Directed by: Kenneth Branagh
Starring: Chris Hemsworth, Tom Hiddleston, Natalie Portman, Anthony Hopkins
Rating: PG-13
Genre: Action / Adventure / Drama
For me, the character of Thor was in the same camp as Iron Man. I was always fairly familiar with both on the surface, but never bothered to dig too deep into their respective worlds. Because of this, it made the first Iron Man movie that much more of a pleasant surprise. Now, having seen Thor, I can say that I’m just as pleased.
One of the people I saw the movie with referred to Thor as a “Reader’s Digest” version of the character, and I agree with that assessment. Each of these Marvel films leading up to The Avengers has the task of introducing the mainstream to all of the heroes that will be involved. While Thor did succeed in this regard, it was in no way fleshed out to the extent that Iron Man was. Don’t, however, mistake that as me saying that Thor sucked, because it most certainly did not. It’s just different, and different isn’t always a bad thing.
Thor wasted no time in moving the plot along, and it really couldn’t afford to since there was so much to cover. The nine realms, including Asgard, needed to be introduced and completely understood… and it was. The relationships between Odin, Thor, and Loki all needed to be established… and they were. Thor’s journey from arrogant prince to humble hero needed to be believable… and it was. While fast-paced, Thor had clear goals in mind and hit the mark with each.
One of the best parts of Thor were the action sequences. Thor’s style of aggressive fighting, Mjolnir in hand, couldn’t have been portrayed any better on the big screen. If you think watching a guy swinging a hammer around would get dull, think again. There was clearly a lot of thought put into using Mjolnir in creative ways. They certainly had lots of material to pull ideas from.
As far as the acting went, Chris Hemsworth’s performance as Thor was superb, successfully managing to portray all aspects of the character’s personality. There have been doubts by some that anyone would be able to share the screen with Robert Downey Jr. in The Avengers, but Hemsworth’s charisma and presence put him in a good position to. Anthony Hopkins delivers as he always does in the role of Thor’s father Odin. Tom Hiddleston was perfectly cast as the villainous god of mischief, Loki. Natalie Portman was fine as Jane Foster, but the role was clearly unchallenging for someone of her caliber. Even the warriors three shined throughout the film.
If there’s anything to take away from the success of Thor and Marvel’s other recent releases, it’s that you can’t mess around with the source material. If this is the path that they continue on, I look forward to both Captain America and The Avengers.
Bottom Line: Thor is an action-packed blockbuster that provides a fun and faithful experience.
[xrr rating=9/10]
It dazzles my glittery testicles that the writers for Captain Planet have returned to compile the screenplay for Marvel’s Thor. Where do I begin? Lets start with Dr Pepper and the all-new Acura TL, the official vehicle of Thor, because who needs Mjolnir when you have a 280-hp, 3.5-liter VTEC® V-6 engine, …I couldn’t resist poking fun of the over hyped pre-advertising that was done for this movie, ads all over my favorite websites like Icanhascheezeburger.com and Adultspankchat.org!
If I was 8 years old I would have liked Thor, because the plot, characters, and action scenes reminded me of a made for TV He-Man movie. By the breadcrumbs in Odin’s beard I was so thankful I grew up reading Marvel Comics that I knew some back-story on my own about Loki, Thor, and Odin. The entire movie was just scenes, director Kenneth Branagh paced the movie like a deli line, but at least I get excited at the deli when my number is up and I get my delicious half pound of salami. I did however learn a new skill while watching Thor: how to imitate an android while watching a movie. I simply didn’t care about ANY CHARACTER in this movie… ever, at all. There was no drama, only forced mediocre dialogue like; “You are an old man and a fool!” and “This is madness!” Nothing from the script is shown in the film through visuals, basically we’re told any feeling, emotion, origin, agenda, etc. we’re not shown it. The entire movie limps along as a bleeding one-legged duck across a floor of broken glass like in the movie Die Hard. “This happens, then this happens! Oh! Then that happens! Then this!” – is how Thor is told to us, not shown.
Now the fun part of ripping the internal organs apart! What was the real danger to humans in this movie? It seemed Thor was randomly thrown to earth, and the entire time spent there we’re trying to be convinced that Natalie Portman’s character is a scientist making scientific calculations and googlemadops about Thor putting all of it in the same glass jar of sour soy milk as the Force was to Midichlorians. Before the movie began, Loki was out in the lobby browsing over a throne catalogue from Sears that’s how obvious the plot was with him to take over Asgard. Odin randomly gets sick from Loki yelling at him, which I don’t get why Loki didn’t yell at him some more to simply kill him if that is all it took. It boggled me why Loki could wield Odin’s spear (Gungnir) but not Thor’s hammer (Mjolnir). There was no point in the Warrior’s Three, they were quirky forced comic relief characters that reminded me of Xena or Hercules Sci-Fi channel crap, and they just got their asses kicked until Captain Planet showed up (Thor). The action scenes were clips of a hammer flying around. Debri flying everywhere in most cases, cuz we gotta give the people who saw this in 3D their money’s worth! In the storyboard room: “k have the hammer hit the big guy here on the head, go bonk, then have it go zoooom here, then bonk there lolz.”
Natalie Portman reprises her ability to transform back into a shitty actress by doing Queen Amidala style melodrama, how can this girl do such amazing work in Black Swan yet go back to doing crappy movies that make me rinse my eyes out with bleach? I think it must be to loosen up her brain, kind of like if you read War and Peace then got piss drunk rummaging through some Bazooka Joe comics from the gum wrappers….
Marvel loves to cram as much stupid mainstream slop into their movies as they can. How many references to an ipad, an iphone, Facebook, etc. did I need to hear in Thor? Why do extremely “smart” people that can hack the Universe always need a dumb bitch sidekick friend? Why did a bunch of town hicks call Thor’s hammer a “satellite” when it was OBVIOUSLY A F*&KING HAMMER?! AND WHY DID THOR INTERPRET “SATELLITE” AS HIS HAMMER AND GO TO RETREIVE IT!!! HE HAS NO IDEA WTF A “SATELLITE” IS!! (GOING TO EXPLODE….) …k I’m better. Wait, but there’s more… I might get worse… Odin banishes Thor but throws his hammer about 50 miles from where he throws Thor to earth.. why didn’t he just put the hammer in a sandwich baggy and pop the whole thing in Thor’s lunchbox for the road? Ya know? Make it that much easier for Thor to get it… There’s also this big mystical robot walking around, called the Destroyer, but the movie doesn’t make any effort to say that cuz that would involve things like words and story. Anyways, the Destroyer was a cool thing in the comic, but I really can’t think of why he was in the movie… I must have got up to go pee-pee at that part, but Thor made it go boom at the end haha yay!
Anyways, this movie blew chunks, and it was made all for one purpose that is stated at the end of the credits: “Thor will return in Marvel Comics The Avengers” yup, it was 2 hours of a bridge just to get to The Avengers movie which I am 99% sure will be pure crap in a marketing wrapped cupcake. Oh, and the super spoiler clips thing every Marvel movie has at the end of the credits.. ok, I won’t ruin it for people who haven’t seen it yet, but I will say this; Ask yourself how that person got there. Not the scientist, not the other dude in the room with him, the dude in the mirror… try and use logic… no wait, don’t.. the Universe might explode.
Nice, a spirited response. That’s what I like to see. I’ve already stated my case, so I’d love to hear some opinions from others as well…