Movie Review: Thor

Thor

PG-13 for sequences of intense sci-fi action and violence
Genre: Fantasy, action
Running time: 1 hour 54 minutes

Exiled to earth after his arrogance fans the flames of an ancient conflict, the mighty Thor of Asgard discovers the meaning of humility when a powerful foe dispatches a destructive force to crush humanity. Only when the banished prince has defeated an opponent capable of crushing him in battle does Thor learn what it takes to be a true leader.

In the end who will win? Asgard? Humanity? Thor?
Only time will tell.

More Fantasy Than Humanity

Marvel is expanding its film universe franchise with a new type of superhero – Thor – In this most recent in the comic book hero series the story actually spans from present day Earth to the realm of Asgard. At the center of the story is the mighty Thor himself. Finding himself cast down to earth Thor discovers what it takes to be a true hero. Of course since this is a continuation in the Hollywood plan to mold a group of superheroes together into one movie, we also find agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. showing up too. The protectors of the superheros working to bring them all together to fight crime. The agents first introduced in the Iron Man movies show up in Thor to figure out what’s going on as well.

Right out of the gate, I have to say Thor does not live up to the hype of the trailers. While the special effects are impressive and the computer generated realm of Asgard is breath-taking, Thor does not live up to it’s Iron Man predecessor. Admittedly, the setting for Thor is very different from what we’ve come to expect in these superhero type movies. Usually the setting is earth and the superhero is some kind of alien or mutant who grew up on earth and became a hero.

Thor is the total opposite.

Iron Man was the creation of Tony Stark, a human being who stumbled across the Iron Man hero. While not in the same league, Spider-Man got his powers from a spider bite, while Batman, another human, but unlike Iron Man used his surroundings and mortal awareness to combat evil. Lets not forget The Hulk either. Once again, we have a human soldier who finds himself transformed into the green man as a result of genetic engineering.

Such is not the case with Thor.

Here we find the god of thunder living in the mythical realm of Asgard cast down to earth. While he’s an heroic strongman on Asgard, he’s a poor mans Arnold Schwarzenegger Terminator type character on earth. He’s out of place and really makes no effort to figure out what’s going on. He doesn’t even seem to know he’s on earth! He’s simply a confused man who was once strong, but suddenly finds himself weak.

Sub-Par Acting

When it comes to acting, Chris Hemsworth is way out of his league. His performance is lack luster and it appears the only reason he was cast as Thor was simply because of his build. Watching Hemsworth stumble his way through his lines was like watching a young Schwarzenegger all over again. A foreigner trying to speak English well, but knowing he’s only there for his looks. Natalie Portman puts in a decent performance as Jane Foster, but she seems more confused than the character of Thor at times. If it weren’t for Anthony Hopkins playing Odin, the King of Asgard, from an acting point of view, Thor would have been a total loss.

When you take the sub-par acting and a movie clocking in at close to two hours, you really end up with a flick that is somewhat boring at times. If you love fantasy sci-fi, you will be impressed with the fantasy aspect of this movie. But, for the sake of setting up The Avengers movie where we will once again see Thor, this movie is really not what it’s hyped up to be. While I did enjoy the action scenes and the special effects are cool, as I’ve often said before…

Special effects alone, will not make a movie.

Sometimes special effects can totally break a movie if they’re overdone and overblown. At least I will give kudos to those involved with Thor for not totally going over the top in the area of special effects. If you like action and cool special effects, you will like this movie.

Over all, yes, I will admit I did enjoy Thor from time to time. But, this is one that’s possibly better viewed at home when you can pause it for potty-breaks and snack breaks along the way. Actually, you don’t even have to worry about hitting the pause button. If you get up and leave the room for a few minutes, you really don’t miss anything of substance. The bottom line is, Thor is nothing more than a set up for Captain America and The Avengers. Marvel needed to find some way to introduce this superhero to the big screen, but they failed in the long run to make him leap off the screen.

When it comes to rating, with a PG-13 rating, Thor is simply not family-friendly. There’s far too much violence going on here, even if it is all sci-fi, to be classified as a family-friendly movie.

Enjoy the show!
Dr. Rus