Oppenheimer

Director: Christopher Nolan
Starring: Cillian Murphy, Emily Blunt, Matt Damon, Robert Downey Jr., Florence Pugh, Josh Hartnett, Casey Affleck, Rami Malek, Kenneth Branagh, Benny Safdie, Jason Clarke, Dylan Arnold, Tom Conti, James D'Arcy, Dane DeHaan, Alden Ehrenreich, David Krumholtz, Matthew Modine, Scott Grimes, Alex Wolff, Michael Angarano, Macon Blair, Jack Quaid, Josh Peck, Olivia Thirbly, James Remar, Gary Oldman
Running Time: 181 min.
Rating: R

★★★★ (out of ★★★★)     

With Oppenheimer, writer/director Christopher Nolan takes what many might consider an unusual route in examining the "father of the atomic bomb." Jumping between timelines, framing the narrative around two significant court hearings and shifting from black and white to color, this isn't your standard historical biopic. And yet it is, surreally using its subject's life to explore deeper, further reaching consequences that linger to this day. Adapted from the 2005 biography "American Prometheus" and clocking in at a gargantuan three hours, Nolan doesn't hold back in examining the string of events surrounding disgraced American physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer's eventual loss of national security clearance in 1954.

While a fair amount of the story's energy is poured into the actual development of Oppenheimer's weapon of mass destruction, it's primarily gripping prologue, preparing us for the controversy to come. It isn't until his idea becomes a reality that he discovers the moral complications and lack of control he'll have over its use. You can chalk this up to hubris or naivety as his concerns aren't merely dismissed, but savagely ripped apart, leaving the renowned physicist's reputation smeared. History may have partially corrected that, but the most unsettling aspect is how it happened to begin with.

It's 1926 when American-born 22 year-old theoretical physics student J. Robert Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy) studies at Cambridge before completing his PhD in Germany and returns to the states to teach quantum physics in California. While on the West Coast he befriends a group of U.S. Communist Party members, getting entangled in romantic relationships with troubled psychiatrist Jean Tatlock (Florence Pugh) and his eventual wife, biologist Kitty Puening (Emily Blunt). But everything changes once he's approached by General Leslie Groves (Matt Damon) in the midst of World War II.

With the Nazis and Russia suspected of working on a nuclear arms program, Oppenheimer is recruited by Groves in 1942 to lead the Manhattan Project dedicated to developing an atomic bomb. Joined by a team of scientists including good friend Isidor Isaac Rabbi (David Krumholtz) and the brilliant but disagreeable Edward Teller (Benny Safdie), Oppenheimer and his crew work around the clock in Los Alamos, New Mexico to prepare for a dangerous test detonation. As Oppenheimer's consumed with guilt over President Truman's (Gary Oldman) decision to bomb Japan into surrender, longtime rival and Energy Commission chairman Lewis Strauss (Robert Downey Jr.) schemes, pulling political strings to sideline the scientist.  

Non-linear as the film's structure appears, it actually follows a strict chronology that begins with Oppenheimer's academic years and continues through Los Alamos and beyond. There's a lengthy emphasis on his education, marveling under the learning tree of intellectual idols like Kenneth Branagh's Nobel winning physicist Niels Bohr. These early scenes, along with his personal troubles with wife Kitty and unhinged mistress Jean seem off-putting at first, but it adds up, as does his affiliation with communists. Nolan's pretty even handed with this, neither downplaying Oppenheimer's tangential involvement or how that association will be weaponized to later take him down. 

All roads lead to the 1945 Trinity A-bomb test, building up a huge amount of suspense and intrigue for the blast that clears the path for Truman's bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. While the catastrophic event itself isn't depicted, the script doesn't shy away from questioning whether Japan would have  surrendered without such extreme measures. And no one's more ambivalent than the tortured Oppenheimer, who becomes painfully aware of the door he just opened and its horrifying ramifications. 

