Movie Reviews: Thor (Spoilers, obviously)
Gotta say, college has given me a new appreciation for the movies. Part of what's kept Mom and I from being terribly current is how goddamn expensive it is to go to the movies nowadays. It's rare that we have the time or spare cash t go, and if we go, we want to make damn sure that we're going to am ovie that will be worth our time.
Normally, we have very good luck in that regard. That might be partly because Mom and I can put up with a lot in the way of bad media - we don't ask for much in the way of compensation in that regard, and if we get it? We're usually satisfied.
As a college student, however, I can go see movies in the college theater for free every weekend if I want. Anything at the concession stand is only a dollar. God, I'm going to miss that when I graduate. And this year, I gotta say, I've caught up on a lot of movies that I might have otherwise missed - Inception, Easy A, and The King's Speech are the ones that come to mind - and I can also go back and see some of the movies I really loved but not quite enough to pay to go see a second time - see also Tangled and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1.
Seriously, Mom was slavering over my school's film board when she found out about it that first day. I mean, she was a film major, she served on her college's film board for four years, and she still never got movies as current as we're getting. Gotta say, I joined in on the slavering. The setup is sweet.
But this, actually, is a review of a movie I was fortunate enough to see while it was still in theaters.
Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I bring you my take on Thor!
Don't get me wrong. I have had a generally lukewarm reaction to film adaptations of superhero comics over the years. I'd say Iron Man was the only one I've seriously enjoyed. I walked out from the first Spiderman in disgust and never saw another. I only watched X-Men for the adorable father/daughter dynamic between Wolverine and Rogue and the lack of same made X-Men 2 unfortunately disappointing to me. Iron Man 2 just...didn't grab me at all, it seem totally nonscensical after a while. I have never seen a Superman movie all the way through, not one. I cringe in fear at the though of a Wonder Woman movie.
In other words? When it comes to superhero movies, especially superhero movies adapted from comics, I am hard to impress. Or, y'know, hard to even attract at all. And given the sheer mediocrity of the Asgard level in Marvel: Ultimate Alliance, Thor impresses me even less.
But...well, Dad wanted to go to the movies. I wanted to get out of the house. The special effects, at least, would probably be astounding. And maybe it would be decent brain candy, if nothing else.
Boy, was I surprised. And, for once, pleasantly so.
Before I go any further, I would just like t add the disclaimer that I know nothing about normal Thor canon beyond the trailers shown and Marvel: Ultimate Alliance for the PS3.
First and foremost? I don't know what Kool-Aid the actors were drinking, but every actor in Hollywood needs to take it. I have not seen such impossibly phenomenal acting in the longest time. I especially want to give my most heartfelt applause to the actors playing Thor and Loki - Chris Hemsworth and Tom Hiddleston, respectively. They took two characters who could easily have been one dimensional stereotypes - have been one dimensional stereotypes, in the case of many portrayals of Loki over the course of Thor canon - and made me sympathize and feel for them with an intensity that I haven't for a while.
I'm gonna talk about Hiddleston first, because he was honestly the one who impressed me most. He mentioned in an interview that he went on a diet to get that "lean and hungry" look, which...I'm not gonna go into that. That could be a whole 'nother journal entry on its own. But I will say that Hiddlestone emoted the everloving hell out of the role, and there were plenty of scenes were he did it with just his eyes.
I really found myself paying attention to his face, and it was his eyes and his mouth that wound up being the most communicative. As an example, there's one scene with Thor at the beginning of the movie, when they're boths sitting and talking and Loki is trying to soothe Thor after he's just been denied the crown. his expression doesn't change from the usual "little boy lost" look that he carries for most of the film, but his eyes are constantly ticking from Thor and back down to his feet. It really told you a lot about the character - how nervous he was around his brother, but at the same time how willing he was to help him. Every other character in the film he would mostly stare straight at if he was actually facing them, but Loki almost never made proper eye contact with Thor until the end.
His mouth would tighten when he was upset and only just turn up at the corners when he was pleased. During the fight scene with the Frost Giants, Loki lures one of them off a cliff by placing an illsuion of himself at the edge and vanishing it at the last second. And his expression has barely changed, but he looks so mischeviously pleased with himself that it's impossible not to giggle. When he's proposing to lead Laufy and his men into Asgard, his eyes are just alight with the most devious kind of malice but he's barely smiling. And, like I said, normally he'd have this expression of a lost little boy who vacillated between wanting to hug the people around him, wanting to run away from them, and wanting to burn the world for wronging him. And I sympathized with him every step of the way.
