First, let me just say I wish I had the time and skill to video mash-up Doctor Horrible talking about The Hammer with scenes from Thor. But I made you this picture instead.
Thor was simple action movie fun.
I had hoped for more substance, with Kenneth Branagh directing and the gravitas and richness of the Norse mythology (never mind what Marvel did with it), but since I wasn’t counting on it I wasn’t terribly disappointed.
The one thing I did not like about the movie however was the “love” story. The real emotional drama was between Thor, Loki, and Odin (and could have been more so with Sif), and with Thor’s emotional growth and transformation. The tacked-on love story was unnecessary, and not believable. I hate when characters in a movie supposedly fall completely and truly in love with each other after a couple of brief conversations that are about as deep and meaningful as interactions with an ATM machine.
I am not against the concept of love at first sight, and certainly Branagh has worked with such concepts before given how often it happens in Shakespeare, but short of an excuse to make Thor’s decision near the end of the film have some kind of supposed emotional weight, it was not really required for the plot to work, and weakened the story as far as I was concerned. And it made the ending just sort of fizzle out on a lame note. Not saying it couldn’t have worked, and made the ending more powerful, but I get the feeling they cut out some of the development of that relationship to make room for more sweeping special effects.
Which, by the way, were way cool. I’ve been to Asgard, and they did a remarkably decent job of rendering it.
