Theater Whore: Thor

“This mortal form grows weak. I require sustenance!”

Ever since I first saw the billboard and the costume for Thor I’ve been all kinds of excited to see this movie. This will be connecting with the previous Hulk films, Iron Man, and the upcoming Captain America to combine the Avengers movie. I have already said that I wouldn’t see Avengers just because Hulk with Mark Ruffalo has me mad before its even come out. Anyway, Thor was good but I do have some complaints.

Chris Hemsworth (Star Trek, A Perfect Getaway) stars as Thor, the god of fucking thunder! A brash prince who wields the powerful Mjolnir. During a coronation where his father Odin played by Anthony Hopkins (The Wolfman, Silence Of The Lambs, Dracula) is about to crown Thor Asgard is attacked. Thor gets pissed and heads off to battle ice giants. After his team gets hurt and they get their asses saved by Odin Thor gets stripped of his powers and sent to Earth.

This is where the movie begins to suffer.

Natalie Portman (Black Swan, The Professional, Your Highness) is scientist Jane Foster who finds Thor after he crashes to the ground after a gigantic storm. Thor has no powers except the ability to look in great shape and scream nonsense and is taken down by a taser courtesy of Kat Dennings (The House Bunny, 40 Year Old Virgins).

After some misunderstandings about what it means to be human, Thor finds out that his mighty hammer is being held by the government. For those that don’t know, Mjolnir, the hammer, can only be moved by certain people. Thor sneaks into the base and can not move it and is arrested before being picked up (after destroying an entire squad to get to the hammer) and taken to a bar for some drinks before falling asleep under the stars with Jane Foster. Huh?

Tom Hiddleston (Wallander, Cranford) is Loki, Thor’s brother who is obviously evil. You can tell by his dark hair and pale skin. He is the one who let the ice giants in and finds out that he is actually one of them. Turns out his dying father Odin stole him as a child. Loki does everything in his power to jack Asgard up and ensure that his brother never makes it back.

Without ruining the rest of the movie I believe that the entire human element of this movie could have been left out until the very end of the movie where he and his hammer land on Earth. Just establishing him and Asgard would have been fine. Natalie Portman as a scientist? Nope. I don’t buy it. Her friend was there for comic relief but was mostly annoying saying things like “How can you eat a box of Pop Tarts and still be hungry?” and "This is so going on Facebook!”

What the movie got right it got very right! Thor, Loki, Idris Elba (Takers, 28 Weeks Later, The Wire) as Heimdall was cool. The look of Asgard. All of that was good. But being on Earth in the middle of nowhere didn’t interest me. I wish SHIELD was more involved since Clark Gregg (Iron Man, 500 Days Of Summer, New Adventures Of Old Christine) is cool as Agent Coulson and I wanted more of him. Not as good as I wanted it to be but worth a gander at a cheap price if you can do it.