Hiddleston's utterly restrained use of emotion in most cases made his displays of blatant emotions so much more effective. When he's raging at Odin, when he's confronting Thor at the end of the movie, both scenes just honestly moved me. I couldn't help by sympathize with the guy.
And when dealing with the God of Mischief, the movie didn't make the obvious mistake of turning him into an over-the-top, flamboyant prankster. Seriously, there was no point where I was actually definitely sure that Loki was lying. Not even when he was telling Thor that his banishment was permanent, which the movie had not shown to be true. But the way he played it...I found myself wondering if maybe something had changed off screen? And when he turned away from Thor, the movie did not have him smiling triumphantly. His expression didn't change!
Moving on, I don't think they could have gotten anyone better to play Thor than Hemsworth. Not just in appearance, although the resemblance was scary. But he played Thor with the gregarious, charming ferocity that you'd expect from the God of Thunder. Or at least, what I expected - like I said, I don't know Thor's comic book canon well enough to judge on that front. But oh, was he charming. What a smile. I don't normally go for the male eye candy, especially not the buff, muscular eye candy, but...wow. And it was mostly the smile.
But the way he walked and the way he laughed...yeah, this was Thor. There was never a point in the movie where I doubted that. Hemsworth made the character ridiculously likeable besides. Even when he was being a pompous, reckless ass, the character was realistic and believable. And you wouldn't think such a big guy would be able to bring the tragedy, and you'd be wrong. He could laugh and joke around with his Asgardian friends and rage against his father and be so utterly hopeless and off-beat around the humans.
God, during the scene when Loki comes to talk with Thor after he's failed to retrieve Mjolnir, to tell him that Odin has died, Thor looks up at him with this despairing, desperate, broken look and asks, I kid you not: "Can I come home?" And Loki tells him he can't and I almost teared up, guys, I really did. And there's a later scene where, after it's pretty much decided that he'll be staying with the three humans who have helped him so far, where he brings the old guy who didn't like him back to the trailer after the guy tried unsuccuessfully to drink Thor under the table. He answers Jane's concern with a pleased, happy "we drank, we fought, he made his ancestors proud".
Bringing that kind of depth and emotional range to a character that I've only ever seen as painfully one dimensional in the trailers and the game was impressive, surprising, and so very satisfying.
I think that's the point I'm trying to make. There were very few moments where it was possible to forget that Thor was a good among humans and he didn't get them at all. He liked them, especially Jane and Darcy and Erik, but the plot of the movie never really gave him the chance to finish connecting with them and understanding them. I think that was a really effective choice on the part of the script. That kind of disconnect is always fun to watch, and Hemsworth didn't hold back, whether it was making an idiot of himself in a diner or explaining the structure of the Nine Worlds to Jane.
While the other actors might not have been quite as affecting as these two, that was more the fault of the amount of screen time they got than anything else. There was no character that was a non-entity (with the possible exception of Frigga, who had the least amount of screen time of anyone). I had no clue who Thor's friends were or what their names were (with the exception of Sif, and even then...isn't she supposed to have golden hair or am I thinking of another goddess?) but I still cared about them. They still managed to make their characters worth something, and their scenes were fun and meaningful to watch, especially their scenes with Thor. I could sincerely believe taht this lot were friends - I didn't have to be told. Overall, their chemistry with one another was astounding.
Sif did not become a Token Badass Female Love Interest, which is always a wonderful surprise in a movie. She was actually pretty awesome, and she was pretty awesome in her own right.
Anthony Hopkins played Odin exactly as he needed to be played - he moved the movie along marvelously and gave Thor and Loki someone to bounce off of for some of the movie's most effective scenes. Clark Gregg was not an unbearable sleeze as Agent Coulson, which was what a less effective movie would have made him and which made him infinitely more bearable to watch. Even he had his humanizing moments, and they didn't feel shoehorned in. He played a subtle villain subtly.
Idris Elba as Heimdall is the only one so far who can make me think of that particular god as anyone other than the crazy little boy from Mythical Detective Loki Ragnarok. And that is a very high compliment. He rocked the role, and he managed to be badass and funny together - sometimes in the same scene! For a character who often wound up more plot device than character, he still managed to make his mark on each and every scene he was in no matter who he was playing off of.
