I think a lot of people out there are just settling for films and saying ‘oh this movie is ok, or it’s good.’ I mean the same could be said about Fast Five and I really enjoyed that film. It’s so odd how to classify or make your own review, judgment of a movie and saying where it rests for me. I mean is it just bad or would you recommend catching it in the theatre? I think back to Fast Five and I think Bad Boys 2, it’s so bad it’s good type of thing but then you can’t help but like the characters and seeing the actors having a fun time. It resonates. Anyway this isn’t about Fast Five, it’s about Thor.
First off, Hemsworth is Thor, perfect casting. He did the usual training for it and got into football stocky player shape. Idris Elba in the film, man I’m enjoying this guy more and more. Loki was serviceable, but apart of me hoped he was more sinister or conniving and I’m not talking like… talks to a character in the film and Loki turns away and you see the camera work and his face is shadowed a bit and you can feel the smirk coming that he’s just lied to this character. A lot of it just felt to obvious and when you find out the reasons behind the treachery… it’s like… that’s it? Really? You know I’m almost say the casting is a waste of talent. Portman only did this role because Branagh was directing, but Portman also played Queen Amidala, she’s got the ability to just play whatever role she feels like. It just felt they could’ve used her more and the romance between her character and Thor, it just felt too automatic. I think with the entire film, there was just no tension. But Kat Dennings, Stellan Skargard were just more characters under utilized. Then you have the cameo of Jeremy Renner as Hawkeye, which is fine but I’m finding all these teases eluding to the big Avengers movie rather useless.
Sure all these Marvel films and their characters and Samuel L Jackson at the end credits, then you have Agent Coulson floating are trying tie it all together. But will it really? It just feels that these movies are excuse to gather a team and show how it happens, bit by bit. I think at this point for me personally, Iron Man 1 has been the only movie to do it right. When I say that, is actually tell a self-contained story where the whole Avengers thing is an afterthought, but a cool one. Iron Man 2, Thor these have felt like excuses to implant more about the Avengers movie. However I can see for the lay audience, who are comic informed, etc, it’s almost a pre-requisite. I think it’s another tough part about films, is how you plan it all out and maybe I’m wrong in all this and whatever Marvel has planned will work out. I’m totally cool with saying I was wrong. But my main complaint is Thor could’ve been much much better.
A lot is being said about Branagh’s directoring, but I honestly just thought it was serviceable. There was an odd obsession with shots done at an angle and the action was shaky but done well enough to follow. Again it was simply ok for me. Just enough to warrant watching and also me to eat my overly buttered popcorn. What bugged me most about this movie was simply the story, the production design, the tone and placement within the whole Avengers scheme. I’ll try to talk about things as much as I can. The story was actually two parts, Thor’s exile to Earth and the what was going on in Asgard. Then you had the overarching melody of how these stories somewhat intertwined. But honestly I’d say more how these stories “crossed over.” You see it a lot in comic books, half baked stories for a reason character X and character Y come together. That’s it, just to get these two characters on the same page. That’s how the story felt. Then you add that there is no real tension and where Thor comes from himself and place that in our world, which we can define as the ‘real world’ there is no actual consequence, because we know where it’s going… simply because of the Avengers movie. I just kind of wonder about the mass audience who watched Thor… what exactly did they accept as this being a good movie? I could be offending a lot of people but the fact of the matter is, I just think moviegoers deserve more. That’s our right and whenever I watch a film in the theatre, that’s my angle. Is this experience worthwhile. Then on what level, be it in the theatre, be it in 3D, or 2D, or IMAX, or IMAX 3D, or at the cheap theatre or just wait for the disc.
The production design threw me in the film too. It wasn’t so much the costumes, however in some cases I thought they looked bad. Like Halloween dressup bad except with a higher production value, but still bad. But it was overall how the set pieces were presented. Asgard in itself was just heavy CG, it had to be, but there was no real tactility to it I thought, because we weren’t there enough and the camera work outside of the initial introduction, it’s tame. We see Asgard in bits but I can’t place myself there cause it didn’t feel real. For some reason it felt like it was in space, rather than fantasy. This was another difficulty I saw coming into Thor, the whole concept of magic and science. In the movie we’re only given after commentary as a way to define it, it’s quick and simple and to the point. But in some ways to me at least it’s insulting. It felt more like, this is our quick description, accept it so we can move on with the story. Then with how Thor travels between worlds and how the movie ends. You know how his involvement is going to be in the Avengers and how he’s going to arrive and save the day in Avengers. With the production design being moderate, in the end it felt like just people walking around in costume. Very out of place, I get that’s the point in some ways to show the contrast of the worlds but it’s the overall tone of this film that hurts the placement of this. The Earth scenes take place in a town in a desert and there is a point in the movie where the camera pans out and you can just tell it’s a set in some area of the desert. Then you see the Warriors Three walking around in the town and then it’s just takes you out of the context of it all. Instead of it feeling like a sense of movie reality, it’s actually people just walking around in costume.
Then what further amplifies the placement of this movie is how Marvel sets up Thor’s relationship to the Avengers movie. It’s not intelligently done, it’s just an excuse to marry the movies together. From what I’ve read Hemsworth is signed on for 6 movies, 3 Thor films and 3 Avengers movies. You can tell it’s a giant plan, something big but all I see is Marvel extremely hyping the Avengers movie at this point. I really don’t like going into movies with expectations, while it’s ok to be excited for a film in the past couple years of watching movies. A whole experience can be marred by wanting a film to be something it’s not. The approach I take afterward is what would I have done differently to make the experience better. With Thor I would’ve preferred more of an adventure, you’d got these Gods who’ve been through battles and each battle is a story. You never get the sense of that feeling, you’re on one of Thor’s adventures. It’s less fantasy and more real in a bad sense. I know they tried to place Thor in our world, so maybe it was just the story and how it balanced itself out. I think things could’ve been a lot more visceral and really made Asgard feel like another world. Instead what we got was Beastmaster 2 in 2011. Is it as bad as Beastmaster 2? No, but in context it’s the same with how things were presented. At the end of the day you really have to choose one side more, either the Earth realm or Asgard. I think I just wanted more Asgard than anything else. So in that sense, maybe Thor 2 should’ve been the movie to marry Thor into the Avengers. But the fact of the matter was there was just so much about this movie that threw me off so I could never resonate with it. The other on-screen thing that bothered me was the long hair. The entire movie with Anthony Hopkins and Hemsworth, they constantly had their long hair tucked behind their ears. No one wears their long hair like that. There was no sense regality because of it. Coupled with the fact their rarely wore their helmets too. Aside from Idris Elba, which is probably why I liked his character so much. He had presence in the film, you had emphasis with how he looked. With Hemsworth and Hopkins, it just felt like costumes from the neck down. Then they were asked to grow their hair and it was two dudes wearing their long hair how they would. Not how their characters should be wearing it. I know it’s nit-picking, but I am completely right about this aspect. Anyone that argues differently I will say is absolutely wrong. Even with Sif, a pony-tail really?
While the big picture is great, it’s the little things that matter most. At the end of the day for me, with Thor, there was just so much glaring at me that threw me out of the film that effected my enjoyment as a whole. Do I recommend watching it? Yeah, it’s serviceable. Is it anything beyond average? Nope. Watching it in the theatre is ok, but I think you can do with watching it on disc. Just as long as you watch it before the Avengers. I mean I’ll more than likely own a copy of this movie on blu-ray, but it will definitely be at a discounted previously viewed price from a rental store.
