[Analysis] Thor [Review]
Hello!
This time it’s the fourth film in the MCU, Thor!
*Note:
These are impressions and analysis written on the assumption the film has already been seen, so there are spoilers.
Thor
Related earlier posts here.
So, first up, the director of this one!
Any guesses?
It’s only Professor Gilderoy Lockhart from Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets!
Kenneth Branagh has serious standing as an actor as well. Out of the entire Harry Potter cast he has to be in the top five. The man is on another level.
His Hamlet, which he directed and starred in, is great too — give it a go, please do lol
Right, the film itself!
It opens with someone in a car running a man over.
Come on lol
The leading lady here is Natalie Portman!!!
Léon: The Professional was magnificent.
Once, mankind
accepted a simple truth
— that they were not alone in this universe.
They believed
that some worlds were home to their gods,
and that others were to be feared.
AD 965 — over in Japan that’s the Heian period.
So under the rules of the MCU, the Norse gods really do exist.
Asgard and Odin come straight out of that mythology.
The war with Jotunheim about a thousand years ago broke the Frost Giants, and peace came to the Nine Realms.
Incidentally, “realms” is a bit grand — “nine planets” is really the more accurate way to put it.
The film runs on three of them: Asgard, Midgard and Jotunheim.
Asgard is the world Thor and his family live on, Midgard is Earth, and Jotunheim is the ice planet.
And Odin is played by Anthony Hopkins!!!!
The great man himself, famous as Hannibal Lecter in The Silence of the Lambs!!
One of you will have to bear it.
Two small boys.
The blond one is Thor.
The dark-haired one is Loki.
A key scene — hearing the old story from their father is where they start to think of themselves as heirs to the throne.
Also, Odin being at least a thousand years old is wild lol
This lot really do live a long time.
Grown-up Thor is a hot-blooded one lol
A bit all muscle and no brain, though…
Loki, meanwhile, looks like the clever one ←
And Odin, watching Thor, looks stern about it.
And there’s more! Thor has four companions — look at the one on the far left!
That’s Tadanobu Asano!!
Amazing!!
This is Thor’s weapon, Mjolnir.
A hammer that can only be lifted by someone with a worthy soul, and it grants its owner lightning and flight.
Assassins from Jotunheim come to take back the Casket, the source of the Frost Giants’ power.
They’re stopped and killed by the Destroyer, a “weapon.”
Thor is furious about those assassins and argues for a declaration of war, but he’s turned down.
Odin says it’s because there’s a truce with Laufey, the king of Jotunheim.
Thor decides that’s a bit gutless and goes charging off anyway lol
Loki hears his brother out, but something about him is off.
He looks like he’s nudging Thor towards Jotunheim very smoothly indeed.
The acting here is superb.
Loki with that sly little smile lol
In the later films he comes across as a bit of a clown, but early Loki had this much menace about him lol
Asgard looks like a land of magic, but it’s actually a place where science has advanced ridiculously far.
So every piece of technology that looks like magic is science.
Doctor Strange touched on this a little too.
Magic being something like a program that meddles with the source code of this world, or words to that effect.
That sort of thing.
Heimdall.
Those golden magic eyes can see light years away, and it’s barely an exaggeration to say Asgard’s peace is down to him. Formidable.
He makes it to Jotunheim, gets pummelled, and ends up having to be bailed out by Odin — Thor still has plenty of growing to do.
And the traitor in this scene is painfully obvious lol
There he’s cast down as a mortal, and the story loops back round to the opening scene. Nicely built.
Human Thor getting taken down by a taser and the rest of it — loads of funny scenes here, great stuff lol
A question here
Odin whispers to Mjolnir. So is that whisper what makes the hammer liftable only by the worthy? Or was that built into it from the start?
Oh! That crater!!
Yes — that’s the final scene of Iron Man 2!!
This is where it all links up.
The Stan Lee cameo this time!
A bombshell.
Loki was Laufey’s son all along…
Nobody else on Asgard has noticed, so physically they can’t be all that different? He does seem to have the freezing power, mind (a bit of lore the series never uses again after this).
Love the acting here, the way Loki grinds Odin down psychologically.
Properly intense.
Meanwhile, Thor.