And as three humans forced to deal with an exiled god of thunder, props must be given to Portman, Skarsgard, and Demmings.They didn't have as many shining moments, but they still shone. For Skarsgard, that might have been because he was basically playing the coot/obligatory wise old guy/Mr. Exposition. And Portman, well...her character really did wind up as the "Token Badass Female Love Interest" at points, which always makes me grumpy. But even then, she wasn't intolerable, at least during those moments when she wasn't throwing herself across Thor's body while Mjolnir is streaking towards him fast as a meteor!
Demmings took the cake, though - Darcy had some of the best dialogue and the best acting in the movie, especially considering that her character was designated comic relief. She was a good audience surrogate, especially since her character was far from useless - she expressed the shock and incredulity and skepticism and practicality that the audience would probably have felt, under those circumstances.
"I am not dying for six college credits!" might just be one of my favorite movie lines of all time.
We sat the 3D version, simply because it was at a later time without being scheduled obscenely late at night. And I've gotta say, I was impressed. It's the first time in a while that I've seen 3D that really looked 3D. It added depth to the film. It wasn't just a sensory overload (although there were points when it toed the line), it actually helped me feel like I was looking at another world. And the CG work was stunning - I'd say it was probably on par with Avatar, ad as far as I'm concerned special effects were the only things Avatar had going for it. There weren't very many obvious green screen moments. All in all, some of the best special effects I've seen in a movie in a while.
Which isn't to say that it didn't cross the line sometimes into "too much of a good thing" territory - it did, especially in the sweeping, panoramic shots that utterly dwarfed any actors that happened to be present. Those scenes didn't really do it for me, and they were usually the ones where I found myself thinking "wow, just think of all the other things that money could have been used for." There were definitely a few points where the movie seemed to be say "hey, look what I can do!" whether or not it did anything for the story.
Costuming was perfect. Not a whole lot to say there. I can't imagine what kind of job it must take to design costumes like that and take all the necessary steps to make sure they're as real-to-life faithful as possible to their comic book counterparts, but you know what? I'd like to have it.
Still not sure how they managed the Destroyer. I'm interested to find out, though. Honestly, I'd be happy if they just released a book on the subject of Thor special effects.
And I would get into my thoughts on the story, only...I'm looking back at this entry and damn, I write a lot when I haven't posted in a while. So, you know what? Go see the movie yourself if you want to know the story. Draw your own conclusions. Hopefully I haven't spoiled you too much.
I think I've made my adoration for this film clear enough.
Normally, we have very good luck in that regard. That might be partly because Mom and I can put up with a lot in the way of bad media - we don't ask for much in the way of compensation in that regard, and if we get it? We're usually satisfied.
As a college student, however, I can go see movies in the college theater for free every weekend if I want. Anything at the concession stand is only a dollar. God, I'm going to miss that when I graduate. And this year, I gotta say, I've caught up on a lot of movies that I might have otherwise missed - Inception, Easy A, and The King's Speech are the ones that come to mind - and I can also go back and see some of the movies I really loved but not quite enough to pay to go see a second time - see also Tangled and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1.
Seriously, Mom was slavering over my school's film board when she found out about it that first day. I mean, she was a film major, she served on her college's film board for four years, and she still never got movies as current as we're getting. Gotta say, I joined in on the slavering. The setup is sweet.
But this, actually, is a review of a movie I was fortunate enough to see while it was still in theaters.
Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I bring you my take on Thor!
Don't get me wrong. I have had a generally lukewarm reaction to film adaptations of superhero comics over the years. I'd say Iron Man was the only one I've seriously enjoyed. I walked out from the first Spiderman in disgust and never saw another. I only watched X-Men for the adorable father/daughter dynamic between Wolverine and Rogue and the lack of same made X-Men 2 unfortunately disappointing to me. Iron Man 2 just...didn't grab me at all, it seem totally nonscensical after a while. I have never seen a Superman movie all the way through, not one. I cringe in fear at the though of a Wonder Woman movie.
In other words? When it comes to superhero movies, especially superhero movies adapted from comics, I am hard to impress. Or, y'know, hard to even attract at all. And given the sheer mediocrity of the Asgard level in Marvel: Ultimate Alliance, Thor impresses me even less.
But...well, Dad wanted to go to the movies. I wanted to get out of the house. The special effects, at least, would probably be astounding. And maybe it would be decent brain candy, if nothing else.
Boy, was I surprised. And, for once, pleasantly so.
Before I go any further, I would just like t add the disclaimer that I know nothing about normal Thor canon beyond the trailers shown and Marvel: Ultimate Alliance for the PS3.
