Is Thor any good? Is a really stupid question. Here's the imbd for techy details...
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0800369/
If you (like me) collect the Thor comics and this will leave you wanting, nay needing more, because you (like me) know what things are, how characters should act and the relationships between them and you get all that, but in movie sized pieces that while are completely palatable to the average movie goer, to a comic fan will leave you salivating like Pavlov's dog at a campanologists convention. That's not a bad thing though because what you get is spectacular. It is Thor, The Warriors Three, Sif and so on from the comics. The costumes have a subtle Kirby'esque feel to them, Asgard is beautiful and what we see of the nine worlds they are truly done a justice.
Make no mistakes, this is not the only way Marvel could have done Thor. They could have done a cheap knock off to rip off the audience or they could have gone Peter Jackson and put them to sleep. There's over six hundred comics relating to Thor so what story do you tell that wont confuse or put the audience to sleep and somehow please the fans? Well Kenneth Branagh pulled it off. For a start he cocked a snook at the origin story by telling a story about how Thor became a hero rather than how he got the powers, something the Marvel Studio movies have been quite good at but it's more obvious in Thor because the titular character is a big bad ass with thunder and lightening out the wazoo from the start, he just needs a bitch slap to calm him down and this is the story of said bitch slap.
Branagh's direction is simple, elegant but clever when it needs to be. Unlike so many directors today who use so much shaky cam' I'm not just sure they hire people with Parkinson's disease, or use so much slow motion the film is twice it's actual length. Branagh seems to know when we need to see a characters emotions and when we need to see him do something cool, how to set up an establishing shot and let the actors shine. It's a lot of very old school direction with some great polish that reminds me of Guillermo Del Toro but at a faster pace.
The acting is su'fucking'perb. Chris Hemsworth was born for this role. There isn't a point were you think he's hamming it up or not putting his all into it. The scene in the hospital (MINOR SPOILERS) were he looses his rag with the staff and throws them around the room only to receive an arse full of sedatives treats your emotions like Nigal Mansell treats a race car. You start out with anticipation as you see Thor strapped down, a twinge of humour and discomfort as he looses his rag with a fish out of water moment, nervous laughter as he quite frankly smacks the shit out of a few fairly innocent people and then down right humour as his face slides down the window into la la land. The scene has it all.
The effects are fairly flawless. Cgi abound obviously but to the whiners of said cgi do go and fuck yourselves. Cgi is to today's films what stop motion was to Jason and The Argonauts and Sinbad, a means to an end. It's a way to show what can't be done in real life and if you need to tell a story about a city full of gods then you either hitch a ride with Prometheus or break out the computers, because as good as it can be matt paintings and models simply don't cut the mustard any more so stop fucking banging on about them.
As a film Thor is fast paced and style'wise marches to it's own drum and when you consider that next year Thor has to stand and look good next to Iron Man that's pretty brave.
I've now seen this flick twice and beleive me it's better on second watching especially in 2D. The level of frenetic action in the film doesn't lend it'self to 3D very well and the once or twice it does stand out and make you go 'oooooh' aren't really worth wearing the spec's all the way through the film. The second time the critical glasses are off and you can sit back and enjoy it more and it actually did feel better paced. There's no padding in there that doesn't need to be, it reminds me of the first Men In Black movie.
To sum up, this is a film that pulled off the near imposable, made Thor appeal to everyone but the most ardent whiny twats and THAT's a good thing.
For Asgard indeed!
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