Director:
Kenneth Branagh
Starring:
Chris Hemsworth
Anthony Hopkins
Natalie Portman
Tom Hiddleston
Stellan Skarsgård
Kat Dennings
Idris Elba
Clark Gregg
Plot:
The powerful, but arrogant god Thor, is cast out of Asgard to live amongst humans in Midgard (Earth), where he soon becomes one of their finest defenders.
Review:
Thor, Chris Hemsworth, is a Norse god that’s hot headed and young, though, actually he’s not young in the grand scheme of things. Basically, he’s lived the life of privilege and hasn’t had to live through what it took to get there. He instigates a war because he can’t see the bigger picture and is punished for it.
Jane, Natalie Portman, is a scientist that believes she’s on the verge of discovering something amazing to do with wormholes. She ends up hitting Thor with her van twice and they end up having a connection. I hesitate to say a romantic connection because there was very little romance here, just one scene where he explains to her about the rainbow bridge. It’s more like an animalistic lust that I can completely understand.
Loki, Tom Hiddleston, has experienced that same privilege but when faced with the opportunity to change he doubles down on the entitlement. He has always felt the competition between himself and Thor more (shit parenting there Oden, Anthony Hopkins) and when he finds out he was “adopted” it doesn’t help matters.
The brothers react in different ways to conflict. Thor is able to learn and see that there is more to life than the glory of battle, that there is collateral damage in conflict, and sometimes beating shit up isn’t the answer. Loki learns that Thor is still a better person than he is and it fucking sucks so he’s going to do all he can to hurt his brother.
I enjoyed this movie more than the previous ones for the gif reasons I posted above. It’s shallow, I know, I don’t care. Thor is a character I like because he does show growth, especially in this movie. He learns his lesson, he was hot headed before, but it came from a good place. He learned, he inspires loyalty in his friends, he cares, and he’s fucking hot.
My main complaint with the film actually came with the end credit scene. Why was Erik Selvig, Stellan Skarsgård, chosen instead of Jane? When Fury, Samuel L. Jackson, says that they’ve been impressed with his recent work, Erik replies that he’s just working with Jane’s theory. Why wasn’t she brought in then? It was her theory, she was a genius too. The fact that Loki was controlling Erik would have worked even better with Jane since he told Thor he was going to mess with her. Googling I found that Portman had a child in 2012 so they would have had to work around her pregnancy, but they do that shit all the time, and it’s not like the role was filled with action. It just feels like a missed opportunity and a slight to the character.
4/5
Dynamite Review 