movies: thor

It wasn't my original intention to see Thor in 3D, but it turned out that the 2D version was only playing very late or very early, so we didn't really have a choice.

Thankfully it didn't turn out to be a bad idea.

Overall Thor isn't a bad movie... it does fall very much into the "setting up the character" mould that superhero movies always seem to do on their first outing, and usually the character spends the majority of the movie not being the person from the poster/the comic book character.

And I know they have to set up what the rules are for the character, but sometimes I just wish they would say "too hell with it" and just dive straight into the fully former character.

The story really isn't anything we haven't seen before in different forms... main character is sent on a quest and learns whatever lesson needs to be learned just in time for the climax of the movie.

But, as they say, there really are only about four stories in the world and everything else is a variation of one of them. It's a journey we've been on many times but it didn't ever feel stale.

The cast was pretty good... I mean you really can't go wrong with getting Anthony Hopkins to do the opening narration for a movie, and getting him to star as a god is usually going to end well.

Chris Hemsworth is suitably blonde and buff to play the titular (no pun intended) role, and doesn't do too bad in the acting stakes, Natalie Portman is great as always and there are a number of supporting roles that are filled with actors I didn't necessarily recognise, but who put in quite strong performances.

But my favourite actor of the piece has to be Tom Hiddleston as Loki... because even with Chris running around momentarily shirtless and bulging incredibly spectacularly, I found Loki a lot more appealing... well, other than the fact that he was the villain. He had a certain magnetism though.

The movie looks beautiful, especially the Asgard sequences (which is only to be expected), and the 3D never felt laboured or obvious... in fact there were a couple of points where I had to check that everything was actually appearing in 3D because the effect was actually quite subtle and realistic.

I did notice a couple of times where there seemed to be too much distanced between one object and another (or specifically a character and a table), but I'm not sure if that's me or the cinema or just an optical illusion.

There were also a couple of nice moments tying this movie into all the other Marvel Universe movies which I enjoyed.

Overall while it wasn't a complete and total knockout, I think Kenneth Branagh handled the material quite well and the 3D made it all look great.

yani's rating: 3 Mjöllnir out of 5