First and foremost? I don't know what Kool-Aid the actors were drinking, but every actor in Hollywood needs to take it. I have not seen such impossibly phenomenal acting in the longest time. I especially want to give my most heartfelt applause to the actors playing Thor and Loki - Chris Hemsworth and Tom Hiddleston, respectively. They took two characters who could easily have been one dimensional stereotypes - have been one dimensional stereotypes, in the case of many portrayals of Loki over the course of Thor canon - and made me sympathize and feel for them with an intensity that I haven't for a while.
I'm gonna talk about Hiddleston first, because he was honestly the one who impressed me most. He mentioned in an interview that he went on a diet to get that "lean and hungry" look, which...I'm not gonna go into that. That could be a whole 'nother journal entry on its own. But I will say that Hiddlestone emoted the everloving hell out of the role, and there were plenty of scenes were he did it with just his eyes.
I really found myself paying attention to his face, and it was his eyes and his mouth that wound up being the most communicative. As an example, there's one scene with Thor at the beginning of the movie, when they're boths sitting and talking and Loki is trying to soothe Thor after he's just been denied the crown. his expression doesn't change from the usual "little boy lost" look that he carries for most of the film, but his eyes are constantly ticking from Thor and back down to his feet. It really told you a lot about the character - how nervous he was around his brother, but at the same time how willing he was to help him. Every other character in the film he would mostly stare straight at if he was actually facing them, but Loki almost never made proper eye contact with Thor until the end.
His mouth would tighten when he was upset and only just turn up at the corners when he was pleased. During the fight scene with the Frost Giants, Loki lures one of them off a cliff by placing an illsuion of himself at the edge and vanishing it at the last second. And his expression has barely changed, but he looks so mischeviously pleased with himself that it's impossible not to giggle. When he's proposing to lead Laufy and his men into Asgard, his eyes are just alight with the most devious kind of malice but he's barely smiling. And, like I said, normally he'd have this expression of a lost little boy who vacillated between wanting to hug the people around him, wanting to run away from them, and wanting to burn the world for wronging him. And I sympathized with him every step of the way.
Hiddleston's utterly restrained use of emotion in most cases made his displays of blatant emotions so much more effective. When he's raging at Odin, when he's confronting Thor at the end of the movie, both scenes just honestly moved me. I couldn't help by sympathize with the guy.
And when dealing with the God of Mischief, the movie didn't make the obvious mistake of turning him into an over-the-top, flamboyant prankster. Seriously, there was no point where I was actually definitely sure that Loki was lying. Not even when he was telling Thor that his banishment was permanent, which the movie had not shown to be true. But the way he played it...I found myself wondering if maybe something had changed off screen? And when he turned away from Thor, the movie did not have him smiling triumphantly. His expression didn't change!
Moving on, I don't think they could have gotten anyone better to play Thor than Hemsworth. Not just in appearance, although the resemblance was scary. But he played Thor with the gregarious, charming ferocity that you'd expect from the God of Thunder. Or at least, what I expected - like I said, I don't know Thor's comic book canon well enough to judge on that front. But oh, was he charming. What a smile. I don't normally go for the male eye candy, especially not the buff, muscular eye candy, but...wow. And it was mostly the smile.
But the way he walked and the way he laughed...yeah, this was Thor. There was never a point in the movie where I doubted that. Hemsworth made the character ridiculously likeable besides. Even when he was being a pompous, reckless ass, the character was realistic and believable. And you wouldn't think such a big guy would be able to bring the tragedy, and you'd be wrong. He could laugh and joke around with his Asgardian friends and rage against his father and be so utterly hopeless and off-beat around the humans.
God, during the scene when Loki comes to talk with Thor after he's failed to retrieve Mjolnir, to tell him that Odin has died, Thor looks up at him with this despairing, desperate, broken look and asks, I kid you not: "Can I come home?" And Loki tells him he can't and I almost teared up, guys, I really did. And there's a later scene where, after it's pretty much decided that he'll be staying with the three humans who have helped him so far, where he brings the old guy who didn't like him back to the trailer after the guy tried unsuccuessfully to drink Thor under the table. He answers Jane's concern with a pleased, happy "we drank, we fought, he made his ancestors proud".
Bringing that kind of depth and emotional range to a character that I've only ever seen as painfully one dimensional in the trailers and the game was impressive, surprising, and so very satisfying.
