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2011 may be considered the year that motion-picture Super Hero movies return - starting with The Green Hornet, Super, The Green Lantern,Captain America to The Avengers. We see a fair share of horrible ones in the past going from straight out corny to a horrid piece of trash. It's really hard to underestimate the risks that Marvel and DC is doing over these years whether it's spending millions to billions of dollars funding a comic book adaptation into a huge blockbuster motion picture to producing multiple ones within fews ahead of it. Now Thor is one of them produced into a blockbuster film with crowd-pleasing action sequences, glorifying visuals and CG to comedic and dramatic ties to it's script and performances.

From director Kenneth Branagh, it's hard to see such directors these days could enter a genre that he/she never done before and churned out something worth watching and surprising. Such cases are James Gunn with Super, Edgar Wright with Scott Pilgrim, Peter Jackson with theLord of the Rings to this acclaimed director who would of thought a Shakespearian director with such hits as Hamlet and Henry V could create a comic adaptation epic film. 

Much of a surprise that Chris Hemsworth portrays Thor in this film - his performance, while it may be fool-hardly to me in his previous film,Star-Trek directed by J.J Abrams with his glaring charm and handsome to all the squeakily fans, had to become the size of a wrestler with his jaw-dropping physique in this film. It was much of a surprise for me that with all the arrogance, warmongering and charm, Hemsworth could easily pull off as a Thor throughout the movie despite feeling disdain for the actor, you could not help but like the character.

Hemsworth plays an arrogant, warmongering and confident "soon-to-be" king of the Nine realms in Asgard, Thor whose father, Odin (Anthony Hopkins) almost grant him to become his predecessor of the throne and the protector of the Nine realms but disaster struck as Frost Giants got into the vault where Odin had kept the secret power of the frost giants and reclaim it though failed as Odin activated his golem to destroy them. This sparks Thor and his band of friends to arrogantly enter the frost giant planet/realm to destroy them once and for all but Odin forbids him to do so. The confident Thor refuses his father's permission and him and his friends and his brother, Loki to venture forth to the Frost Realm. As they encountered the frost giants, things didn't go so well as after all the "killing spree" in the planet, Odin suddenly appears to bring them back to Asgard where he stripped Thor of his power, his great hammer, Mjolnir whose Odin "will choose this hammer worthy of using it" and had banished him into Earth. 

Thor is now banished to Earth where a group of astronomers/scientists, Jane (Natalie Portman) , Darcy (Kat Dennings)  and Erik (Stellan Skarsgard) discover him after "accidentally" hitting him with their truck and getting tased by Darcy and had him transfered to a hospital. As Thor is not familiar with Earth, it goes on a clichè of "super-hero/person from another realm" not applying towards a foreign customs and hilarity ensues with his misadventures of being with the group of astronomers/scientists. And also Agents of Shield came into contact with Mjolnir and Thor - first with conflict and then being allied against a deadly foe. 

But all things are revealed that Loki (Tom Hiddleston) is undermining this whole plan all along as he is jealous of Thor and wanted to reclaim the throne himself and did whatever means possible to get Thor stripped by Odin to cast him away to Earth as well as having promise the Frost Giants to enter Asgard with his will and Gatekeeper Heimdall (Idris Elba) whose reluctant to submit to Loki's will as king. The group of friends also is reluctant to Loki as they venture to Earth to warn Thor about his father's condition and to help them with Loki. 

A comic-book adaptation could never go wrong with exciting action sequences as it is brimmed with many. With Hemsworth being buffed as he is, he seriously kick some ass as Thor. From hand-to hand combat with the agents of SHIELD to a magnificent eye-popping visual of one many intense and jaw-dropping scenes when Thor reclaimed his hammer with the fury of lighting, projectile throwing to endlessly bashing with feats of strengths against the frost giants to his confrontation with Loki. It's just a endless amount of intensity and destruction coming out through Mjolnir. Though the main fault is that we don't see much of the action besides Thor and his band of friends as the battles sequence with the frost giants are only aware at the beginning. 

