Movie Review: Thor

Thor (2011)

Unlike many of the other MCU movies, I've never actually rewatched Thor! I missed it on theatres and watched it once on a long airplane flight back in late 2011, around the time that the world was hyped for the upcoming... either Captain America or the Avengers, one of the two. I was familiar with Nordic myths because I was a massive geek as a child, and I know that he shows up as a character in the Marvel comics because I played Marvel: Ultimate Alliance... but other than that, I wasn't very much aware of the character until the MCU came along. 

...and I really didn't remember much of this movie. I know the plot, of course, and I remembered really liking Loki and finding Darcy to be funny, but otherwise I really don't have much of a memory of this movie. The broad strokes have basically been adapted into many other Marvel-related projects like cartoons and video games that were released to tie in with the MCU, so this specific movie sort of got tossed in the wayside as Thor's appearances in the Avengers, or his two sequel movies became the bigger topic of discussion. 

And... and Thor is not the best MCU movie out there. It's not aged the best, although I will still acknowledge that it's a very, very solid superhero movie. It's just that the movie itself really flip-flops on the story and the focus it wants to tell, and I do feel like it hurts the pacing of the movie. And I think the worst part might be the first act? We start off with the human cast (Jane Foster, Erik Selvig and Darcy Lewis) investigating thunderstorms and stuff, and then human-mode Thor falls out of the clearly unnatural weather phenomenon... and then we cut back to 'several days ago' for around thirty minutes or so as the audience gets to see Thor run around in Asgard and Jotunheim as the proud prince. And then we get the forty minutes or so of Thor bumbling around Earth as a fish out of water without his powers. And THEN he gets his power back, we get a climax against the Destroyer on Earth, and then a second climax against Loki and his plot on Asgard. 

And I do get it. I do get the necessity of Thor running around on Earth. It's part of the mythos of the comic-book superhero's origin story, that his time on Earth ends up teaching him not only humility, but to respect us mortals. And considering the other superhero movies that were released at this point are primarily all more... sci-fi oriented (Blade notwithstanding), I also can't fault the filmmakers for wanting to ground the fantastic gods on Earth. 

It's just that... it's pretty clear that the bulk of the work of the scriptwriting and worldbuilding surrounds the Asgard cast. And it's not just Thor (Chris Hemsworth), Loki (Tom Hiddleston) and Odin (Anthony Hopkins) either... I really felt like even the side-characters like Heimdall, Sif, the Warriors Three and Laufey had a lot more thought put into them. In contrast, despite their large screentime and pretty charming acting, Jane Foster (Natalie Portman), Erik Selvig (Stellan Skarsgard) and Darcy (Kat Dennings) really do feel like they're kind of there out of a sense of obligation more than anything. And it's not to knock the actors, of course -- Darcy is probably still my favourite side character in the entirety of MCU's Phase One, and while they're not the most memorable, both Jane and Selvig were fun. Hemsworth also makes for a pretty fun 'fish out of water' god-prince stranded on Earth. 

It's just that... it's just that the Earth scenes really didn't feel all that interesting, and ends up feeling like a long stopgap. There was that one scene that I really liked when Thor reaches Mjolnir in the middle of the SHIELD compound and fails to lift it, but otherwise it really does feel like we're just waiting until Thor gets his shit together and realizes he's been duped by Loki. There is, I suppose, the narrative point of his romance with Jane, but other than a brief talk about Yggdrasil and Bifrost and whatnot in the stars, I really didn't quite get that it worked out as well as the writers probably intended it to be. 

Thor also has to deal with the unenviable task of not just debuting the Asgardians (which, I remind you, are magic-wielding Norse gods) to an audience more used to Batman and Iron Man, but also to more... cosmic-flavoured artifacts. It doesn't get too bad since all the Earth people saw are just Thor himself and the Destroyer armour (which is kinda-sorta tech-y), but on the other side of things we get to see the Bifrost bridge, the Casket of Eternal Winters and a whole lot of other things. Early MCU gets lambasted a lot by comic-book critics for being so skittish about acknowledging that, yes, magic exists... but on the other hand, I actually see the merit of slowly easing the audience over a couple of movies before really hammering it home in Doctor Strange later. 

