Two worlds. One hero.
Rating: 4/10
Running Time: 114 minutes
US Certificate: PG-13 UK Certificate: 12A
Thor naturally follows the path of a powerful but arrogant warrior named Thor (Hemsworth). When he angers Odin (Hopkins), the king of his fantastical realm of Asgard and Thor’s Daddy to boot, Thor gets banished to earth. Odin then falls ill and his other son Loki (Hiddleston) takes advantage and tries to take over himself and destroy the Argardian’s mortal enemies. Meanwhile, whilst on Earth, Thor falls in love with a beautiful scientist (Portman) and he is set the task of defending the world against Loki and undestructable monsters.
The thing about Thor is that it is incredibly cheesy. Granted the makers know that this is a cheesefest and are happy to play up to it but the line in the sand is crossed. The line in the sand is just a blur on the horizon. It ceases to count. Admittedly, there are a few actual funny lines but there are is more than a fair share of unintentionally hilarious bile – a Superman impression, the world’s heaviest baddie-suppressing hammer and a Viking God wearing guyliner to mention but a few. There are a hundred annoyances that separately would not make a big impression but when put together they just damage the end product massively.
Thor’s friends are a cringeworthily poor version of the Lord of the Rings’ fellowship and it doesn’t help that they’re basically a bunch of nasty boobs who just happen to have been cast as the ‘good’ side. Characterisation is not a strong point of Thor and this can be summed up by Loki who is a very confusing bad guy who never really makes up his mind if he’s just a guy who’s been wronged and wants revenge or an quintessentially bad guy with grand designs from the start. Either way, he has slicked back hair and a pasty complexion therefore is easy to spot as the bad apple from the offset. The inevitable relationship between Thor and Jane can be seen a mile off and is excruciatingly built up to with the aid of more cliched humour and a boxer shorts commercial.
It's Got: Cringeworthy humour, weirdness (not the good kind)
It Needs: Better characterisation, less predictability
Summary
Shows what happens when Mr. Shakespeare takes on Marvel comics. Ridiculous.