158: Review - Thor (second-pass)

CAUTION: Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.




Thor (3D)
25 May 2011. Location: Cinema

You can read my original review for Thor over here. This was the first time this year I've actually been able to fit in a repeat-viewing at the cinema. I know, I know. They'll take my card away...
So I had to see it in 3D again, because the 2D showing only lasted for a week. That's no biggie, but I'll state again how pointless the 3D is in the movie. It adds little to nothing, and there are no real showpieces for it.

Things I noticed the second time round:

• What I really like about the film, is that we don't see the title-card until the end, after the first batch of credits. The film opens with the names of the cast on-screen, but that's about it. And it's not until the cast have been listed again in the closing that we get 'THOR' across the full screen. It's a stylistic touch, but I liked it.

• I could have sworn when we saw Mjolnir at the end of Iron Man 2, it was just lying in the crater - not embedded in the rock as it is in Thor? I can understand Marvel making adjustments from comic-to-screen, but their inter-movie continuity is getting pretty slack. I'm saying this now, as I'm watching X-Men: First Class in a few days, and I'm wondering what they're going to revise this time around…

• Star Wars comparison? As usual, I'll make something out of nothing and try to forge one... In Revenge of the Sith and Thor, Natalie Portman plays a regular human in a relationship with someone who has shoulder-length blond hair and superhuman powers. In both films, this protagonist can barely handle his own abilities, and these powers are what keeps the hero and his love-interest apart at the end (yeah, I know: Thor doesn't kill Jane). But at the end of both films, the powerful lead character has a scene standing beside his mentor, looking out towards a massive un-operational technological marvel. In RotS, it's Vader and Palpatine, observing the building of the Death Star; in Thor, it's Thor and Odin, looking out towards the destroyed Bifrost. Both characters are ready to 'start afresh' with their mentor, being very different to the way they were at the start of the film. It was just a thought, that's all.

• Dear people-who-make-films: When you put a hot chick in glasses, and expect the audience to believe she's all nerdy and not-at-all-hot? That doesn't work. Kat Dennings (Darcy) is a hottie, and no amount of glasses, ski-hats and shapeless clothes is going to change that.

I enjoyed the second-pass of Thor, but other than picking over potential easter eggs (Southwest Airlines flight 5434, anyone?), I didn't really get any more out of it. I see this as a sign that Branagh did a good enough job for me to grab it all the first time (although it could be argued that the film's simplicity doesn't stand up to repeat viewing).





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• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.

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