Now, on the other hand, the introduction of everything else? That, I can get behind. It's a bit clunky and exposition-heavy at times, but honestly, I appreciated the Asgard-related scenes so much. Maybe it's because the hammy scenery-chewing that the Asgardian actors do really nail just how these larger-than-life characters should act... but I also really feel like the story and relationships between these characters work so well. And sure, the primary trio is the dysfunctional family of Odin, Thor and Loki... but little moments like Loki trying to impress Frigga when he 'gallantly' rescues Odin from Laufey; or Fandral being the first to pick out Loki's deception; or the argument that Fandral and Volstagg has when he is gorging himself on food; or the mutual respect between Thor and Sif... and frankly, everything about Heimdall.

And simply having brief flashbacks to events in the past, like how the Asgardians and Midgardians fought against the Jotuns in the past, or Thor coming dangerously close to fucking up the truce between the realms during his showboating in the first act... Asgard truly feels like a world that the director and actors fleshed out pretty well, and while I'm not trying to diss the Earth actors, it's just that neither the story or the characters there are compelling, especially when we have this game of kings and gods going around on the other side of the world. 

The plot itself is basically just the origin story of Thor, and Chris Hemsworth portrays the proud, violent prince in the beginning of the movie well, and contrasting him to the still-hammy but a lot more humble and heroic character at the end of the movie... it works. Granted, the character growth is perhaps not shown entirely organically, but even if he just becomes heroic just as a desire to protect others... it works. Ultimately he chooses the path of sacrifice, destroying the Bifrost Bridge and sacrificing his chance to meet Jane in order to stop Loki's mad plan to blow up Jotunheim, essentially maturing not just into a good king or a good superhero, but a good person in general. 

On the other hand, Loki? Loki was so much fun. A good chunk of how much fun Loki is stems from Tom Hiddleston's amazing performance. But even if you could already guess that the character adapted from the Nordic God of Trickery/Mischief is the real primary antagonist of the movie, I really do love just how much work Hiddleston puts in the subtle expressions he shows when he was just part of Thor's groupie. How many winces and subtle half-scowls he has when Thor undermines his 'silver tongue' in favour for Me Thunder God Hammer Smash. Loki being the unfavourite sibling is such an interesting storyline, and when we toss in the fact that he has only discovered his true heritage as an adopted frost giant in this movie? All of the jealousy boils up. And what he does in this movie is evil and heinous, no doubt (especially the climax, when he basically tries to genocide an entire realm/planet)... but seeing how little respect the dude gets, you can't help but feel sorry for Loki. 

His plan isn't all that complex, either -- leave Thor wallowing in self-grief and pity after Odin himself exiled him to Earth (he only sends the Destroyer after Heimdall and the quartet went around his back) and then set himself up as the heroic prince who saved Odin from being slain in his sleep by the frost giants who somehow slipped into Asgard. It's a plan wrapped in a desire for approval, but also entirely based around Loki's own deceit. I do like this. I do like that what Loki desires is approval of the Asgardians, the people who adopted him, because he clearly doesn't give two shits about his original heritage, killing his biological father cold-bloodedly and turning the Bifrost magic to genocide Jotunheim. 

Anthony Hopkins as Odin was also very great. It shows up a bit more in Dark World, but I really do like the sheer gravitas that Odin has in the MCU, with the slight undertone that sometimes he wavers between being the uber-wise god-king of Asgard and just a grumpy old man who's just a bit too set in his ways. His performance is great, and you really get the feeling that he loves both of his sons while also sometimes letting his emotions get in the way -- the rage against Thor's 'stupid, cruel son' and perhaps some inner, un-admitted favouritism against Loki. We don't truly get any resolution either way, but I feel like it's pretty well-executed nonetheless. 

The rest of the cast is great as well. Heimdall (Idris Elba) perhaps gets the biggest chance to shine, not just because of his plot-heavy role as the guardian of the Bifrost Bridge, but also from his very badass showcase of lawful-but-not-stupid ways that he subverts Loki's authority and gets Sif and the Warriors Three to aid Thor. Sif, Fandral, Volstagg and Hogun... they really don't get to do much other than be Thor's groupies. It's mostly just Sif that gets the most screentime and interactions with Thor and Loki, but at the very least Fandral (as the roguish one) and Volstagg (as the big dude) get a fair bit to showcase what their characters are all about. 

