Movie Review: Thor

Sorry that last night's review was up late, I was actually out seeing another superhero movie with friends, I really love my school's one dollar movie night ("Bum a dollar. Catch a movie"). Actually, that was the whole reason why I didn't see that many movies in theaters this summer, I knew if I could wait a few months there was a good chance I could catch them at school with friends for a fraction of a price and for me superhero movies are ones that I have to see with friends, I just can't take them seriously enough when I'm by myself.

Thor

 Summary: Thor, god of thunder, is next in line for the throne in Asgard but his father Odin thinks, rightly, that he is too arrogant to make a good king. So he is exiled to Earth until he is deemed worthy to regain his powers all the while his brother Loki is maneuvering behind the scenes while he discovers his own problems.

The Good: The scene after the credits, while it's not important to the movie (it is important to the upcoming Avengers movie) was short but worth the wait, I found it more satisfying than the one at the end of Iron Man 2 (which ironically was the one foreshadowing Thor). I liked a lot of the side characters in this movie; Darcy was just a fun character in how she was never phased by any of the situations (also, anyone who tazes a god is good in my books) , Sif I was expecting to be the token female warrior (who isn't very competent and you wonder why they're there in the first place) but instead was very competent and even fought better than some of the guys in some scenes and the movie was actually very good in general at making all the warrior side characters seem capable and strong, just not as strong as the main characters of course. Heimdall, the gate keeper, was also an incredibly badass character and I just loved the one moment when all the S.H.E.I.L.D. men are completely unphased by everything going on around them, I just love little moments like that in movies and often much more so than the big dramatic ones.

The Bad: When I was first introduced to Norse mythology (in book form, not the Thor comics) Loki was usually protrayed either as a sympathetic character or at least a neutral one so naturally I get annoyed whenever he's made the villain of a story instead. I still don't quite get his motivation for it which made much of the plot feel very weak in the end. I also did not like Jane that much (she came off as a flat character to me) and found her romance with Thor a bit strange actually, I couldn't see any real reason for them to be interested in each other since Thor was also a flat character earlier on in the movie (which was expected however since this movie is his hero's journey). In short, I enjoyed the earlier half of the movie more than the later half which is odd for me but it was far from terrible.

The Audio: Honestly, aside from the nice touch with Thor using more old fashioned phrases I don't remember much about the audio aspect of this movie, I think I really need to start taking notes on these things since the music from movies just never seems to stick with me.

The Visuals: Even if the idea of a bridge made of rainbows joining the worlds is a bit silly, essentially everything in this movie looked good. There were points when I thought the rain during the fight in the rain scene look odd (probably because artificial rain lacks the variety that nature gives real rain) but other than that everything looked fine, even if it wasn't completely perfect, although I suspect the CGI will probably look dated in five or so years. 


So, a movie that was worth spending a dollar on especially since I got to see it with friends (whom I've already made plans with to see Captain America when it gets to my school sometime in November) and it was fun to see one of the people working the movie have to run down the auditorium, jump on stage and run behind the curtains to turn the lights back off for the after credits scene.