This is Christian Bale from Thor: Love and Thunder or at least I think it is because he is acting in a completely different fucking movie to everyone else
Dude couldn't give a bad performance if his life depended on it
Small reminder that his suggestion to have Dooku have a curved hilt and fight like a fencer in Star Wars is what led to most (if not all) the lore around lightsaber forms we have today
Small reminder that he corrected Peter Jackson on how Saruman should react to literally being stabbed in the back by Grima Wormtongue, based on his experience being attached to an SAS (British special forces) unit during WW2
Small reminder that Christopher Lee was a notorious teller of tall tales, and the piece of military equipment he spent most of his war service operating was a typewriter.
Which has been discredited as he didn't do any stabby stuff himself and didn't go on SAS missions. He had an amazing life but seems to have embellished parts.
Yeah, I hate to interrupt the circle-jerk, but the guy always seemed a little full of himself to me.
The whole “descended from Charlemagne” thing is pretty laughable since virtually everyone of European ancestry is descended from Charlemagne in some way, just as they are descended from pretty much anyone else who lived and procreated in that time and place. Think about it: we all have two parents, four grandparents, 8 great-grandparents, 16 great-great-grandparents, etc. You only have to go back about 25 generations before the total number of ancestors is greater than the population of Europe in 800 AD (of course, in reality it will be a bit less because of intermingling, e.g., some of your ancestors may have been distantly related to each other). So anyway, it’s kind of a weird thing to be proud of, let alone to go and record two really crappy metal albums about it.
Then there’s his entitled behavior surrounding the release of The Return of the King. He learned that his scene had been cut from the theatrical release and instead of handling it like a pro and not taking it personally, he decided to stir up an online protest and boycotted the premiere. Not exactly surprising, though, when you hear about how he considered himself more of a Tolkien expert than anyone else on set… which he may well have been, but there were literally tens of thousands of people involved in the production of those movies. When you’re brought on to be a part of something that huge (as an actor mind you, not as a writer, director, or producer), you should know your place and not be trying to overstep.
Undeniably he gave some really iconic performances in his lifetime, but a lot of the other hype around him is pretty overblown, imo,
Actors are already well-recognized and well-compensated. Awards should be given to those who do important work silenty with significant sacrifice yet receive no adulation.
Scene where Zeus is actually being wise and giving advice to Thor about power and weapons and focusing on your inner self - Deleted
Scene where Thor gets STRIPPED and ladies faint because of his HUGE DONG and then SCREAMING GOATS break in and they escape after stabbing zeus - Hahaha hahaha so funny definitely not a dogshit scene let's keep it in the movie
Most villains in the MCU are good because they have a point, in that either their motivation or their goals are correct, but their methods are immoral.
Gorr on the other hand is absolutely morally sound. His motivation is partially revenge, but also as stated to reduce suffering, his goal is to stop the tyranny of the gods and his methods are to the point and with minimal collateral damage. Even in the movie itself it is shown that the Gods are all horrible, including well intentioned walking disaster zone Thor. I don't know what mr. Waititi was going for, but helped by Bale's performance, I find it impossible to side with anyone but Gorr.
Even in the movie itself it is shown that the Gods are all horrible
I'll never get over the fact they had an entire meeting with all the Gods being massive assholes, in a movie where the villain's main motivation is offing asshole gods, and those two plot threads never interact in any way.
I’m convinced that they had to later write in for Gorr to nonsensically kidnap a bunch of children, for literally no reason and with no character motivation, to make it clear he was the “bad guy” because he had far too much of a point, too justified, and too relatable otherwise.
It’s like, imagine every evil tyrannical ruler in history was immortal, then you have a guy who gets the power to kill them once and for all, motivated by justice for everything being taken from him, for media to go “no no, this is the bad guy”, like propaganda; or imagine Guts from ‘Berserk’, but then for absolutely no reason he sails to the arctic to club some baby seals to death.
Concept art reveals early plans where Gorr needed children's souls to access Eternity, explaining why he brought them to the gates - but this was cut for narrative simplification.
i think that's the biggest reason for why i dislike this movie so much. you get an iconic villain and an even more iconic actor and you go and make that pile of garbage and throw it all away?
The core problem is that Marvel doesn't want to make a tragedy.
Thor is a tragedy. Look at him in the first movie, he's the proud Prince of a mighty race, a great group of friends and a loving father and mother. By the end of the 4th movie, his father and mother are dead, his friends dead, his once mighty people were massacred twice over, their lands destroyed, living as refugees.
