Avengers - new trailer!

I'm sure you've all seen this already, but still - wow!

Thor: Hammer of The Gods.

Thor stands in the Asgardian battlefield awaiting the attack of his foremost enemies, the mighty Frost Giants. Take control of Thor, aiming and launching his fearful hammer Mjolnir at the attackers in order to defeat the onslaught as quickly as possible. Compete against your friends on Facebook and unlock trophies and character cards in this exciting, multi-level webgame of skill and competition.

Play it HERE.

Thor: The Interactive Guide to the Universe of Thor!

You know, this is a lot of fun!

From the deserts of New Mexico to the furthest reaches of the nine worlds of Yggdrasil, welcome to THE UNIVERSE OF THOR.  

This embeddable interactive guide invites you to explore the worlds and meet the characters of THOR, discovering extensive brand new footage and stills from the film in the process.

See if you can unlock 100% of the contents, then post it to Facebook, Twitter or another social network and invite your friends to do the same.

Thor trailer!

Wooooo! How good does this look!?
Hey- remember when movies used to be fun? Remember that? Well it looks like Thor is going to be heading in that direction- which is, of course, A Good Thing.

The Age of Odin review

James Lovegrove has, in a couple of previous books, used the idea of ancient gods in a modern world setting. He’s already had a go at the Egyptian and Greek pantheons, so now it’s the turn of the Norse gods.

So, what we have here are the Norse gods- in particular Odin and Thor, assembling an army to defeat, well, I’ll let you find out the villain of the story yourself, but I have to say, it’s a nice little twist, and one that doubly annoyed be because I really should have seen it coming!

Lovegrove had constructed some nice characters. While pretty much all but the main cast are thinly drawn, those that are flesh out are fleshed out well. Gideon 'Gid' Coxall, the main character, in particular is an interesting one. (As an aside, I’m impressed by the fact that he has managed to write a book this length in first person and maintain pace and coherency so well) He is an ex-soldier, and not a particularly nice one. I’ve known a few soldiers and ex-soldiers in my time, and the banter and dialogue between them comes across as realistic. It’s nice and sweary, but if anything, not sweary enough (again, from the soldiers I have known!)!

 I love the idea, and it’s so good I’m amazed no one has thought of it before (and if they have, I’m sure you’ll let me know), of equating  what we today would call ‘violent mood swings’ with what the Vikings called a Berserker rage.

While this is a hefty book, there were not many places where the story seemed to slacken. Yes, the ruthless editor in me could see how it could be shortened, but the pace does not suffer from the length.

There are some great action sequences, and the author has incorporated elements of Norse mythology (Sleipnir, Fenrir and the Valkyries for example) in a clever way.

The book is not without its problems though. I found the way Gid accepted his situation –he’s been taken from our world to Asgard, the world of the gods- to be too easy. But I suppose this could be explained as a pragmatic soldier-like approach. I also did not get a real sense of the scale of the battles. The guys here are literally fighting for the future of the world, but I think because all the action takes place in and around Odin’s castle, the effect on the outside world is not really communicated. But as I said, when the action does happen, it is exciting, expertly paced, clearly written and immersive. Lovegrove is a damned good writer, make no mistake.

I almost had another big problem with the ending. It appeared to veer very close to the Biggest No-No Twist there is, but Lovegrove manages to neatly side-step it at the last moment.

So, despite those problems, this is still a stonking read. It’s what I imagine the result would be if Neil Gamian and Tom Clancy wrote a book together- in a good way!

Thor teaser trailer!

<insert weak hammer related pun here>

After showing us the poster yesterday, Yahoo movies have went one better with the teaser trailer for the Thor movie.
Seems to be mostly footage from the SDCC stuff (not that we watched it when it was leaked onto the net, of course...)
Looks splendid though- a nice old fashioned adventure romp!

Thor teaser poster

This looks rather nice!

Yahoo Movies has posted the above image of the new Teaser poster for Kennth Brannagh's upcoming Thor movie.
It's all moody and stuff, innit? Can't wait for the first proper trailer!