The film's most powerful scene comes when Oppenheimer delivers a speech to an audience full of scientists and military wildly cheering their hero for ending the war. But what he sees instead are bright, blinding lights and faces of burning flesh in the crowd that will haunt him long after the celebratory magazine profiles fade. Jennifer Lame's editing and Ludwig Göransson's score provide constant, palpable tension throughout, but never more than during this sequence, which signals the psychological battle he'll now be fighting within himself.

Supposedly, the feud between Mozart and Salieri in Amadeus served as Nolan's inspiration for Lewis Strauss's hate and jealousy fueled vendetta against Oppenheimer, which is mostly one-sided. By orchestrating a predetermined sham of a hearing for his opponent, Strauss ends up revealing more about the integrity of those testifying than the accused. But between Oppenheimer's womanizing and communist links, it's not hard to discredit him, even if a worse humiliation comes while meeting with Truman, who mocks his concerns. When given the choice of falling in line or getting out of the way, he picks neither, losing his country instead. 

Cillian Murphy has played his fair share of villains and creeps, but Oppenheimer, while eccentrically flawed and narcissistic, isn't exactly that, if only because his intense regret is enough to qualify him as having a conscience. But he still did what he did and spends the rest of his days grappling with it, leaving the gravest risk to humanity in the hands of a potentially irresponsible government.

Through that lens, it's easy to view Oppenheimer as a hopelessly reckless, but the pull of Murphy's performance is that he plays him as nearly impenetrable and impossible to read right up until the enormity of what's happened sinks in. And with his sunken, hollowed face and darting eyes, the eeriest aspect to his casting is how an actor with such an unusually unmistakable look manages to be a physical dead ringer for the man himself. 

Strauss' 1959 Senate confirmation hearing for Eisenhower's Secretary of Commerce position proves to be a referendum on the former shoe salesman's shady dealings and Oppenheimer's last shot at any kind of redemption. Downey's brilliance peaks here, revealing he was actually this good at being bad the entire time, only now allowing us to catch on. The rest of this loaded cast is packed with big names filling what would otherwise be considered small, throwaway roles under the guidance of a lesser director. Some are seamlessly interwoven into the plot's fabric while others are briefly written off until reappearing later to make massive contributions. 

Matt Damon steals a portion of the film with his gravitas as the hard-nosed, practical Gen. Groves while brief, strong turns also come from Josh Hartnett and Rami Malek as physicists Ernest Lawrence and David Hill, Jason Clarke as hearing attorney Roger Robb, Casey Affleck as military intelligence officer Boris Pash, and most notably, Alden Eidenreich as Strauss' unnamed fictional aide who becomes increasingly disillusioned with his boss. Blunt isn't given tons to do as Kitty, but she nails the heavily factual interpretation, right down to her pivotal testimony ripped directly from the transcripts. Pugh makes an even larger impression with far less screen time, bringing a desperate instability and magnetic seductiveness to Jean, who's constantly a step away from falling off the deep end.

With a fairly restrained use of CGI and an emphasis on more practical effects, the only small complaint is some questionable old age makeup in the last act that's still less distracting than any digitized approach, especially in a period piece. But the film deserves major credit for what's probably the best use of Albert Einstein (magnificently played by Scottish actor Tom Conti) we've seen in a historical drama. There's this clever mystery surrounding the professional bond he shares with Oppenheimer that requires both more and less unpacking than you'd initially assume. And that's especially true of their unforgettable final scene.  

Cold and detached, this is still surprisingly accessible, with everything locking into place for Nolan in ways it hasn't before. Plagued by anxiety and impending doom, we watch the scientist simmer from the inside, realizing his greatest innovation could very well destroy the world. And that enormous weight is thrust onto viewers, making Oppenheimer a challenge to fully absorb in just a single watch, where you can only begin to unravel its numerous implications.

