Round Two: Sassy, Sassy Superheroes

Jenni: I demand to know what the costume designers were thinking when they called these travesties Captain America costumes, or Ninja Turtle or Wolverine costumes. I mean, I don’t think you could get into a S.H.I.E.L.D. base dressed like that and claim to be Cap. Masters of disguise, these costume makers are not.

But you look nothing LIKE Wolverine!

I was the kid who thought ‘shoddy work’ when comic book inkers coloured in panels of Wolverine’s costume the wrong colour. What do you expect will be my reaction when you try to sell me that and call it a Wolverine costume? The only time I’ve seen a male superhero wear a skirt that short was when Deadpool put on Jean Grey’s costume and insisted he was an X-Man.

Rob: Just for the record, I’m planning to do that particular Deadpool outfit for a convention next summer.

Markgraf: Fuck NEXT SUMMER, do it for THIS WEEKEND!

Miranda: This Green Lantern one’s not so bad. Good: it still has those huge abs printed on it! No toning down the muscle power for the ladies. Less good: The lines on the front come over like a bra made out of sinew. Even She-Hulk does not possess this feature.

Sarah J: Sassy Thor Girl is quite amusing. The Mighty Avenger! It’s the coy way she’s cradling the hammer that makes it. And her angry thunder god fluffy boot-tops. Are they intended to represent clouds? Anyway, I think this is one example among thousands of the failure to translate power from a masculine to a feminine character. Thor is big and strong and powerful! Look at his beard, muscles and giant throbbing hammer! Thor Girl is… er… sexy? Sassy? Look at her fluffy boots of death!

Sassy!

Miranda: Yes! The failure to translate power thing you just said? I think that nails it. Look at how Marvin-Martian-girl has no war helmet. Also, I find it really weird how these manufacturers seem to think adding heels to things in the promo shots is logical – the worst offender by far is this shot of a Neytiri from Avatar costume. That character lives in a rainforest, rides a psychic dinosaur and is part of a tribe considering waging a war, in effect, on consumerism. The electric blue stilettoes scream “just took that dinosaur on a sweet trip to Topshop”. Which sort of ruins the whole nature-hippy vibe.

Rob: Also, this seems relevant.

Miranda: Yes. This is all, really, less about Halloween specifically and more about general societal trends around gender and bodies and clothing writ large. Why are we meant to be so uncomfortable with male flesh on display in this way? Sexy male costumes do exist, but they tend to be seen as much more out of place at a general house party than a woman in stockings and suspenders.

Jenni: By the way, I think these posters are amazing. They were created by STARS – Students Teaching Against Racism, at Ohio University, and I think they really get the point across about cultural appropriation and racism at costume parties.

Sarah J: Those posters are ace.

Miranda: Yes. Yet another reason why Sexy Chinese Takeaway should just go on fire.

Jenni: Take Back Halloween and their well-researched selection of costume ideas are still going strong, judging by this appearance on The Mary Sue. I mentioned them in the Halloween post I made on BR last year. Goddesses, queens, warriors and pirates – all costumes I’d consider!

Miranda: And for everything else, there’s always Angry Birds, which is just bringing everyone together in a transcendently glorious sexy-free world of cushioning and big eyebrows.

NEXT: What we’re wearing, and our absolute favourite WTF costume Yandy.com has yet spewed into the world

I am pleased to say that I was wrong. And Thor is, in fact, awesome. In all ways. Although especially in the way that Chris Hemsworth is jaw-droppingly attractive and takes his shirt off for extended periods. Also his biceps appear to be gearing up to eat Tokyo. And there’s mud wrestling.

The film uses a lot of beautiful scenery, which I'm sure you will appreciate.

Now, when I tell you the plot you’ll tell me that I have gone mad for liking it, and that I was blinded by the sight of such a perfect male specimen. In my defence, this is an actor cast to play Thor, so he needs to be at least a bit buff.

Bear with me.

The Aesir here are basically alien-space royalty and live on this beautiful world with crystal palaces and epic science/magic. The rainbow bridge (guarded by Heimdall, played by the brilliant-in-everything Idris Elba) allows them to blast their way to other planets. Using the argument that any sufficiently advanced science is indistinguishable from magic, they are worshipped as gods by the primitive Vikings.