The visual and CG however compliments the favoured action sequences; it's just remarkable how CG looks these days and the moments you lay eyes on Asgard - it's just breathtaking with glorifying and amazing visual art that is pulled into crafting this movie. Although, the fact that it's CG and the actor/actresses had to perform in a green screen and easily seeing that they are in a green screen, sways from the epic and intense action and vibrant visuals. It's these things that was implemented greatly through the pure richness and hefty budget to produce one of the most colourful, lively and magnificent piece of work that was created in seeing Asgard, The Rainbow Bridge to the destruction harness from the action sequences that Thor encounter. However much of these types of visuals remind me of Percy Jackson of a which is brimmed with mind-blowing visuals to epic proportions. 

 

While visual CG and intense action fills up the adventures of Thor on Earth, Thor gets on his "soft side" with Jane Foster who has taken into liking Thor (as well as Darcy who swoons at his physique). Firstly interested in Thor and background but later had some "not-so" intimate scenes sitting in a fire place. The fault in there is that Thor while it may contain breathtaking visuals and action scenes, also had some romantic ties within it and the script didn't mind to slipped it in - the result is cutting it loose. As a comic adaptation may be, the script (re) written by a number of people plus Stan Lee created much of Thor's character, Odin, Loki, Frost Giants, Heimdall to agents of SHIELD. But the huge problem is that it left out the other characters to even to be a character, even with Jane, Darcy and Erik as the duration of the film didn't match time for them - what worse is Sif (Jaimie Alexander), Volstagg (Ray Stevenson), Hogun (Tadanobu Asano) and Fandral (Joshua Dallas) as well as the Queen to Odin, Frigga (Rene Russo) is left out poorly sketched with a loose narrative and had left those who's unknown to the source material, confused. 

Luckily, the source material didn't hindered much aside from the characters, the film took lengths to educate the audience whose not familiar to the comic books, having in-depth history at the starting with Odin and his army defeating the Frost Giants from invading Earth and the Nine Realms and completely removing its source of power. The film does well also do go into detail, while not elaborating further as other adaptations (whether games or comics) plague to do so. 

The casting did to this film is a surprising one, it first starts off with Hemsworth whom I often said in times that he's not much of a great actor, redeemed himself with sheer physique and a likable character to be proven as Thor. He's really a likable character from the moment he landed on Earth, as the audience that I watched with, it proves that his charming remarks towards a custom that he is unknown to is considered to be hilarious from films like Enchanted to Percy Jackson. Anthony Hopkins whose also proven to be picked in roles he shouldn't have (The Rite) has a natural fit as Odin with his tremendous voice portraying his character. Though it is fool hardly that he doesn't appear much after Thor's banishment, receiving a "heart-attack" and having shots panned around his comatose body and also a scene where it turns from epic to a cliche scene that we always see. Portman however as she came out from an academy-award winning film, Black Swan did a multiple of movies afterwards starting with "Just Go With it", "Your Highness" and "The Other Women" portrays flustered scientist with Darcy played by Kat Denning, her perky assistant as they just look like they want Thor in bed with them. Loki played by Tom Hiddleton however, did not part with a cackling and smart villain, he is in the comic books but as professional "lier" to undermine Thor and become the King - works well only if Hiddleton didn't look short of a jackass. Idris Elba however, as his portrayal of Heimdall swaying from his real appearance being white in exchange of having "someone" to be black to compensate how less black people in this film works well as having a thunderous voice as the Gatekeeper and he seems likable to me as well. 

     He's like Alfred Hitchcock of Marvel films.

It's unbelievable that directors these days could do something out of the ordinary and produce something worth watching. Director Kenneth Branagh whose known for his Shakespearian films crafts a comic-book adaptation into a high budgeted blockbuster that is a crowd-pleaser with it's eye-popping visuals and action-oriented scenes to it's script of Thor being in circumstances when he landed on Earth was roared with laugher amongst the audience. As a Marvel film may be, Stan Lee also make a cameo as he did bunch of times and like Iron Man, Samuel L Jackson reprises his role as Nick Fury and a sudden twist appears at the ending credits. While it plagues with a loose narrative with supporting characters and bit of the source material, Thor deviates from that and replaces much of the exciting sequences that Asgard has to offered leading up to The Avengers.