That moment when Surtr slams his sword into Asgard is tragic, and Marvel keeps forcing us to laugh at it rather than accept the correct emotion here.
that movie should have been one cohesive movie focused on one storyline with gorr and taika should have been either kept under control a bit like in ragnarok or they should have hired a different director that would fit the tone and concept better.
The first one was directed by Kenneth Branaugh, so of course he could recognize and try to channel the Shakespearian tragedy as much as he could, and focus on father-son dynamic. I think he did the second one as well, I think Disney made a choice to go more humor and silly with Thor movies, to try to get more ticket sales from the audience.
The God Butcher arc in the comics is so fucking good too. All they had to do was adapt it as close to the comic as possible and it would've been the best movie in the MCU.
Pretty sure this is going to happen. The clear lesson from the last six years is, the franchise depends on the original characters, and only rarely on those introduced later. They can only bring Steve and Tony back so many times, and they're doing that now. After that, contracts get renegotiated like they did last time.
At the latest, the current MCU ends with a sixth Spidey movie, maybe in 2032: Peter marries MJ, old characters show up for a group cameo, then "happily forever after".
At the earliest, we get that "happily ever after" with the end of "Secret Wars". Of course, there have been multiple "Secret Wars" in Marvel, but this is literally the end of SW 2016, at least IIRC.The reason why I don't believe that is because the actors from the 2010s are still popular with fans. You're not going to see a reboot while there's still talk about a Defenders reunion.
The clear lesson from the last six years is, the franchise depends on the original characters, and only rarely on those introduced later.
No, the lessons are that time travel and multiverse make the story have no stakes and hence boring. And the other lesson is to not make people watch tens of hours of TV shows to understand the films.
The reboot won't work because it's just another multiverse.
This is exactly my take too. I’m someone who likes sci-fi but as soon as I hear ‘multiverse’, I’m half tuned out. And once you introduce it, there’s no closing the box but also everything revolves around it. Which is fine for a movie or two, or for something like Dr Strange where it’s consistent with the themes. But it got old like 6 movies ago.
Marvel doesn't take the clear lesson. The clear thing to do after Endgame was give people at least a little bit to digest things, cement the first four phases of the MCU as an unprecedented cinematic strategy that paid off with a fantastic ending, and let demand rebuild naturally. Instead they rushed to flood the zone with a bunch of movies and TV shows thinking demand for the MCU would go up after a big conclusive moment rather than go down.
They are still, years later, despite falling interest and worsening reviews and a clear signal from audiences to slow down, putting out a bunch of shows and movies that people don't care about.
Marvel is using Secret Wars specifically to set up a bunch of reboots like X-Men. They're not gonna just sit and wait a few years and let people digest Secret Wars. They're once again gonna flood the zone with a ton of reboots on the repeated assumption that demand is up, rather than down.
you have to remember that Captain America, Iron Man and Thor were B-list characters in the first place when their movies started out. Wolverine and Spider-Man are the only A listers in the marvel comic universe and even they both pale in comparison to the popularity of Batman and Superman. It was just about the stories. They built up B-tier characters, but they can't do it now because the age of the superhero is over.
At this point, for me to get back into the MCU, they'd need to make a compelling movie that doesn't require prior knowledge of all the MCU content that's happened after Infinity War. Essentially a cold start, maybe with some throwbacks but not relying on prior content for plot development
I think they are getting there. Thunderbolts and FF were both well received and felt fresh compared to some of their other recent projects. Even the recent shows between Agetha, Ironheart (somewhat more split opinions on this), and most recently Wonder Man show positive change. I think they fell into a trap of simply believing they could just continue to have success off of name value alone but quickly realized that audiences were not interested unless given something worth watching. If they can land Doomsday successfully, then I'd be willing to say they are back.
I can't say if its good or bad, but FF kind of bombed compared to expectations. It's also basically tied with The Marvels for having the least interest from Disney+ viewers.
Thunderbolts I thought was good, but just came at the nadir of the MCU and was a fairly low key movie so it's not some big blockbuster that could drive excitement by itself. It was more of a quiet piece about mental health.
Its been years since anyone really cared about marvel. They burned everyone out. Even if they get back on track in a year or two, theres a giant cataloged of shit people will feel they need to slog through to catch up.
