THOR REVIEW

This review is way late to do give in now but its taken some time to gather my thoughts on this film and what I in my honest opinion felt when watching it.

Kenneth Branagh who some will remember from such films like Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets or Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein has taken up the Director’s chair for what is the Avengers’ next superhero prequel and feature’s Marvel’s God of Thunder this time around.

The film starts with setting up the universe of Thor, which follows more of a magical fantasy tone than its predecessors Iron Man and Hulk. What follows is the relationships that are set up between Odin (Anthony Hopkins) King of the realm of Asgard and father to the reckless and somewhat proud spoiled child Thor (Chris Hemsworth) and more disciplined but manipulated God of Mischief, Loki (Tom Hiddleston), two brothers who are next in line for the throne of Asgard.

When Thor’s celebration to King-hood is interrupted by the arrival of the realms enemies the Frost Giants, Thor and Loki along with their friends the Warrior’s Three aka Volstagg (Ray Stevenson), Hogun (Tadanobu Asano) and Fandral (Joshua Dallas) along with the Lady Sif (Jaimie Alexander) travel to the Frost Giant world of Jotunheim to pay Frost Giant King Laufey (Colm Feore) a visit so as to discover how and why the Giant’s have broken the long truce between their worlds.

Thor seeking vengeance and thrills of battle engages the Frost Giants in combat only to be saved at the last second by his father Odin who then proceeds to punish Thor for his aggressive behaviour and arrogance and sends him to earth to learn from his mistakes.

It is from here on in that the film loses its magic. What followed in the half hour was a uniqueness on a character and that character’s world that has been done justice, however, while the beginning of the film sets this epic tone to it there is nothing truly epic going on. The majority of scenes in Asgard are always with the same characters and in the same locations. The film never moves to explore the ways of lives in Asgard or how its various characters occupy that world and thus it feels as if there is a lot missing.

The effects are nice and wonderfully done to perfection with a clear straight direction thanks to Branagh but he fails to do anything more with it. Here a new world has been shown and Branagh ceases to do more with it. When the plot moves to the Ice world of Jotunheim, Thor and his friends only walk a few minutes to meet with King Laufey and no time is given to explore more of this world.

And once the films plot cuts to Earth the sets here of the small town feel like a low budget western. Its as if the budget has all been spend on those same Asgard shots and scenes to allow for anything more to be shown or done with and the plot itself becomes rushed and loses itself in the various amounts of characters, plot twists and interactions been introduced all at once.

Once Thor arrives to Earth we are introduced to three new characters, Darcy Lewis (Kat Dennings), Dr. Erik Selvig (Stellan Skarsgard) and love interest Jane Foster (Natalie Portman) who are pretty much the film’s comic relief and nothing whatsoever in terms of advancing the plot except for been someone for Thor to interact with while on Earth and to offer the laughs that while funny and done well again offer nothing in developing the plot or characters.

In fact, the main negative aspects of these Earth scenes is the so-called love relationship between Thor and Jane of which there is none. Thor is on earth in the space of about two days and in those days the film simply asks the audience to accept that Thor and Jane have fallen in love in under that short amount of time and that is the real upsetting establishment to the overall film.

If these characters were removed from the overall movie, the plot would still be somewhat the same. Its disappointing that Lady Sif who later in the comics does become a love interest to Thor wasn’t made the overall love interest to begin with. While a reason is meant to be given for why Thor will later want to return to Earth, creating a forced love story between Chris and Natalie’s characters was not the way to do it.

As negative as these aspects of the Earth scenes sound there are positives too and these are the moments when the film ties in with Iron Man 2s End Credit Scene and sees Agent  Coulson (Clark Gregg) and SHIELD make their presence known. The scenes with Thor infiltrating the SHIELD Base where they have made around the crater site of where Thor’s Hammer the Mighty Mjolnir lays along with his power was along with the Jotunheim beginning scenes my favorite to behold.

Where one was nothing but special effects, this one had real sets and an realistic feel to it.

That and Jeremy Renner cameos as a special someone whose scene is meant to set them up for an appearance in the Avengers along with their own hopefully standalone movie.

It is after these scenes that the forced love story begins along with Loki’s ruling of Asgard and it is sadly quick and over and done with. In fact, no time is ever given to develop those two major plot points in the film and a lot more of time and care should have been put into those plot points because after those the films pacing quickly leads to Thor’s overly quick transformation from a cocky spoiled god man to a exiled mortal who accepts his fate to hero all in the space of two days. 

Add the fact that there is no fear or tension whatsoever because while we're meant to be afraid for Thor to die we know he won't because we know he is set and ready to appear in a future movie with other super heroes so therefore adding elements of  possible death is just pointless. 

In the end there is the battle with the Destroyer who looks like something from the remake of The Day The Earth Stood Still, which leads to the Final Battle, which altogether feels rushed and anti-climatic and it is those points onward where the film really felt flat to me. The entire last act of the film loses all meaning and sense. It’s not that it doesn’t make sense. It is that no time was given for growth and development of the sub-plots and characters to accept what happens next and that the Final just feels small compared to the epic opening the movie started and presented us with.

While Kenneth Branagh manages to gracefully create a film that paces between different worlds and tones he does not manage to direct something with more feeling and instead focuses more on style. Where the film appears to have too much going on at once there is in fact too little happening and with a film bloated with twists, too many under-developed characters to care about Thor is unfortunaly not executed into the grand fashion that Iron Man managed to achieve and deliver.

But the overall saving grace of the film is the performances of it’s main cast especially those of Anthony, Chris and Tom who are the highlight of the film and offer a unique approach of their characters not seen in comic book films of late.

The father, son and brother relationships between the three was done in such a way that one feels for them and can relate and Anthony Hopkins as Odin has this unseen presence that makes all his scenes stand out and engaging to watch and Tom does a wonderful job as acting out as the emotional and villainess Loki and Chris manages to capture the looks and essence of what it means to be Thor, the God of Thunder.

In conclusion, while Thor manages to be an enjoyable film to watch filled with some amazing set pieces and effects and strong performances with humour thrown in the mix, its under-developed cast of characters and various plots cause it to suffer greatly and lose its pacing at times and thus it fails to make it stand apart from other comic book films of late. But it does succeed in setting up a universe with endless possibilities that will hopefully be more explored in a possible sequel or the Avengers film once it is released next summer.

Score: 7/10

Likes:

• Idris Elba as Heimdall. Wish he had taken more part in action scenes.
• Odin and Loki steal the show.
• Jeremy Renner’s Cameo.
• End Credits Scene.
• Jotunheim Battle Scene. Thor spinning that Hammer was so badass.
• SHIELD infiltration Action Scene. Any sort of action taking place in the middle of a rainy night is awesome.

Hates:

• Love story between Thor and Jane was forced.
• Final Act of film feels rushed and not epic.
• Earth scenes as whole – Should have based it in a more populated location or actual city.