Tenet

Director: Christopher Nolan
Starring: John David Washington, Robert Pattinson, Elizabeth Debicki, Dimple Kapadia, Michael Caine, Kenneth Branagh, Himesh Patel, Clémence Poésy, Aaron Taylor-Johnson
Running Time: 150 min.
Rating: PG-13

★★★ ½ (out of ★★★★)
 
Pending its heavily discussed arrival into theaters, Christopher Nolan's Tenet was promised to "save movies," which is a silly expectation to thrust upon any major release regardless of quality, but one Nolan can at least partially put on himself. Instead, it ended up being the equivalent of a tree falling in the forest, with the few who did risk venturing out to see it leaving perplexed and frustrated by its complicated plot, among other perceived issues. But those who loved it really did, touting it as a visionary accomplishment that's staggeringly original even by the director's highest standards. So here we are, and if two completely conflicting viewpoints could ever both be true, it's now.

What hits the screen is ultimately matters most, and as confusing as certain sections of this are, its strengths and weaknesses are plainly obvious, laid bare for everyone to judge. Technically, it may be the most ambitious picture Nolan's made, while still justifiably earning its label as his most inaccessible. Following the more conventional Dunkirk, it returns him to the cerebral mind mash that's become his trademark, both for better and worse. That inescapable feeling he's become a parody of himself in the public consciousness has always been mitigated by his sheer talent, the full scope of which is given an incredible platform here, despite any of the film's perceived faults.

When a CIA agent known simply as the "Protagonist" (John David Washington) has his life saved during an extraction operation at a Kyiv opera house, he ends up captured and tortured by unknown mercenaries. With the rest of his team dead, he's recruited by this covert organization called "Tenet," which is experimenting with time manipulation technology, such as bullets that can move backward through time. These inverted objects are believed to have come from the future, as The Protagonist is aided by his mysterious contact Neil (Robbert Pattinson) in tracing them to Priya (Dimple Kapadia), an arms trafficker who reveals they were purchased by ruthless Russian oligarch Andrei Sator (Kenneth Branagh). 

After approaching Sator's estranged art appraiser wife, Kat (Elizabeth Debicki), The Protagonist soon discovers the bitter, volatile nature of their relationship, which hinges on blackmail stemming from a falsely authenticated drawing. As he and Neil close in on Sator's catastrophic plan involving the inverted technology, they realize its capabilities are far more dangerous than initially feared, resulting in not only the entropy of objects, but people as well. With Sator holding all the cards, The Protagonist will have to depend on Neil and Kat to help stop him before it's too late. For everyone. 

It's odd resisting the temptation to describe Tenet as a time travel film because in many ways that's exactly what it is, and also isn't. When characters come face-to-face with past versions of themselves the general rule is that it qualifies as such, even if part of this confusion stems from the fact that nothing in the narrative is spoon fed to us.You can't help but feel the audience is being placed in much the same way as The Protagonist in that there's a certain disorientation that defines the first thirty to forty minutes where you literally have no idea what's happening or why. We're given some information, then a little more as he gets closer, before the film really kicks into high octane mode and everything somehow comes together as it goes.

A highway heist sequence and a gripping airport-set fight with a character moving backwards through time form the mostly solid foundation of a plot that's very Bond-like in presentation, aside from the script's complex, impenetrable ideas that required an almost inhuman level of attention from viewers. Most of it does make sense upon retrospection, but you're so absorbed in the breakneck action sequences and undeniably cool aesthetic that even its admittedly overlong two and a half hour running time feels less like a chore than a mission. And that's actually more of a compliment than it seems when you're talking about considerably harder science fiction than either Nolan's own Inception or Interstellar. This aims higher, unconcerned with the touchy feely component many thought bogged down that latter effort in the end. Clinical and cold as ice, this doesn't come without a cost, as its plot is packed with expository dialogue that gives up frustratingly little. 

Having disregarded most previous complaints about sound in Nolan's films, issues are unmistakenly noticeable this time, even on a home viewing. At the risk of joining a chorus of dissenters, it's called for here since there is a legitimate challenge hearing and understanding some the dialogue due to background noise or Luwig Göransson's score drowning it out. While he's probably the single best composer working today and this is a top tier effort from him, there's hardly a minute in the film where there isn't music, occasionally detracting from verbal exchanges that relay key information. It's to Nolan's credit that every spoken line is that important, but he just saved Oscar viewers the trouble of having to distinguish between sound mixing and editing this year since it won't be nominated for either. If he was going to so boldly demand this get the widest theatrical release at the worst possible time, it would have benefited him, and us, to fix that. 

