Friday, April 29, 2011

Mithter Evil Breakfatht'th Thor Review

All bow down to MIGHTY THOR!


It has been a while since I reviewed a movie on here – it’s actually been a long time since I decided to shell out some coin to see a flick at the cinema – but I can happily report that I was sober enough to see Thor last week.

Thor is the first ‘superhero’ movie to come out this year (by my hazy recollection), and will be closely followed by Captain America, The Green Lantern and a new X-Men film that’s set about 40 years before the first X-Men film. Then we’ll have the new Spiderman movie (which takes the place of the old Spiderman movies), a third Batman flick, another Superman film (taking the place of both the first and last Superman movies) and then The Avengers film, which combines the Iron Man, Hulk, Captain America and Thor movies into one gigantic roll of film.

Got it? Easy as fucking pie. Not literally fucking pie though. That would just be weird (and a waste of a pie… or is it?).

Even Thor himself would probably admit that he isn’t as well known as superheroes like Batman and Spiderman, but is slightly more recognisable than guys like Deadpool or Cable. So don’t feel too bad if you don’t know who Thor is down to the last hair on his pretty little face. Let’s just say that he’s the Norse God of Thunder who lives in a world called Asgard; otherwise it gets confusing and all the fanboys crack boners about inconsistencies and oversights from Issue #592 where he finds out he’s not a god and is actually an alien. It’s stupid, so let’s just say he’s a god.

Here’s the movie in a paragraph:
Thor adopts the policy of “a good offence is the best offence” and duly goes on the offensive against a race of other beings called the Frost Giants who threaten Asgard’s safety. It doesn’t quite go to plan, and everyone is angry when the peace treaty between the Giants and the peeps of Asgard is jeopardised. To teach Thor a lesson in humility, his dad (Odin) banishes him to Earth without his super strength or his super hammer, Mjollnir (and you learn how to actually pronounce it, which is nice. I still prefer my own way, which starts with “M” and ends with me mumbling into my hand while I cough). On Earth, Thor meets Natalie Portman, eats some eggs, learns a few lessons, goes out drinking… you know, much the same as anyone else’s weekend.

And it all goes pretty fucking well, in my most humble opinion (it’s not humble at all). Asgard looks cool, Earth looks the way I imagine it looks, and the performances are all very decent, which is the one thing I was slightly worried about from the trailers and nerdblogs that I had been haunting prior to the movie’s release.

Chris Hemsworth plays the titular character (I only wrote that so I could say “tit”), who people may remember as “that guy from Home and Away.” Apparently since leaving Summer Bay, he has been busy eating rice, chicken breast and small planets, as he seems to have become (and I quote) “the world’s largest individual.” I thought he did a good job as acting like the God of Thunder without coming off as a massive loser – probably better than I would have done – and actually gets to show a bit of emotion (the Mjollnir scene at SHIELD headquarters was a standout). Some of the dialogue is a bit tacky, but when you’re dealing with this kind of story, you get that. I also spent a lot of the movie thinking, “Fuck that guy looks like Lubers,” who is a bloke I went to school with. I never realised how attractive Lubers was (sorry Lubers).

There were also enough nods to the Marvel comics geeks out there (hello!) to keep them happy (although no real nerd is ever happy enough with anything to keep them off the forums for long), with the introduction of Hawkeye, mentions of Thor’s original alter-ego Donald Blake, the obligatory cameo from Stan Lee and a bigger role for the SHIELD crew who have been working for a couple of movies now to assemble the Avengers (some people will see what I did there).

As is everything in the year 2011, there’s a 3D version of Thor out there. I saw the movie in 2D, and I’m pretty sure I didn’t miss anything by seeing it with a missing dimension. 3D movies are all fucking stupid anyway, and they give me headaches. Plus, those glasses are expensive and I’m working on a budget here.

If I had to nitpick anything about the flick, I’d say that there probably needed to be a few more fight scenes, and maybe a bit more of Thor learning some Earthian shit; I mean, the guy has come from a place where everyone wears leather armour and ornamental helmets in their day-to-day, and suddenly he’s in a place with skinny jeans and mobile phones. But these are minor quibbles, and any movie that makes me speak like a Norse god with a slightly British accent for hours after I’ve left the cinema is never a bad thing.

This was a good movie. NEXT!





Pew pew pew!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Perhaps Lubbers is Thor's cousin or half-brother. Either way, I'm sorry too Lubbers, for not seeing how attractive you really were.