Thor is a 2011 production from Marvel Studios, directed by Kenneth Branagh. The title character, Thor, is portrayed by actor Chris Hemsworth. Other notable stars in this movie include Natalie Portman, Tom Hiddleston, Anthony Hopkins and Idris Elba. The movie rates 7,0 on IMDb, but a mere 57 Metascore.
A Summary
Thor (Chris Hemsworth) is about to become the king of Asgard, but the ceremony is interrupted by an attempt from the Forst Giants to steal Jotens’ power casket. After a cascade of events, the mighty Thor is banished from Asgard by his father Odin (Anthony Hopkins) because he waged war by attacking the intruders’ home planet without his father’s permission.
Odin bans his son to Earth, where lands in New Mexico. As it happens, scientist Jane Foster (Natalie Portman) is close to the site of his arrival. They take him to the hospital after a crew member tased him. Thor is unfamiliar with the ways of people on Earth and therefore causes some trouble. After all, the group hears about ‘a satellite’ that landed close to Thor’s landing place.
Of course, Thor wants his hammer Mjolnir back and goes to the crash site, which is now swarming with S.H.I.E.L.D. soldiers as they set up a base around the hammer. Thor gets in and tries to pick up his hammer, but he can’t as his father put on a spell on it: Whosoever wields the hammer, and is worthy of it, shall have the power of Thor. So, Thor isn’t worthy enough anymore after he defies his father earlier.
Back in Asgard, Odin has fallen into a coma, the so-called ‘Odinsleep’. Loki (Tom Hiddleston), Thor’s brother, becomes the temporary king, as he planned al along. He was the one who manipulated Thor into attacking the Frost Giants, which ultimately led to his banishment. Loki freezes the gatekeeper of Asgard, Heimdall (Idris Elba), and lets the Frost Giants enter to kill his father. He sends the Destroyer, a protector of relics in Asgard, to Earth to make sure Thor doesn’t return.
Meantime, Thor has grown fond of Jane Foster. The little town gets attacked by the Destroyer as Thor makes amends for his wrongdoings by protecting his friends while putting himself in harm’s way. That action makes Thor worthy of Mjolnir again, with the hammer on his side he easily defeats the Destroy and heads straight for Asgard.
In Asgard, the Frozen Giants are ready to kill Odin, but Loki kills the giant before he could kill his father. As Thor enters the room, we find out that Loki planned to make himself the hero, the son who saved his father from death. Thor isn’t going to allow that and they engage in a heavy fight. To round out his heroic deeds, Loki wants to destroy the planet of Frozen Giants by letting the Bifrost destroy it.
Thor manages to win the fight against Loki but is forced to destroy the Bifrost Bridge to save the Frozen Giants’ planet from destruction. They both fall off the bridge, into the abyss, if they weren’t saved by the awoken Odin. However, Loki lets himself fall into the abyss as his deeds are likely unforgivable.
The Story
Thor becomes one of the mainstay heroes in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and therefore needs his movie to show his backstory. I feel that this movie is good for that purpose, but not much more. It isn’t a great story and the dialogue certainly didn’t help with telling it. Most of the time it was weak and predictable.
There is enough to tell about this world, Asgard, Loki, Odin, Thor, everything about I find fascinating. However, Loki’s deception is predictable right from the first sentence. The Frozen Giants aren’t interesting enough to keep me invested in them. Odin plays a smaller role, but even when he does show, his dominance lacks sometimes. And Heimdall, played by the excellent Idris Elba, just plays a robot or something? It seems he can’t show emotion and he has the worst job of all, while he could be such an interesting character.
The Characters
Thor
I got the feeling that they tried to make Thor a fun, but mighty god. However, his jokes feel forced most of the time, but do give me the feeling that he is not that mighty.
I’m also a bit lost on how familiar Thor is with Earth. He is talking with his Asgardian friends about travels to other realms, but when he is on Earth he seems oddly unfamiliar. This unfamiliarity is inconsistent though as he asks for a horse or a dog that’s large enough to ride at a pet shop but then steps into a car without questions like it’s normal.
Jane Foster
Starring Natalie Portman, Jane should be one of the main characters in this movie. And it seems they tried to, but not really. She plays no significant part in the events of the movie as she does nothing more than transporting Thor around town and looking at symbols. Her relationship with Thor is also a bit strangely setup if you ask me. She sees him without a shirt and seems to fall in love, they have one meaningful talk and suddenly they want to be inseparable. That could’ve been sold better.
Loki
As one of the main, hidden, villans in this movie, I believe Loki is one of the better characters in this movie. He has good motives for his actions and his actions are well thought out with an end goal in mind. As I said before, his dialogue isn’t great, but when Tom Hiddleston gets the chance he puts up the best performance of the whole cast.
The Production
An area where I feel they lost some points. Camera movements are quite stranged with tilted and vibrating camera shots in some weird moments. CGI was definitely not at Marvel level, the movie was released in 2011, but I think both Iron Man movies have better CGI than this movie. They also seem to skip over shots that should’ve shown some advanced CGI and instead just show a weird angle.
Great joke, by the way, Thor calling agent Coulson ‘Son of Coul’. Love it.