casting Natalie Portman as Jane. She and Chris Hemsworth have virtually no on-screen chemistry. Plus it was a puzzlingly bad decision to have her come across like some kind of ditzy valley girl "playing at" being a scientist.

I wish Branagh was directing the upcoming Ragnarok movie. It needs a director who understands how to portray the terrible and inexorable way in which Shakespearean tragedy culminates.