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Thor

I liked it, though it wasn’t great as my fave Marvel productions of Spidey, Spidey 2 and Iron-Man.

This was a rare case where the movie was well made, well cast and overall went smoothly, yet still did not overwhelm. Also, considering this was the first and it needed to establish the characters and situations, I’m not sure much could have been changed. Nevertheless, there must be a reason why the box-office is a bit below expectations (I’m writing this two weeks after it opened).

Character

Thor was passive for most of Act II. After landing on earth and then failing to reclaim his hammer, he became a secondary figure without an objective. The focus turned to his brother, Loki, and the plot about their father. Now, Thor’s character-driven storyline in Act II was effective in creating a real, 3-D character I cared about, yet it was simultaneously a downer to see him on the sidelines. In a hero story the hero has to act, he has to have an objective and fight for it. Think of Iron-Man, Indiana Jones, John McClane, and all the good hero-action movies and you’ll see the constant that the hero’s storyline is plot-driven.

I think the solution would have been for Thor to have a simple objective, like taking longer to find his hammer and/or devising a plan to snatch it. Then all the character development would have rested on that stronger line and kept me more vested in him.

Structure/Plot

Too much time was spent on Asgard and Jötunheim. It was hard to relate to Thor in his make-believe world. They say all stories are either about an extraordinary person in an ordinary world or an ordinary person in an extraordinary world. Meaning, an extraordinary person in an extraordinary world is not so exciting.

Little things

- I’m not familiar with Norse mythology and don’t recall the movie explaining why Thor was the god of thunder or how the thunder aspect reflected on him.

- In Act II, it sure seemed like Thor’s father was on his death bed or in a coma. I didn’t understand how he magically recovered at the end.

- The sequence where Thor fought his way to the hammer was below par for the rest of the movie. All those guards had guns and not one fired a shot.

- I read about the Hawkeye cameo and am wondering- can it really be called a cameo when hardly anyone got it? He didn’t shoot an arrow and did the movie even mention the character’s name as Hawkeye?

- What was that Destroyer thing that came to earth at the end of Act II? (I only know the word “Destroyer” because I went and read a synopsis of the movie to figure it out.) It was so out of place with the rest of the characters and things established. Seemed obvious to me that a Frost Giant (sent by Loki) should have fought Thor.

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