FOR THE LOVE OF GODS
‘ Thor’ action unfolds with a goofy ‘ Guardians’ vibe
One of the many surprising delights in the bright and brassy and wonderfully funny “Thor: Ragnarok” is the recasting of the God of Thunder as a perpetual underdog.
Of course the Hulk ( Mark Ruffalo), who becomes Thor’s buddymovie sidekick this time around, dwarfs the muscle- laden pride of Asgard ( Chris Hemsworth, terrific and self- deprecating).
Thor looks even tinier compared to Surtur’s menacing dragon creature. That beast could swallow our guy whole and not even burp.
Nor is Thor remotely close to being the best warrior in this movie. He’s at best an even match against the Hulk; he butts heads with a former Valkryie ( Tessa Thompson) who is at least his equal in hand- to- god combat, and he doesn’t stand a chance in a one- on- one faceoff with his older sister, the evil and all- powerful Hela, aka the Goddess of Death ( Cate Blanchett). Nice nickname, Hela. Oh, and Thor is also at the mercy of Jeff Goldblum’s Grandmaster, the ruthless and absolutely stark raving mad ruler of Sakaar, where the hedonism is fueled by slave labor. Grandmaster is practically immortal. He treats Thor like a puppy dog.
There’s a lot going on in director Taika Waititi’s “Thor: Ragnarok,” and much of it is goofy and campy and marvelously self- referential. To be sure, “Ragnarok” has the big- budget, mega- battle, intergalactic heft of a Marvel superhero movie — but the casual, loose personality of the film is very “Guardians of the Galaxy.” ( Surely no accident. After a number of small teases in previous films, the Guardians and Avengers will have
Nothing could have prepared Nicole Kidman for “The Killing of a Sacred Deer.” The actress, who won an Emmy Award last month for HBO’s “Big Little Lies,” blindly signed on to work with Greek filmmaker Yorgos Lanthimos after watching his peculiar dystopian romance “The Lobster.” When she eventually read the script, she discovered an even stranger story than that black comedy, in which people are turned into animals if they can’t find soulmates.
In “Sacred Deer” ( now showing in Chicago), Kidman plays Anna, the austere wife of a brilliant surgeon, Steven ( Colin Farrell), who is accused of killing a menacing teen’s father on his operating table. Struck by a curse, Steven and Anna must choose which of their family members to sacrifice to right that wrong.
Lanthimos finds unexpected, unsettling humor in the clan’s stilted interactions.
“I was like, ‘ Yorgos, I have no idea how to play this as a comedy,’” says Kidman, laughing. She turned to Farrell, who worked with Lanthimos on “The Lobster” and constantly assured her, “This will be like nothing you’ve ever experienced.”
The film is meant to make audiences “uncomfortable, but also kind of entertained,” Lanthimos says. The former certainly applies to Steven and Anna’s kink for “general anesthetic” sex, a position in which she goes limp like a medicated patient.
That scene is “really strange and says so much about the relationship,” Kidman says. “I was at first going, ‘ Oh, no, I don’t want to have to do that,’ but I also relished the idea because it was so unique and compelling.”
“Sacred Deer” is one of four wildly different projects that Kidman, 50, premiered at France’s Cannes Film Festival in May, along with this summer’s “The Beguiled,” fall miniseries “Top of the Lake: China Girl” and upcoming sci- fi romance “How to Talk to Girls at Parties.”
Although it hasn’t been officially announced, she teases that a second season of “Big Little Lies” is “moving forward at a rapid rate,” and hopes it will start production early next year.
“Because of the responses of audiences and critics, it was like, ‘ Gosh, we really should explore these women further,’” Kidman says. “It seemed sad to abandon them when they’ve only just gotten started.”