Movie Review: Thor

Echo's Review

In the latest movie addition of Marvel’s Avengers saga, yet another super-powered protagonist is introduced to the line-up.  Thor, the god of thunder, is about take his father Odin’s place as the king of Asgard.  However when their ancient foes, ice giants, break into the realm, Thor goes against Odin’s wishes and instigates a fight with them.  By doing this he breaks the age-old peace his father had striven to maintain, putting the Asgardians and ice giants once again on the brink of war. 

As punishment for his eldest son’s defiance, Odin banishes Thor (Chris Hemsworth) to Earth, where he is found by a scientist named Jane Foster (Natalie Portman).  Meanwhile Thor’s younger brother, Loki, plots to steal his seat on the throne in his absence.

Overall there is a lot to like about this movie.  Chris Hemsworth, Natalie Portman, Tom Hiddleston, Anthony Hopkins and a host of other strong acting talents really brought the film off the ground from start to finish.  There was a good dynamic balance between all the actors, and their chemistry added significantly to the movie’s zest. 

The CGI and special effects also factored in quite favorably.  In particular the transition from Earth to the extraordinary realm Asgard was masterfully done.  It’s one of those things you have to see for yourself, but the digital scenery aspect easily rivals that of James Cameron’s Avatar (which incidentally I tend to compare the CGI in everything to).  Similarly, a lot of other things went into making Thor a piece of eye-candy.  The producers went all out with the costumes, makeup, and props. 

 Surprisingly, I found the most lacking aspect of the movie to be the plot.  The ending and otherwise general development of the movie was blatantly predictable for anyone who is at all familiar the Marvel comics or Norse mythology.  Also, I couldn’t shake the feeling that Chris Hemsworth was hogging all the screen-time, leaving a host of potentially interesting characters underdeveloped.  Don’t get me wrong, Chris is good-looking and interesting.  These are minor and easily forgivable offenses.

 The only part that really irked me was a number of over-done “god battles” towards the beginning and end of the movie.  As I mentioned before, the producers tried to do a lot with the special effects, with generally good results.  Yet in these battle instances with the characters pulling impossible feats in high speed, there was way too much going on.  The result was an incoherent blur of action, virtually impossible to follow, that just ended up giving me a headache.

As in the Iron Man and Hulk movies, several references were made in Thor regarding The Avengers.  In the movie credits, it was also promised that Thor will appear again in The Avengers, which is currently scheduled for theaters at some point in 2012.  I look forward to seeing what Chris Hemsworth and his fellow actors and actresses will bring to the table when performing with other talents such as Robert Downey Jr., Samuel L. Jackson, and Mark Ruffalo.