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Reply Subj: I hath seen it, by Odin's beard! Posted: Tue May 03, 2011 at 04:37:40 am EDT (Viewed 9 times) | |||||||
Quote: THE SPOILER-FREE BIT:Quote: The kids and I caught Thor 3D at the weekend. This is the first 3D movie I've seen at a cinema and I found the process somewhat distracting from my enjoyment of the movie. In some places it worked well, but for the main part it interfered with my engagement with the actual story. I'd have been much happier with Thor 2D.I also went to the 3D, which I normally wouldn't but I figure every other time I watch this film will be in 2D so why not? I found it didn't detract from my enjoyment but it didn't add that much either (though the scene of Thor's interrupted-coronation really gave the throne room a great sense of depth, I will admit). Quote: 3D aside, I had fun watching the movie. It was a great blockbuster and an enjoyable way to spend some time. It may be attacked as something of a mish-mash, with some loose plot ends and pacing flaws, and these are fair criticisms, but even if the sum of the parts didn't exceed the whole there were some pretty damn good parts in there. It's a worthy piece to rank alongside the Iron Man movies.I find that if you want to tear a movie to pieces you can, but then you don't enjoy it, and the whole point of going to a movie is to enjoy yourself! I even liked the second Fantastic Four film as a "turn of your brain and grab some popcorn" piece of fun. My buddy who is a huge Iron Man fan graciously said Thor was almost as good as Iron Man, to which I replied Iron Man was almost as good as Thor.  Quote: I actually felt Thor was about ten minutes too short, with a few of the combat/action scenes needing another act each to ramp up the threat an extra notch and to give Jane Foster a reason for being in the movie.Somebody had to repeatedly hit Thor with the car. Quote: Let's look at the detail, with some middling spoilers from here on...Quote: The good: Quote: Brannagh doesn't shy away from delivering the Lee/Kirby Asgard. It's a shiny Kirby realm eternal that looks spectacular. The main characters all look pretty good (Volstagg is a bit thin) and most are dressed in their Kirby or Simonson outfits. Even Thor's much-depreciated leather outfit manages to catch the intention of the original costume and works pretty well on screen.Yeah, I thought the costumes all looked great. Initially I feared for them when I saw the promos of Odin and Loki, but then remembered promotional stills don't have the same lighting as the film does, which makes all the difference. Agree on Volstagg, he was burly, not voluminous. Quote: The hammer makes wonderful metallic noises when it whomps things.Thor smash! Quote: There's a reasonable trade-off between Asgardian Shakespeare-speak and modern English. When the Asgardians get cross they tend to speak more "olde-worlde".I kind of wish Odin had spoken a little more "olde-worlde", as you put it. I felt Hemsworth nailed it but Hopkins didn't have the same weight to his words as I hoped he would. Minor quibble at best. Quote: SHIELD is presented quite ambiguously, with a meaty role for Agent Coulson. Special Agent Barton was a very pleasant surprise and his personality seemed spot on.I knew he was in it but I still got excited. My dream cast of Hawkeye would have been Chris Pine (Kirk in Star Trek) but I have no problem at all with Jeremy Renner in the role. Quote: Sif, Fandral, Hogun, and Volstagg are all well portrayed and each has a strong role in the first half of the movie. And there's a great line where a SHIELD observer warns that "Xena, Robin Hood, and Jackie Chan have just arrived". The initial mission featuring these four, Thor, and Loki does a great job of defining each of them.I liked seeing the band of friends together invade Jotunheim, and the Warriors Three actually had more of a role than I thought they would. I remarked when I first saw them than Fandral in particular looked spot on. Quote: Thor himself has a genuine story arc as he goes from being Flash Thompson to becoming a true hero. The moment where he finds he's not worthy to lift Mjolnir is a great dramatic turn and beautifully sets up the payoff where he can heft the hammer. The actor managed to carry off the quiet scenes as well as the heroic ones, demonstrating a real range.I thought his progression to becoming worthy was well done, and not forced as I feared it would be. Quote: The "map" of the Nine Realms is very well done.Agreed. Quote: The post-credits sequence offers a direct lead-in to the Avengers movie, reveals that Loki might be behind the formation of the team, and sets up a potential tie-in from the Captain America movie too. Another "Oh my!" ending.And Skarsgard did a great job as Eric Solveng (though it makes me sad that a character from Fraction's horrible first run is in the film) Quote: The bad:Quote: The movie shies away from baldly admitting that these guys are Norse gods, or that