Thor, the dark world and the lousy story

One of the films regarded as the worst of the MCU and rightly so, it's pretty damn bad, for everyone, but Loki, although we do get a bit more of Thor's friends in Asgard like Sif and the Warriors Three.

The writers could have found a better way to address Thor's love and the transfer of the reality "stone".

Kenneth Branagh should have been left in charge of the world of Thor, he just understands the classics.

This film just feels uncomfortable from moment one to the end.  The over use of humor is really obvious and just makes it worse.  There is no real focus to the film at all, it's just handling a few points to move them on for the rest of the MCU.

Then there is the subtitling for the elves speech is just annoying for this kind of film, it's not a historical epic, it's a super hero film.  I'm guessing that Branagh left because he wanted to bring the script back to something more sane.

With a weak villain and a very weak script, the forced humor only adds to how bad it all is, and Marvel would foolishly up the "humor" in Thor's other adventures, taking away from the core of the character.

One of the better parts of the film, is the connection between Thor's mother Frigga, and Jane Foster, we should have gotten more of them together, but she gives her life to protect Foster.  Killing off Frigga was a huge mistake for all of it, especially for such and insanely weak story.  The short interactions between Russo and Hopkins were very good.  "It's only because I worry over you, that you have survived this long." great stuff.

Thor enlists the aid of his half-brother Loki to help him against the dark elves and Loki sacrifices himself in the battle (or so we think), and in the end Thor tells his father of Loki's sacrifice, only for us to find out that Loki is alive and has replaced Odin.  If this story had been told from the perspective of Loki, it would have been far better.

I consider, Howard The Duck, to be of greater value to the overall Marvel Universe than I do this sad film, Iron Man 3 might have been bad, but it's still worlds above this one.  Sad that I had to review two of the worst in a row, but that's how Marvel set the timeline. 

Next up : SHIELD and the Winter Soldier ... yes, you read that correctly... 

 

MRM: The band is finally together, The Avengers

The buildup of the MCU Phase 1 came to a head in this groundbreaking film, that brought these heroes together to fight against the invading army of ... Loki, well sort of.

In the very first scene we learn that the villain isn't really the main villain, just someone doing his bidding.

Nick Fury shows up at SHIELD HQ to find the teseract has been "misbehaving" as we're reintroduced to Dr Selvig (from Thor) and Hawkeye  who points out that the teseract is a door and that doors open from both directions, which it quickly does, and Loki starts blowing things up, as well as taking Selvig and Hawkeye as his "personal flying monkeys"... no worries, Cap gets the reference.... or does later... 

One of the more important scenes that a lot of people might overlook is when Nick is speaking to the "shodowy committee" and we see that they are just bureaucrats and don't really get what should/needs to be done, but still people in a position of power that can cause problems.

The recruitment scenes are good, get the job done, but (other than Nat & Banner) really don't have a lot of emotion.  Bringing Cap & Banner onto the Carrier is good stuff, seeing Cap have to pay off his $10 bet with Fury is great bit between "old soldiers".

Thor is drawn in just in his search for Loki, but they make up for that in an really well written scene between Thor and Coulson on the Helicarrier.  Helmsworth should have been on an episode or two of, Agents of SHIELD, maybe a two parter with he and Coulson working, just the two of them, good matchup of characters.

Arguably the best scene in the film is the confrontation scene in the Helicarriers lab, when Loki's influence is affecting all of them, and stirring the pot.

"The world is filling up with people who can't be matched." is one of the phrases that Nick uses to justify more movies about hero's that are already there before The Avengers.  Who else is Nick talking about?  This is probably the biggest hole that they never really address.

This is also when we get that great scene between Cap & Stark when Cap challenges, "Big man in a suit of armor, take that off, what are you?"  But also in that scene, Stark shows his latent hate for Cap by calling him "you're a laboratory experiment Rogers, everything special about you came out of a bottle." which anyone knows, that's really the least of Cap, but they put it in to pump up the Star character and tone down Cap.  The scene didn't achieve what it should but did some of what they wanted, even if it was bad for the story.

The scene is interrupted by Hawkeye's attack on the Helicarrier.  Banner and Romanov fall to a lower level where Banner does his "party trick" and the Hulk is loose on the carrier, just as Loki wanted.  The ensuing battle on board splits the team up with Hulk and Thor knocked off but Hawkeye is brought back with a little smack to the coconut.

This also leads to the tragic loss of Agent Phil Coulson (yeah, I know 😉) as Loki stabs him in the back.  Fury uses the incident to motivate the team, and while in deep thought over what happened, Stark gets a revelation... "son of a b*tch", and he knows where Loki is heading.

Another great scene is the dialogue between Loki & Stark, sorry Tony, the threatening... it's a scene where we see Stark playing with Loki's emotions about Thor and then a final line about Coulson.  But in here we also get to see the real Iron Man, the nuts & bolts Iron Man instead of that nanotech nonsense.