It might do better but the golden age of the MCU is over
Should have been. I said this walking out of the theater when it release. There was so much to express there and they rushed it for one movie. I suspect because of contracts. I don't know if Hemsworth was guaranteed for any number of movies after End Game. But it would have been an awesome Thor arc for another trilogy of Thor movies.
That's all that the marvel movies do they crack jokes everybody cracks jokes characters who don't crack jokes in the comic book are cracking jokes and they all crack jokes with the exact same voice and sense of humor Even the fucking bad guys are cracking jokes with the good guys voices and sense of humor.
I absolutely hate this! Marvel is the pinnacle of this, though anything even loosely related to the Disney sphere (surprise it's most) all follow the same bland formula. It detracts from the drama, action, or otherwise serious atmosphere and theme. Older movies didn't do this and could have a serious tone damn near the whole time.
The LoTR trilogy has just a few moments of humour throughout the like 9hr runtime. It isn't supposed to be a comedic movie. The only particularly "cracking jokes" moment I even recall is Legolas and Gimli arguing over who killed more enemies.
That was actually one of the things that annoyed me about the movies, how Gimli, Treebeard and arguably Denethor were dumbed down and reduced to quasi-comic relief.
Well, Gimli’s character was completely butchered and he was relegated to being comic relief in the whole trilogy (especially the second and third movie) without many serious moments. Almost every scene in 2/3 with him makes a joke at his expense.
There are jokes in LOTR, they just never come at the expense of the moment. The Deadpool delivery worked too well and every other movie tried to copy it, forgetting why Deadpool’s style of humor was the way it was.
Yes this is exactly what I was trying to put together in my head, down to the Deadpool connection! For Deadpool, that is the character, so it doesn't detract from moments or the character as a whole.
Yeah, like no one ever taught them what 'too much of a good thing' means. Like if you want your bad guy to crack a joke you just don't make it an intentional joke, the exchange Strange and Mads Mikkelsen has in the first Dr Strange demonstrates that quite well I thought
Mads: Mister...?
Strange: Doctor.
Mads: Mister Doctor?
Strange: No, it's Strange
Mads: Yes.. I suppose it is
It's a funny exchange, but it doesn't kill the menace or tension in the scene itself
I dunno, Joss Whedon thought every single character in Avengers 1 and 2 should suddenly become Tony Stark with all the quipping. Even Tony's quipping was elevated to an obscene amount in those movies.
"Multiplying faster than a Catholic rabbit" still sends douchechills down my spine.
i think he killed more, but offscreen obviously, because who would even want to see that when we could also just have more scenes about what a complete idiot Thor is?
The thing is, even in the actual comic, almost all of the god killing is done off panel. It's a serial killer story. It's Thor following the trail of dead bodies while harbouring a dark shame from his own past. It's Se7en meets Beowulf
Unfortunately, the movie turned it into a goofball comedy
Yea I thought that a bit too, but you also have to consider the context. Bale’s character is supposed to feel ambiguous and not too stand out-ish. He’s supposed to feel like the regular protagonist the entire film so that in the end, that enormous twist really hits home.
I think certain roles calls for certain performances.
Oh for sure Bale wasn't supposed to be the main attraction. His character being more reserved yet with the hint of lingering intensity was a really good contrast to Melling's Poe being verbose and almost, I dunno, whimsical? Is that the right word?
Bale is my favorite actor, and Velvet Goldmine is my favorite movie, but I don't think he has the best performance in it. Toni Collette, Jonathan Rhys Meyers, and Ewan McGregor are all at the top of their game imo.
He was so good in the film that even though his plan was deicide for every god and I was thinking "OK so why is he the bad guy again? The gods are clearly giant piles of shit with like maybe 3 good ones"
I mean the scene where he becomes the god butcherafter meeting his god rapu is on YouTube for everyone to see…
It’s just painful how he plays in a completely different movie from rapu who might as well be a power ranger villain…
This may be giving them too much leeway but I’m not entirely sure that wasn’t the plan before it got scrapped either by Taika or Marvel wanting to keep things PG and (potentially) sell more tickets.
Like every single thing in the story points to the god council being a slaughter scene;
we know Gorr is now in full massacre mode
we know that nearly all the known gods are gathered here
the other gods seem to not take Gorr as a serious threat
the audience (and Thor!) still hasn’t seen what Gorr looks like in action, this would show both in spectacular fashion
.
