Thor Blimey!

Who’s your favourite super hero? Batman? Superman? Spider-Man? Iron Man? Thor? Chances are you didn’t say Thor, no one really likes Thor, he’s boring, he dresses funny and talks like a dick. Marvel are running out of characters to put in their movies and subsequently they’ve had to make Thor.

Marvel like to think of themselves as mavericks when casting directors, and Kenneth Branagh initially appeared to be a strange choice, but a classical sort of hero needs a classical sort of director. Much of the film’s plot is to an extent Shakespearian and it’s here where Branagh succeeds, the lust for power that Thor and his brother Loki both share is the most gripping element of the story, and it’s a shame Thor ever sets foot on Earth.

When he does fall to Earth, he is met by Natalie Portman, Stellan Skarsgard, and Kat Dennings, and the inauguration of this gang makes for a strange pacing. The film constantly shifts between two settings, the plot is driven forward in Asgard only to be slowed down with Thor’s Earthbound coming of age. Shit is happening in Asgard and on Earth Stellan Skarsgard is helping a troubled young man like he’s still in Good Will Hunting.

There’s no doubt that Kat Dennings was cast to provide a little humour, but the comedy comes from the mere act of Thor speaking all olden days in modern America, and while this is far from high brow, I still ashamedly laughed. When Kat Denning’s INSANE dialogue about shit like a stolen ipod doesn’t make you laugh there really is no point of her being in the film at all. In fact the funniest part of the film, like all other Marvel films, is Stan Lee’s cameo.

It’s strange that between the two settings, Asgard looks the most realistic. We are sold this fantastic looking in-depth world, and then it’s juxtaposed with a tiny American desert town, which seems to have a pet shop and nothing else. When Thor’s mates turn up in their Asgardian clobber it looks ridiculous, and at this point Thor becomes very silly. To make matters worse when Thor inevitably comes of age, Natalie Portman utters the phrase “Oh…my…god” (do you get it? Because he’s a god LOLZ) in such a cheesy manner that she should give her Oscar back.

Perhaps the writers were getting bored because by the final scene, there were barely sentences between Thor and his daddy Odin, “You will make a wise king”, “you were a wise father”, “As will you be”, “yes”, “hmm”. By now I’ve become prepared to sit through ten minutes of credits to see a 30 second scene starring Samuel L. Jackson, but I’m starting to think it’s not worth it, no one else did, they all fucked off.

Without the pressure of setting up The Avengers, Thor might have been very different, what we got was a great film merged with a very silly one, and while it’s not a disappointment, it missed the opportunity to be the best Marvel film yet. There is only Captain America left to come before The Avengers graces our screens, and then it’s finally over…Apart from Iron Man 3, Thor 2, Captain America 2, and whatever the fuck they do with the Hulk.