Why were we excited? Well we had been impressed the Iron Man efforts which will eventually get tied back into the Thor plotline through the Avengers movie in a year or two. We knew that J. Michael Straczynski was on board helping to write the script and we had supporting roles with actors such as Natalie Portman and Anthony Hopkins. J. Michael Straczynski wrote and produced Babylon 5 and more recently penned the Changeling (starring Angelina Jolie) and we expected more - what we got with Thor was pretty superficial.
This guy is really obsessed with his tool, think of the psychology behind that...
Visually, Thor was somewhat interesting, especially after the 3D and IMAX kicked in, although we wondering whether parts of his city (Asgard) was constructed out of old church organs. It was also a little strange to see Japanese and African American vikings wandering around in Valhalla, but hey it's all good. What was a little more difficult to deal with was the very tired theme - King / Father trying to pass on the reigns of power to trouble-making kid. Now, to some extent Norse mythology is at least partly responsible for this but even still it was kind of tedious. What was even more tedious was the performance from the guy playing the evil half-brother Loki - a bit over the top.Thor has had some image issues over the years - it seems he may have finally worked them out.
Now, you may be asking yourself, 'hey - why take this seriously - this is just a Marvel comic book interpretation of a Norse legend. ' And you'd be right. This is a pretty silly movie all the way around. It seems likely that the only reason the Thor character may get some screen time in the upcoming Avengers movie is due to the quantity of steroids ingested by Chris Hemsworth in preparation for this role. He is poised to be the next Arnold - maids everywhere - watch out!
Mythology ain't pretty...
What could have been done differently? Well, maybe Thor could have gotten amensia and ended hosting his own TV show focused on Home Improvement and power tools only to find his old hammer in the tool-chest?
Copyright 2011, Raving Reviews™