We've talked a bit about Jane, Selvig and Darcy up above... and again, they basically fill in some roles that the story needs. Jane is the love interest and also the 'believer' in the weird things that happen in the movie. Selvig is the older, saner and more cynical friend. Darcy is the funny one. None of them are portrayed terribly, but, again, the Earth scenes and the Asgard/Jotunheim scenes really do feel like they're vying for screen presence and I'm sorry, a bunch of storm-chasing scientists worried about their research being confiscated really doesn't feel anywhere as compelling as the God of Mischief's plans to take over the realm eternal. 

Agent Coulson from the Iron Man movies show up in a relatively major role, accompanied by fellow agent Jasper Sitwell, who's basically a more sarcastic Coulson. Hawkeye shows up in this movie, too, for all of twenty seconds as an agent with a bow that almost gets to shoot 'Donald Blake' in the neck. I kind of think that maybe there's a version of this movie that would just show 'Thor' interacting with the humans and agents and we're not entirely sure if he is just a madman or actually a Norse god, and the audience would learn alongside Jane and Coulson and the rest of the human cast that Thor is actually the god of thunder. They did something similar to this in Ultimate Marvel, I think, as well as (nowhere as successfully) in the first season of Iron Fist... but that's not what we got. Which... I don't know. At least that version of storytelling would make the long Earth scenes a lot more plausible? 

The action scenes in this one is pretty serviceable. Being a pretty early movie in the MCU we really don't have a huge budget for an action scene very fifteen minutes, but the two big setpieces -- Thor and friends rampaging in Jotunheim; and the Destroyer fight on Earth -- are done pretty well. Just like the sound effects of Iron Man's repulsors, they did a very great job at adapting the sounds and visuals of Thor spinning around his hammer or recalling it back to his hand. And while it's a bit more 'sci-fi-ized',  I really do actually like the shape of the Bifrost Bridge in the MCU, too, with the crystals and whatnot. 

Overall? Honestly, I may have been a bit too harsh on the review of this movie. It's not perfect, not by any shot, but it's a pretty solid origin story for everyone's favourite charming God of Thunder. We've got around twenty of these MCU movies to pick with, but while this has been overshadowed by many other movies, it's still a pretty solid one. 

Marvel Easter Eggs Corner:

• Post Credits Scene: Erik Selvig gets taken to a SHIELD facility to be recruited by Nick Fury, who has the Tesseract. But turns out that Loki is shadowing him! Basically foreshadowing for The Avengers. 
  
• Stan the Man: Stan Lee is one of the truck drivers that tries to drag Mjolnir, but his truck bed got absolutely fucked by the effort.
• Future Movies Foreshadowing: The Tesseract shows up in the post-credits scene, of course. 
• Past Movie Continuity: Selvig mentions that SHIELD 'disappeared' a pioneer in Gamma radiation, most likely referring to Bruce Banner. Coulson and Sitwell briefly consider that the Destroyer is "one of Stark's".
• Movie Superhero Codenames: Considering that everyone in the Thor side of the Marvel universe doesn't actually use codenames... yeah. Hawkeye just gets referred to as 'Barton' for his short scene, though. 
• Favourite Action Scene: None of the scenes in this movie is super memorable, but the one that pops to mind is Thor and his buddies rampaging in Jotunheim. Mostly for that tracking shot of Mjolnir, as well as the Frost Beast chase as the camera swoops up and down the massive ice floe. 
• Funniest Line: A bit of a meme now, but "I like this drink -smashes glass- ANOTHER!" is funny. The pet shop scene and basically every line out of Darcy's mouth are pretty great, too. 
• Thor's human alter ego, Dr. Donald Blake, MD, is used as a disguise in the middle portion of the movie, handwaved as being Jane Foster's ex. 
• In addition to the Casket of Infinite Winters, Asgard's little trophy room also contains other artifacts from the comics, among them (as the Wiki tells me) the Warlock's Eye, the Life Tablet, the Orb of Agamotto, and, most famously, the Infinity Gauntlet. Which raises some questions on whether this easter egg is going to be relevant when Thanos actually becomes the big driving force for the franchise.