they live in a magical realm. If you want to believe that these are aliens who were mistaken for gods by Vikings and that their power comes from very advanced super-science you can do. It's one area where the script feels like it lost confidence in its ability to draw its audience along; which given it blatantly includes frost giants, the Casket of Ancient Winters etc.seems odd.I didn't really mind it, and since all of the Marvel films need to live in an Iron Man World, I can live with it. Quote: Balder is on holiday. No sign of him anywhere in this movie.Yeah, hopefully he shows up in the sequel. Quote: Jane Foster, a scientist interested in dimensional physics in this version, appears not to have anything other than a default superhero girlfriend personality. All the funny remarks and great play-off expressions go to her female friend. Jane not being a brave compassionate nurse/paramedic robs the character of one of the personality drivers that could explain Thor's attraction to her. And she's pretty much the only main character who doesn't have any contribution to make to solving the threat in the story.I actually wish Kat Denning's character hadn't of even been in the film, she got really annoying really quickly. I do wish they had kept Jane in the medical field, but I've learned to not let such changes bother me (she's been a nurse and doctor in the comics, a paramedic on AEMH and a Norse historian in The Mighty Avenger). And I could see other reasons why Thor was attracted to her (besides the gorgeousness of Natalie Portman of course); she was smart, independent, brave, etc. Quote: Sam Jackson didn't seem that excited about his 45-second screentime and seemed to phone in his Nick Fury. The impact of his appearance was lessened because we'd not seen him at all before the post-credits sequence to set him up.I was looking more at the Cube anyway. Quote: Somewhere in the plot meetings somebody accidentally edited out the bit that explains why Odin needs a snooze and why he might faint suddenly in the middle of a conversation with Loki. The essential two lines of exposition just aren't there.That's a good point, I missed that. Just like in Spider-Man 3 where they never actually called Venom by name, a mistake I didn't catch until my wife asked who Venom was after I mentioned him after we saw the film. Quote: The indifferent:Quote: It's great that Loki gets more motivation and more development than the average superhero movie villain. However, on a first viewing I was left uncertain about what was going on in Loki's mind at any given time; a natural featrure of Loki, you might say, but when it leaves me puzzled as to why he's doing what he's doing even after the film's ended it's not a good thing. I applaud offering Loki some depth, but I could have used a few more depth markers. Why did Loki decide to commit genocide on the frost giants including his true father?He wanted to gain Odin's approval by destroying Asgard's enemies utterly and ensuring the defense of Asgard; it's a flawed concept since Odin just wanted peace between them but I can see how Loki took the leap to simply annihilate them instead. Loki did seem to have the good of Asgard at heart in the film, in his own twisted way. Quote: The battle scenes were well done but the two big set-piece finale battles both felt too easy for Thor. When you put Thor up against the Destroyer it should require a supreme effort; this was just a tough fight. Thor didn't even rip his cloak. Then the last battle with Loki felt a little anticlimactic. They stand on the rainbow bridge and have a spear and hammer fight with some minor illusion trickery. I didn't feel it served the drama. Meanwhile, the ice giant invasion of Asgard and the bravery of the Warriors Three and Sif in, um, taking Heimdall to hospital, happened entirely offscreen. These fights needed to be better storyboarded with better pacing.I never expect Loki to defeat Thor in a hand-to-hand battle... I would have preferred after getting smacked around a bit that Loki had then inhabited the Destroyer Armor to battle Thor; it would bolster my theory that the Destroyer wasn't as powerful on Earth because there was no host inhabiting it and it would have made Loki a legitimate physical threat that could have taxed Thor to his limits. Quote: So, this movie's a strange beast, flawed by very watchable, different from other superhero fare but sometimes uncertain because of it, strong in many places but lacking in some key battles, excellent in offering character yet occasionally failing to convey motivation. I'd recommend seeing it. I'd watch it again myself. I'd really like to see Thor 2 learn from this start and put all these elements together again with those tiny tweaks to take it from good to great.I will definitely be getting this on DVD and watching it multiple times. I never thought I'd see a Thor movie in my lifetime, and I thought if I ever did it would suck royally. Never been so happy to be wrong. ~Hat~ | |||||||