Washington is the ideal fit for the unnamed Protagonist, subverting what could have easily been a standard issue superhero by conveying a fearful everyman quality that's masked by his cool and competent professionalism in the face of insurmountable danger. Branagh is barbaric in the best way possible as Sator, legitimately chilling and sadistic every moment he's on screen. If Pattinson has the least to do as Neil, he does it better and more agreeably than just about anyone else would, radiating a brooding inteligence that gives glimpses into why his run at (The) Batman is likely to work. 

The movie really belongs to Elizabeth Debicki as Kat, a physically and psychologically abused spouse desperate to get out. But here's the kicker. While that's exactly what it is, everything about that just seems like so much more in her hands. Unmistakably distinct and captivating in how she speaks, looks and carries herself, she brings an intellectual curiosity to the proceedings that would have been glaringly absent otherwise. The actress has been quietly on the upswing in various roles, but this feels next level, representing the best kind of supporting performance in that it's almost invisibly indispensible. Of all the crazy, inexplicable events that occur, it's actually her scenes opposite Branagh that strike the hardest, giving the film that emotional core we previously assumed was lacking. 

Tenet is something we've never seen before, and while it may take many more viewings and the use of subtitles to completely sort out, it's also unforgettable, looking and feeling like a groundbreaker the more you back away from it. Having finally made his own Bond film, this plays better than most of them, while containing a concept you'd believe gestated for over a decade and uniformly excellent performances from an intriguing, eclectic cast. Having already gone through the inevitable phase of parsing through it all, it's both more and less complicated than it appears. But as polarizing as it is, you'd have a harder time writing it off as insignificant, signaling that Nolan hasn't lost his touch, consistently confounding us as we bang our heads against the wall. 

Dunkirk

Director: Christopher Nolan
Starring: Fionn Whitehead, Tom Glynn-Carney, Jack Lowden, Harry Styles, Aneurid Barnard, James D' Arcy, Barry Keoghan, Kenneth Branagh, Cillian Murphy, Mark Rylance, Tom Hardy
Running Time: 106 min.
Rating: PG-13

★★★ ½ (out of ★★★★)

Christopher Nolan's Dunkirk clocks in at a tight, ambitiously intense 107 minutes. This bares mentioning not only as an under-reported detail in relation to its quality, but because at just over an hour and a half, it's one of the shortest war movies in decades. And by today's standards, it just might be one of the shortest movies, period. As tough as it may be to believe, there was a time not too long ago where every major release wasn't averaging two and a half hours in length. In fact, producers would do all they could to keep a film's running time to a minimum (remember "Harvey Scissorhands?"), interfering so heavily that the actual editor takes a backseat. The shorter the movie, the more theaters it could play in, and the more money it made.

The rules have now changed as actual brick and mortar theaters rapidly dwindle in the age of home viewing. Desperate to get anyone into a theater, studios are relying on bells and whistles like IMAX, 3D and insuring every movie "experience" is as long as humanly possible. You see, if it's an amusement park ride, you'll never want to get off, no matter how terrible. There's also little sense in leaving anything on the cutting room floor, hoping it'll be a bonus feature or deleted scene on the now defunct DVD format. The result has been movies getting progressively longer. And worse.

When you're packing stuff in just for the sake of it, there's no way the quality doesn't suffer considerably. It's also easy to forget the final bloated product we see is often the heavily edited, shorter version. A scary thought. You wouldn't have guessed the writer and director to break that streak would be Nolan given his career-long propensity to overindulge, with mostly positive but sometimes mixed results. It's still one of the industry's biggest mysteries how The Dark Knight managed to win a Best Editing Oscar when it was the very definition of a picture that would have greatly benefited from a snip and a trim. But implying Dunkirk's greatness only stems from its brevity is just as ridiculous as blaming a film's failures entirely on it running long.