The battle in New York is outrageous and a great climax for this phase of the MCU, but we see another issue when Cap lands on a police car and tells some police what he needs, the officer looks at him and says, "why should I take orders from you?".... IT'S CAPTAIN FREAKIN' AMERICA... so we have to see him smash some aliens for one minor laugh in the script, not a cool thing.

During the battle, here comes the shadowy committee again, bureaucrats making fool decisions for a fight they aren't part of and don't get, and Nick trying to tell them how foolish they are.  We see them again at the end of the film, where Nick pretty much brushes them off, too bad he couldn't do that earlier.  We get hints at this committee but overall in the MCU, they really never make a difference either way from here out.  One has to wonder, how many were on our side and how many were Hydra.  Looking back now, that committee seems like it was pretty useless in the MCU.

An end credit scene finally shows us Thanos, which was pretty cool but it was a bit obvious to begin with, studios let too much slip out before films are released, or many put the whole story into their trailers, not great filmmaking. 

In the end, Nick's plan worked, but was it by design or did he get lucky with the Avengers?  Did they get along because they could or because they had to?  We see some of that answer in a great, and simple, post credit scene of the crew having schwarma (I don't know what it is, but I wanna try it).

The film gets 🌟🌟🌟 and a half stars out of five, it was great to see the team together, the fight is good, but overall the film doesn't hit as hard as it could have.

 

MRM : Thor, the best of Phase 1 MCU

 

The coming-of-age story of a petulant boy who is headstrong, proud, vain, arrogant, petty, foolish, greedy and likes to start fights so that people will sing the songs of his victories… that old chestnut…

Did I mention this coming-of-age story is really about a man from another world?  Did I mention this world is seen as Asgard, the fabled dream world of the gods of the Norse? 

Did I mention that the boy isn’t really a boy, he’s a man, nearly 1,500 years old, with god like strength and a hammer that could take down a skyscraper?  Did I forget to mention it’s the legendary God of Thunder, Thor?  But still, a coming-of-age film about a young man who needs to be what it’s like to sacrifice for others.

It’s got a great supporting cast, from two worlds, to help Thor become the man he’s supposed to be.

Odin is just plain fed-up with Thor’s pompous behavior, if he’s not bragging about his “victories in war”, even if it was just a fight that he picked, or he’s whining about how he knows better and should be making more decisions for Asgard and more.  So, before he goes into the Odin-sleep, he banishes Thor and takes his hammer so that it must be earned, wielded by a man worthy of it’s “power”, the power of Thor, and sends them both to Midgard (Earth), separately.

During a battle with the frost giants, Loki notices something strange about when he is touched by them, when he gets back to Asgard he questions Odin to his origins and learns the truth that he's not Odin's blood son.  During their argument, Odin slips into slumber.

As Thor is on earth, having to deal with life here, without his hammer and powers, Odin sleeps and Thor’s brother Loki, assumes part of the thrown, his dark heart wanting to take over Asgard for himself.  He acts like a complete pain in the @$$ for quite a while.

SHIELD comes in and takes "collects" all of the work of Jane Foster (Natalie Portman), and her associates, Darcy (Kat Dennings) & Professor Erik Selvig (Stellan Skarsgard) who becomes a major part of the Avengers saga.

I especially like the seen as Agent Phil Coulson watches Thor try to retrieve Mjolnir and fails, it's one of the most powerful scenes of the early MCU.

Selvig rescues Thor from SHIELD by claiming he's a physicist with mental problems, calling him Dr. Donald Blake (a reference to Thor's alter-ego in the comics).

In the meantime, Lady Sif (Jaimie Alexander) and the Warriors Three travel to Midgard (Earth) in search of their missing friend.  Loki visits Thor and tells him that Odin has died and that his mother has also banished him from his home.  Watching this scene it's hard to believe that he eventually turns to the good guys side.

Loki sends Odin's mighty Destroyer to finally finish off Thor and his friends so he can take complete control.

Eventually Thor is put to the ultimate test to save his new friends on earth, including his love, Jane Foster and has to sacrifice himself to save them, but in that, earning his place as God Of Thunder and the return of his hammer, Mjolnir.  It's an emotional scene and it moves you, it makes you believe. 

We find out later that this battle in a small town has a huge impact on others in the Marvel Universe, namely Nick Fury and SHIELD, it's what they use as an excuse to make weapons from the tesseract.

The post credit scene of Erik Selvig and Nick Fury is good and really leaves a good tease for Loki's return, but is still pretty small compared to many of the other post credits.

This film is easily the best telling and example of Thor, with Kenneth Branagh directing, it went the way it should, unlike later when they go for the small minded comedy.  This is how Thor should be depicted.

Overall the film gets 🌟🌟🌟🌟 and a half out of five.  Because it took you to the realm of the comic book, like Aquaman or Wonder Woman, it made it feel like a comic book hero come to life.  The balance of the scenes from Earth to Asgard is great, Branagh did an exceptional job.