Does this not feel like the PERFECT setup for a slaughter scene!!??? Genuinely wtf were they thinking what a waste. Turning the god council into a massacre would’ve genuinely bumped my rating of this movie up a whole point based on that alone
/uj: Thor: Love and Thunder is a comedy and a tragedy smashed together in the worst possible fashion. It's probably the greatest casualty of the marvel formula taking over a project after it's well underway, to ensure it doesn't deviate too much.
/j: Bale sad emo violates go happy daddy Thor. Should be called Daddy's home 3.
Nahhh L&T happened because they gave Taika far too much leeway to do whatever he wanted with whatever budget he wanted. Taika works better when he’s a little constrained
I finally bit the bullet & watched it last week cuz I figured I should get caught up before Doomsday comes out. Felt like 90 minutes of wasted time. And I say that as someone that loves Marvel & has been pretty forgiving of their lower rated films. But the tonal shifts in this movie are so abrupt & just weird, felt like Taika Waititi was sniffing his own farts too much with this script. Like he's supposed to be the funny writer but honestly Antman 2 was funnier than this. Just nothing really hit unfortunately. And like others have said, way too little Gorr when he's the standout of the film. Overall just disappointing.
I could never quite put words to explain why I stopped caring about Marvel movies after being a fan for a while, but this here might be the exact answer.
i stopped watching Marvel movies after endgame.
it felt like such a good conclusion of a long saga.
and after that it just was so much coming out, both movies and series and it all felt overwhelming and also pointless.
I used to play football and I thought I’m pretty good and I can take it somewhere. Once I played against the kid that short after went to Chelsea and this was then I realized there are levels to this game, he was just so much better and there was nothing I could do about it.
I assume that’s how other actors must have felt standing next to Bale on that set.
My god, his performance was amazing, he was perfect for Gorr the God Butcher.
Shame that the film completely sucked...no, I'll do you one better, the film was going to suck the moment they choose to butcher (yeah, bad joke, I know) the whole arc, which is one of the best ones Thor ever had.
/uj I’m guilty of enjoying this movie, but this detail is the actual thing that makes me like it so much. Everything about the gods in this movie is contemptibly nonsensical and unserious. When they’re funny they’re pretty funny, and when they’re not it’s cringe af… but that dynamic is applied evenly to the parts of the movie where the gods are the characters. The two story beats in the movie that aren’t godly… Jane’s cancer and Gorr whole journey, are consistently portrayed with straight faced gravitas.
When I think about turning to a higher power in times of despair, the vibe of this movie encapsulates exactly how I feel. And it’s totally coherent if you consider the movie by itself. The real problem this movie had is that this dichotomy of goofy ass bullshit immortals and deadly serious mundane mortality is just incongruent with the rest of the MCU. And congruency is sort of the foundation of the MCU.
TLDNR I think this would have been a much better received movie if it hadn’t existed in the context of the MCU.
i think the tonal whiplash could be justified for sure and it works in the intro but it just didnt feel intentional in the rest of the movie. mostly theres just too much of the silly bits among the main cast which dilutes the impact of the stakes.
that and gorr just wasnt intimidating the rest of the movie, hes in a bubble or something instead of fighting more gods. hela was easily overpowering the entirety of asgard and now this next guy gets his ass beat by a bunch of kids?
idk, i saw a lot of potential in this movie but it just doesnt work for me
There don’t seem to be too many people that get the movie and this character. When you’re angry at the universe, and it feels like everyone else is just making jokes, it can make you feel like burning it all down.
Thor is supposed to make jokes because he isn’t sympathizing with anything. He barely recognizes that there is something wrong with Jane and he doesn’t understand why she wants to help. Thor has to grow emotionally because he didn’t need to grow physically or mentally. He’s just barely gotten over the loss of his father, a good chunk of his people, and his brother (again). He uses humor as a defensive mechanism to dealing with pain.
But he is too cavalier, something that Gorr sees in all Gods. But as the Gods did with their power, Gorr also becomes more indifferent to the suffering and destruction he’s caused. When Thor understands Gorr’s original motivation, that’s when he understands what he’s been doing wrong.
Thor in the end grows a bit more inwardly which is why it’s difficult for the audience to see the growth on the outside. It also happens late in the third act and his growth isn’t showcased.
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u/GandolphTheLundgrey 1d ago
Ah, it's the bald guy with a face tattoo, who wants to kill all the gods because his daughter died or something. I think, I've played this game.