While many factors are at clearly at play, it's still not unreasonable to suggest its length is the end result of many things done well, such as Lee Smith's masterful editing, which assures there isn't a single wasted or unnecessary moment. Proving a war epic doesn't have to be packed with story beats to succeed, Nolan creates this claustrophobic, almost terrifying sense of immediacy and impending doom that reverberates until the final minutes. With its emphasis squarely placed on spectacle and scope over story, it's in many ways the perfect antidote for those put off more emotionally-driven war entries like Saving Private Ryan.

It's 1940 and many of Allied soldiers have retreated to Dunkirk, France to await evacuation during World War II. One of them is Tommy (Fionn Whitehead), a young British private who survived a German ambush and now joins Gibson (Aneurin Barnard) in attempting to transport a wounded soldier from the beach onto a hospital ship. Meanwhile in Weymouth, Mr. Dawson (Mark Rylance), his son Peter (Tom Glynn-Carney) and teenage friend, George (Barry Keoghan) set out to the beach aboard his boat for a civilian rescue mission that's derailed when they save a shell-shocked, shipwrecked soldier (Cillian Murphy) with little interest in returning. In the air, Spitfire pilot Farrier (Tom Hardy) must assume command after their leader is shot down, but with a shattered fuel gauge, it's likely he won't last much longer himself.

Divvying the screen time between three separate, occasionally interlocking stories that center around the evacuation, Nolan focuses on what happened on land, at sea and in the air, with the each event serving as an entry point.We already know the subject itself is often enough to warrant massive praise and awards consideration, and while this probably will to, he at least went about earning it with some creatively inspired decision-making. Consisting primarily of suspenseful action set pieces with very minimal dialogue, Nolan conveys that war is lost or won on the battlefield and does his best at keeping us there, rarely letting the narrative get dragged down by unnecessary details or needless editorializing.

Despite the obvious commitment to period accuracy, there's this slick, contemporary look to the production design and cinematography that fits Nolan's vision. Sounding like something straight out of a 70's horror movie, Hans Zimmer's pounding, foreboding score never lets up, creating an uncomfortable tension throughout. There's also a significant reliance on practical effects over CGI, which only seems to enhance the authenticity unfolding in front of us. This isn't a character study and I'd argue that unpacking backstory on all these men wouldn't have necessarily brought us closer to the situation they're in and may have even slowed the momentum. What pulls us closer to the event is exactly what Nolan does in simply showing it. If everything we learn about them comes from the situation they've been thrust into, it's still an inevitability that certain segments will be the favorites, outshining others. 

Wisely casting a group of mostly fresh-faced unknowns as the soldiers, the performances are uniformly strong across the board with an excellent Fionn Whitehead as the terrified private being the closest we have to a full-blown lead in terms of screen time.  He's backed up nicely by the very known, but completely unrecognizable Harry Styles, who so seamlessly slides into his larger than expected role as Andrew, a determined British Army infantry private, you'll have to check the credits twice to believe it's him. The strongest plot thread involves Mark Rylance's civilian mariner and the friend of his son who just so happens to tag along, with all getting much more than they bargained for in taking on Cillian's Murphy's emotionally fractured, muted soldier.

In having to stay calm for the boys while navigating a potentially volatile situation, Rylance gives the film's quietest and most assured performance alongside Barry Keoghan, who conveys all the enthusiasm and apprehension of an eager volunteer trying to help, but instead finding himself in the wrong place at the wrong time, resulting in tragic consequences. With his identity as concealed here as it was in The Dark Knight Rises, Tom Hardy spends nearly the picture's entire length masked up in a cockpit, letting his voice and eyes do all the lifting, which we already know he's quite skilled at. Kenneth Branagh and James D'Arcy probably have the least to do in their respective roles as British Commander Bolton and Colonel Winnant, if only because there's so little talk of either strategy or politics. It's essentially non-stop action, which works to the film's benefit.

Despite a tame PG-13 rating, nothing about Dunkirk feels sanitized or glossed over to appeal to wider audiences. And yet, it's still one of the more accessible in its genre and among the chosen few worth rewatching. While all of the events are fictionalized, what they went through is very much inspired by true events and feels it, with Nolan employing a fast-paced, docudrama style approach that puts us right there with them. It's almost as if he set all the preventive measures in place to cut off the depressingly common "been there, done that" feeling that's accompanied most war pictures released over the past 25 years.