Thus when a chap falls to earth (landing in a small town somewhere in the sandy square states) and proclaims himself Thor, everyone thinks he’s a bit mad. Especially when the rampaging starts. However, some handy scientists need him for some handy science, and then there’s this hammer that no-one can lift…

This all had the potential to be cringingly awful and cheesy, but fortunately it was handled in a rarely-seen triumphal triumvirate of sensitive and nuanced acting, balanced direction (Kenneth Branagh at the helm, and he’s a man who can deal with a lot of ham) and a script that focused on that shyest of all beasts in the comic book action genre: character development.

Mark Millar's Moody Thunder God

That’s right. Character development. Get in.

Anthony Hopkins, who plays Odin, is seen here in an interview calling Thor “a superhero film with a bit of Shakespeare in”, which is a good summary. The almost unbelieveable plot is rescued from itself by the way in which it allows characters to grow.

I was very happy that the writers had chosen to riff heavily from Mark Millar‘s Ultimate Thor rewrites, in which Thor is styled as a hero struggling with self-doubt and the agony of everyone thinking that he’s actually suffering from delusions that make him think he’s a god.

In the film, Thor gets kicked out of Valhalla by Odin for being an annoying, spoilt teenager who picks fights and starts wars. He needs to make good and get some responsibility.

We follow Thor on his journey from arrogant, angry young man to being, well, a grown up. His essential good-naturedness and charm, as well as obvious desire to do good, make this neither pat nor schmaltzy, but wholly believable, and at times exceptionally moving.

In the meantime, his brother Loki is also trying to find himself. Rather than the standard trope of being evil because he’s a villain (although he is of course played by an English actor), the whole thing is carried off with depth, subtlety and aplomb by Tom Hiddleston.

Like Thor, Loki grows into himself, and it is only at the end that he makes the transition from a young warrior of potential into someone capable of evil. You know, the thing that George Lucas tried to do with the backstory for that guy in the black armour, but ended up just embarrassing everyone?

I bet Natalie Portman (playing handy scientist Jane Foster) was glad to get that storyline right this time.

Speaking of Natalie Portman, let’s have a look at the female characters. They are admittedly thin on the ground, but those that are there are pretty good. Portman and Kat Dennings (playing Darcy) give good scientist and political scientist respectively, with the Jane Foster character updated from nurse to physicist.  Both women avoid the dull stereotype of being either predictably “spirited” or annoyingly wet.

Sif kicks ass. Fact.

The kickass Jaime Alexander plays Sif (Thor’s wife in the mythology, but we’ll leave that for the sequel, I suppose), heads up Team Junior Aesir in their fight to rescue Thor from Earth, and gets as much, if not more, fighting screen time as the rest of them.

She’s also wearing a costume that looks appropriate to fighting in, which is a personal bugbear of mine. No-one can fight crime in a bustier. No-one. Pay attention, people allegedly, eventually, making Wonder Woman. I said no-one.

There’s also some ice giants in it, but realistically the action element plays second fiddle to the storyline, and although there were a lot of fighting sequences my overall impressions of the film were about people and personalities rather than a barrage of things crashing into other things.

Which is no bad thing. I love action films, but I love them even more if there’s more to them than just action (are you listening, Michael Bay?)

And the action wasn’t exactly light on the ground – there were some very pleasing fights on all realms of reality from soldiers to robots to lots of ice giants getting hit in the face. A personal favourite caused me to turn and hi-five the person next to me (fortunately, Miranda, and not a stranger) because Thor had just smashed his hammer into the face of an enormous ice-beast and SAVED THE DAY in epic hero style.

YOU SHOULD SEE THIS FILM BECAUSE:

• You like comic book adaptations or action films
• It has an amazing cast acting their socks off
• You want to see how EPIC Norse Gods can be whether they are good or evil
• You want to sing this song over and over in your head when you’ve left the cinema
• Just go and see it already!

YOU SHOULD NOT SEE THIS FILM BECAUSE:

• You are allergic to bling, muscles, fighting, deep voices or CGI ice giants.
• You realise that they didn’t put Fenris Wolf in, OR cast Brian Blessed as Odin, and that makes you a bit sad.