Stop taking photos for Facebook lol
Coulson again.
Right, he did say in Iron Man 2 that he was heading to New Mexico.
The acquaintance he mentions is Bruce Banner, better known as the Hulk.
Odin falls into the Odinsleep, so Loki takes the throne as regent.
His people go along with it reluctantly, but they’re starting to notice something’s not right.
Oh!
That shaven-headed agent, Jasper Sitwell, turns up in Captain America: The Winter Soldier!!
Hawkeye’s first appearance!
That locks him in for the team-up, so this is an exciting one!
Reaching for a bow instead of a gun is very him lol
He can’t pull it out.
Which maybe answers the question from earlier?
The rule that only the worthy can lift Mjolnir looks like it comes from Odin’s power.
Thor roars at the hammer — though maybe he’s really roaring at his father.
He’s getting more human by the minute.
His first real defeat.
Thor can’t hide how shaken he is by the Mjolnir business.
What are you even looking at lol
Father is dead.
Your banishment,
the threat of a war coming
— it was too much for him to bear.
You mustn’t blame yourself.
Ohhh, Loki is good.
It makes Thor accept that he can’t go back to Asgard, and it guts his morale and leaves him hollow at the same time.
Loki, master schemer.
And still he can’t lift Mjolnir.
Also, the humans apparently can’t see Loki.
A fake ID made out of a photo meant for Facebook lol
Rumbled in seconds.
But Coulson smells something odd and lets him run.
I was wrong.
About everything.
For the first time in my life,
I have no idea
what I’m supposed to do.
Anyone who’s ever going to find his way in this world
has to start by admitting he doesn’t know where the hell he is.
Mmm, this scene is lovely.
Coming from Erik Selvig, with a whole life behind him, the line carries real weight.
In the comics, Asgardians hold their age in place by eating the golden apples of Asgard, so Thor is probably around 26 or 27 — roughly what he looks like.
This exchange is where Thor starts to look up to Selvig.
Loki getting more and more wicked has a real Star Wars: Episode III — Revenge of the Sith quality to it. Love it.
Honestly, so cute.
Your ancestors called it “magic.”
You call it “science.”
I come from a place where they are one and the same thing.
Earth is still on its way there.
More on that in Doctor Strange.
Heimdall really getting into it made me laugh lol
Full-on fancy dress party lol
You could easily mistake it for Game of Thrones.
And Asano is Japanese, yet he gets called Jackie Chan lol
Plenty of punch in these individual shots.
Nobody dies, but Loki is strong.
Only works because it’s Coulson, who has history with Stark from Iron Man lol
Spotted a 7-Eleven.
Being able to turn its head all the way round is a smart bit of design, and the mechanism moves beautifully. Gave me chills.
Thor apologising to Loki here, something the old Thor could never have said, and then showing that self-sacrificing spirit by standing up to the Destroyer — and the hammer comes flying to him. So, so good.
There’s a Gurren Lagann kind of heat to it.
Jane is a bit forward lol
Thor kisses the back of her hand first, which tells you about the royal manners on him.
So I can prove to Father
that I am a worthy son.
As the one who saved his life,
who destroyed that race of monsters,
I’ll take the throne as a hero.
Loki isn’t happy about the gentler Thor.
And in that exchange with him,
Thor says he’s not who he used to be,
and Loki says: neither am I.
Both of them have changed.
I love this kind of setup.
Naruto does it, Kingdom Hearts does it.
Loki runs rings around him with every trick he has, then gets pinned in place when Thor just sets the hammer down on him lol
Odin saves them both from the blast at the very last second.
And Loki’s face at that moment…
Those eyes are so gentle.
Heartbreaking.
Loki survives somewhere else, of course, but that falling scene puts his farewell to his family and his fall to the dark side into one image. Hats off to the director.
The faint whiff of a Shakespeare play is surely the director’s own taste lol
All settled.
The rift with his father is gone too.
Selvig joins S.H.I.E.L.D. as a researcher.
And the Director himself turns up.
What on earth is that thing?
You find out in The Avengers.
Loki, pulling Selvig’s strings.
Great fun!!!
Will Thor, Odin and Loki ever patch things up…
Next time: Captain America: The First Avenger