My Week With Marilyn

Director: Simon Curtis
Starring: Michelle Williams, Kenneth Branagh, Eddie Redmayne, Emma Watson, Judi Dench, Dominic Cooper, Julia Ormond, Toby Jones, Dougray Scott 
Running Time: 99 min.
Rating: R

★★★ (out of ★★★★)

The role of Marilyn Monroe has to be one of the most intimidating and challenging parts an actress can be asked to play, though not for the reasons you'd assume. As far as legendary pop culture icons and celebrities go, there was always a tendency to believe there had to be more to her than what we saw. She really wasn't a good actress. She wasn't incredibly talented. Yet here she is today as this tragic figure and sometimes it's kind of tricky to determine how. That's why casting her is thankless. Do you you cast a movie star who isn't much of an actress for a sensationalized look at "Marilyn?" Or find a great actress who may not necessarily come off as a big movie star for a deeper look at "Norma Jean?" Simon Curtis' pseudo-biopic My Week With Marilyn answers that question by laying claim to the most intriguing casting choice in years and Michelle Williams' Oscar nominated performance delivers on it, even in moments when the rest of the film has trouble keeping up with her.

Foregoing the more traditional biopic route, writer Adrian Hodges (adapting Colin Clark's memoirs) instead takes the Frost/Nixon approach, capturing a brief, but pivotal moment-in-time snapshot in the life of an iconic figure. The story's told through the eyes of Oxford grad and aspiring filmmaker Colin (Eddie Redmayne) who spent a week with Marilyn Monroe (Williams) as third assistant director on Laurence Olivier's (Kenneth Branagh) 1957 film The Prince and the Showgirl (then titled The Sleeping Prince). Olivier, the respected thespian and stage actor, sees casting Marilyn opposite him as a chance for to regain his youth and vitality, finally becoming a full-fledged movie star. For Marilyn-- already the biggest star on the planet-- it's the rare chance to be taken seriously as an actress by holding her own onscreen with one of the best. Of course, the result of this promising collaboration ended up laying somewhere in between a complete disaster and a curious footnote in cinematic history. Over-medicated, showing up late and flubbing lines, the Marilyn who shows up on set with acting coach Paula Strasburg (Zoe Wanamaker) glued to her arm more closely resembles a frightened child in need of constant babysitting than her sexy public persona. After Marilyn's husband, playwright Arthur Miller (Dougray Scott) skips town in the midst of her meltdowns, it becomes Clark's job to look after the star and a semi-romantic friendship develops, awkwardly placing him in the middle of her feud with Olivier. An infatuated Colin falls fast and hard, ignoring warnings from Olivier and her agent Milton Greene (Dominic Cooper) not to buy into the "little girl lost" act they think she's selling.

Outside of Williams' performance and the fascinating on-set clash with Olivier, there isn't a lot here, but there doesn't need to be because those two elements are more than enough. While played well by Redmayne, Colin is kind of a flat character, functioning only as the eyes through which we can observe Marilyn as he attempts to grasp the magnitude of what's happening to him. Whether she's actually interested in him romantically seems almost beside the point. Instead, he represents for her the opportunity to have a real date, act a little crazy and enjoy the normal romantic pleasures that have proved impossible because of her fame. There's a sense all she wants to do is get rid of Marilyn and is unintentionally using Colin to do it, which can only lead to heartache for him. Then again, there are many moments where we sense she doesn't want to get rid of her at all, or simply can't. Her use of the Marilyn "persona" as a security blanket for coping with her own insecurity comes to the forefront when faced with the daunting task of going one-one with the legendary Olivier on set. She can't rely on that persona this time and without so much as a shred of confidence in her own acting abilities, begins to break. Olivier understandably loses his patience and temper, even as his reasoning behind hiring her reveals just as much about his own lack of confidence.

