A Hammering Good Time
Posted By Kathleen David on May 5, 2011
This is a pretty spoiler free review of Thor. I can’t promise that the comments won’t be since I want people to be allowed to discuss the film.
Yesterday Caroline, Peter and I went into the city to see the Marvel preview of Thor. Getting into the city and then across the city was more of a challenge than usual but the iPad and Garmin manged to get us through part of it before they both dropped out.
It was nice seeing people that I haven’t seen in a while and catching up on news and families.
The film itself was excellent. Kenneth Branagh gave the film a Shakespearian quality that kept it from being camp which, with another director, would have been easy to do. He also used his music go-to and had Patrick Doyle compose the soundtrack. So rather than having lots of pop music, this had an almost classical soundtrack however there is no use of the Ride of the Valkyries but it comes close a couple of times.
Acting is solid over all. Chris Helmsworth does a really good job with Thor and he is very nice eye candy. Tom Hiddleston is excellent as Loki. You really don’t know where he stands and just when you think you have it sorted out, it goes another direction but in the end Loki is very much Loki. Natalie Portman is fine as Jane Foster and she is sort of the weak link in the chain. Kat Denning was a lot of fun as the sidekick/intern. She has some of the best lines for the humans and delivered them with great glee. Stellan Skarsgard, back from the briny deep, did a wonderful job of basically a utilitarian character that seemed to be created to allow for the Norse Myths to be brought into the mix for those who don’t know them. And then there is Sir Anthony Hopkins. If you need a Human to play Father of the gods you need him or possibly Sean Connery but Hopkins is better that emoting and yelling so he’s the better call for this.
The plot is rather simple over all but there is a complexity because they try to give you the back story to all the characters on Asgard without any flashbacks. By the end of the film you know who each of these gods are and what their motivations are. It boils down to Frost Giants vs. Asgardians with Mitgard sort of in the middle. The other part is Thor finding that within him that is the hero rather than just a warrior.
It is a good spring/summer film. It does need to be seen on the big screen because you will lose all kinds of detail of Asgard, however if 3-D is not your thing, then go see it in 2-D. There were a couple of kind of cool effects but not enough to say you must see it in 3-D. I had to leave at one point to get my equilibrium back since I was getting motion sick. I am glad I saw it in 3-D but I want to see it in 2-D so I can see what is going on in the realm of the Frost Giants and some of the other colors that are so muted because of the 3-D process.
Do stay through the credits for the tag. It is so worth it.
I am grateful that Marvel let Peter bring the family to see Thor.
Agree on the 3D/2D. I saw it in “IMAX” 3D and thought the movie was awesome, but would have looked better in 2D.
And there is/are flashback(s). Depending on how you look at it, there’s a flashback inside a flashback inside a flashback.
level 1 – story about Frost Giants
level 2 – Odin telling story to Loki and Thor
level 3 – older Loki and Thor
level 4 – Foster and co out in the desert
Even if you don’t agree with level 3 or 4, the frost giant story is without a doubt a flashback for exposition’s sake.