I think that's the point I'm trying to make. There were very few moments where it was possible to forget that Thor was a good among humans and he didn't get them at all. He liked them, especially Jane and Darcy and Erik, but the plot of the movie never really gave him the chance to finish connecting with them and understanding them. I think that was a really effective choice on the part of the script. That kind of disconnect is always fun to watch, and Hemsworth didn't hold back, whether it was making an idiot of himself in a diner or explaining the structure of the Nine Worlds to Jane.
While the other actors might not have been quite as affecting as these two, that was more the fault of the amount of screen time they got than anything else. There was no character that was a non-entity (with the possible exception of Frigga, who had the least amount of screen time of anyone). I had no clue who Thor's friends were or what their names were (with the exception of Sif, and even then...isn't she supposed to have golden hair or am I thinking of another goddess?) but I still cared about them. They still managed to make their characters worth something, and their scenes were fun and meaningful to watch, especially their scenes with Thor. I could sincerely believe taht this lot were friends - I didn't have to be told. Overall, their chemistry with one another was astounding.
Sif did not become a Token Badass Female Love Interest, which is always a wonderful surprise in a movie. She was actually pretty awesome, and she was pretty awesome in her own right.
Anthony Hopkins played Odin exactly as he needed to be played - he moved the movie along marvelously and gave Thor and Loki someone to bounce off of for some of the movie's most effective scenes. Clark Gregg was not an unbearable sleeze as Agent Coulson, which was what a less effective movie would have made him and which made him infinitely more bearable to watch. Even he had his humanizing moments, and they didn't feel shoehorned in. He played a subtle villain subtly.
Idris Elba as Heimdall is the only one so far who can make me think of that particular god as anyone other than the crazy little boy from Mythical Detective Loki Ragnarok. And that is a very high compliment. He rocked the role, and he managed to be badass and funny together - sometimes in the same scene! For a character who often wound up more plot device than character, he still managed to make his mark on each and every scene he was in no matter who he was playing off of.
And as three humans forced to deal with an exiled god of thunder, props must be given to Portman, Skarsgard, and Demmings.They didn't have as many shining moments, but they still shone. For Skarsgard, that might have been because he was basically playing the coot/obligatory wise old guy/Mr. Exposition. And Portman, well...her character really did wind up as the "Token Badass Female Love Interest" at points, which always makes me grumpy. But even then, she wasn't intolerable, at least during those moments when she wasn't throwing herself across Thor's body while Mjolnir is streaking towards him fast as a meteor!
Demmings took the cake, though - Darcy had some of the best dialogue and the best acting in the movie, especially considering that her character was designated comic relief. She was a good audience surrogate, especially since her character was far from useless - she expressed the shock and incredulity and skepticism and practicality that the audience would probably have felt, under those circumstances.
"I am not dying for six college credits!" might just be one of my favorite movie lines of all time.
We sat the 3D version, simply because it was at a later time without being scheduled obscenely late at night. And I've gotta say, I was impressed. It's the first time in a while that I've seen 3D that really looked 3D. It added depth to the film. It wasn't just a sensory overload (although there were points when it toed the line), it actually helped me feel like I was looking at another world. And the CG work was stunning - I'd say it was probably on par with Avatar, ad as far as I'm concerned special effects were the only things Avatar had going for it. There weren't very many obvious green screen moments. All in all, some of the best special effects I've seen in a movie in a while.
Which isn't to say that it didn't cross the line sometimes into "too much of a good thing" territory - it did, especially in the sweeping, panoramic shots that utterly dwarfed any actors that happened to be present. Those scenes didn't really do it for me, and they were usually the ones where I found myself thinking "wow, just think of all the other things that money could have been used for." There were definitely a few points where the movie seemed to be say "hey, look what I can do!" whether or not it did anything for the story.
Costuming was perfect. Not a whole lot to say there. I can't imagine what kind of job it must take to design costumes like that and take all the necessary steps to make sure they're as real-to-life faithful as possible to their comic book counterparts, but you know what? I'd like to have it.
Still not sure how they managed the Destroyer. I'm interested to find out, though. Honestly, I'd be happy if they just released a book on the subject of Thor special effects.
And I would get into my thoughts on the story, only...I'm looking back at this entry and damn, I write a lot when I haven't posted in a while. So, you know what? Go see the movie yourself if you want to know the story. Draw your own conclusions. Hopefully I haven't spoiled you too much.
I think I've made my adoration for this film clear enough.