This is some performance from Michelle Williams, justifiably earning every bit of praise it's gotten. She just nails it. The facial expressions. The walk. The voice. Especially the voice. Everything. There's this moment when she's with Colin and they're suddenly mobbed by fans and photographers. She turns to him and asks, "Should I be her?" before slipping into character and becoming Marilyn. Williams seems to turn it on and off at the flip of a switch, alternating between the superstar we thought we knew and a frazzled train wreck of emotional dependency. The question wasn't whether she could play the latter but how well she could capture the former, which is ironic considering her career start as teen sexpot Jen Lindley on Dawson's Creek. It's a testament to how hard she worked since then to move away from that image that seeing her play this now seems like a huge stretch. There's at least a passable physical resemblance to the icon, but what Williams really brings is the depth, making Marilyn the unlikeliest addition to her growing gallery of emotionally tortured heroines.

In his Oscar nominated supporting performance Branagh subtly avoids turning Olivier into an all-out villain, instead showing a gifted actor past his prime who's grasping at straws to turn Marilyn into something she can't possibly be. Her only supporter is actress and co-star Sybil Thorndike (Judi Dench), who realizes her fragile psyche responds better to encouragement than harsh criticism. The rest of the supporting players aren't as well-developed. Dougray Scott is hilariously miscast (then altogether forgotten about) as Arthur Miller, reimagined here as some kind of enigmatic stud. But the film's most thankless role belongs to Emma Watson as a wardrobe girl Lucy, who Colin strings along while he's off frolicking with Marilyn all week. It's one thing to waste a name actress for a useless, underwritten part, but quite another to insultingly pretend in the last act that the part meant anything. While her purpose is clear, it's just isn't followed through enough to have any kind of impact. There's also a scene early on with Oliver's then-wife Vivien Leigh (Julia Ormond) that comes of nowhere, seemingly thrown in only to give Ormond a juicy scene and hammer us too hard with the theme of insecurity.

When Michelle Williams was announced to play Marilyn, Monroe fanatics were predictably up in arms, but the most interesting complaint I heard was that she didn't "deserve" it. She's too short. She's not pretty enough. Not enough charisma. But the real question should have been whether Marilyn "deserves" to be played by Williams. By the end of the film I believed that she did and the choice seems especially inspired when you consider all Marilyn wanted was to be taken seriously as actress. It's likely she would have appreciated the irony. The great thing about biographical dramas is how they bring two figures together from different eras with seemingly nothing in common who must co-exist in a single performance. Using that criteria, it's difficult coming up with a more intriguing pairing than Marilyn Monroe and Michelle Williams. What Norma Jean really wanted was a career like Williams. She got Marilyn Monroe's instead. And it destroyed her. Now with a legitimately great actress playing her, she finally ends up attaining the respectability she never could on her own.             

Thor

Director: Kenneth Branagh
Starring: Chris Hemsworth, Natalie Portman, Tom Hiddleston, Anthony Hopkins, Stellan Skarsgard, Kat Dennings, Idris Elba 
Running Time: 114 min.
Rating: PG-13

★★ (out of ★★★★)

Even if writing Thor off as a complete waste of time is probably something I should wait on doing until officially viewing The Green Lantern or Captain America: The First Avenger, the fact still remains that it's pretty underwhelming. It's yet another 2-hour commercial for Marvel Studios, who still seems more interested in promoting their other superhero properties than focusing on the task at hand. At this rate, considering the amount of time and effort they've spent promoting next year's The Avengers, that movie could turn out to be the second coming of The Dark Knight and no one outside its core fanbase would even care since it's been shamefully shoved down our throats for three years. They're at it again here, indulging in silly clues and distracting cameos. It's a big misstep, but hardly the worst of Thor's problems. Not when you have a sleep-inducing backstory for the protagonist, an overabundance of distracting CGI effects and a charisma deficient villain. Things get a little better once the story starts to play out and at least the most prominent role is well cast, but Marvel really needs to get its act together moving forward. As a mix of action-comedy and fantasy, Thor's somewhat original in its approach, but a disappointment just the same.

Most of the first hour is spent on Thor's origin story, and it's a drag. Information that could have easily been dispensed via voiceover or even a brief flashback over the opening credits feels like it's given nearly half the running length of the movie, in addition to those voiceovers and flashbacks. I understand the desire to give a detailed backstory so we care and it's commendable (it definitely worked for Christopher Nolan in Batman Begins), but the problem is that Thor's is silly. It's a weird and not entirely successful mix of mythology and comic books, with a Shakespearean style family feud thrown in for good measure. That the director is Shakespeare veteran Kenneth Branagh explains a lot, as does the presence of Sir Anthony Hopkins as King Odin of Asgard, father to Thor (Chris Hemsworth) and Loki (Tom Hiddleston). When the quick-tempered Thor stages an attack against Laufey, the Frost Giant King, breaking a long-standing peace agreement, Odin banishes his arrogant son to Earth. He's discovered in the New Mexico dessert by scientists Jane Foster (Natalie Portman), Erik Selvig (Stellan Skarsgard) and Darcy Lewis (Kat Dennings). As he adjusts to life on Earth S.H.I.E.L.D agent Coulson (Clark Gregg) is brought in to investigate, while back on Asgard Loki looks to benefit from his older brother's misfortune, scheming his way to the throne.

The scenes on Earth work much better than those on Asgard, if only because there are some decent comic moments with Thor trying to get used to life in 21st century America and Hemsworth's performance, while not as spectacular as everyone's been claiming, is solid. He looks the part and has surprisingly decent comic timing so it's difficult coming up with alternative actor choices that could have worked any better. Hemsworth (known primarily for his brief role as Captain Kirk's father in 2009's Star Trek) does what he can with the material he's given, even if there's no escaping the fact that a lot of the lighter Earth-bound scenes contrast in tone to the mythological fantasy nonsense it's interspersed with. Hiddleston's Loki comes off as more of a whiner with daddy issues than any kind of serious threat and the intended love connection between Thor and Portman's Jane falls flat and feels thrown together and underdeveloped. If they really wanted to go in that direction it would have been better to eliminate Skarsgard and Denning's characters to narrow the focus on Jane, but considering Denning delivers the film's best one-liners, she may have been indispensable. Given how much she's improved as an actress over the past few years, it's a shame to see Portman take on such a thankless role, but a relief that it likely would have been just as forgettable in anyone else's hands.

On the plus side, he involvement of S.H.I.E.L.D.(Avengers plug #1) Clark Gregg's Agent Coulson wasn't quite as distracting as I expected, but still kind of insulting when you realize we haven't been made to care about Thor to begin with.  As for the inevitable Samuel L. Jackson cameo (Avengers plug #2) as Nick Fury, it at least takes place after the film, avoiding the nightmare that occurred at the end of The Incredible Hulk a couple of years ago when a huge, showboating cameo in the final scene nearly upstaged the entire picture, pissing on the title character for the sake of promoting you know what. But there is a cameo during this film from an Oscar nominated actor (Avengers plug #3) that I won't reveal, but that I had to check what character he was and why he was there probably doesn't bode well for the impact it had, at least for more casual viewers who actually want to see a movie about Thor.

Over the closing credits there's actually a message (Avengers plug #4) reminding viewers to "See Thor in The Avengers." Thanks for the heads up. I'm willing to bet most of the people reading this review (and many others) don't even know what The Avengers is. If Marvel really wanted to promote that film a good start would have been to make this one as good as possible so we'd actually look forward to seeing Thor in it. This does some things right, but there's this inescapable feeling of it being just a teaser for something else, which isn't okay since that's what trailers are for. All movies are made to make money, but I shouldn't be able to tell that while watching them and those decisions shouldn't adversely affect the product on screen. The downside in the entertainment industry to the economic crisis is that everyone's playing it safe, not looking how they can creatively improve the movie they're working on, but promote the next one they haven't gotten to yet. And that, despite some inspired direction by Branagh, is the main problem with Thor. It feels like it exists to generate revenue for the studio rather than excitement for audiences watching it.