Thor
WARNING MAY CONTAIN SOME SPOILERS. Thor 2011, Duration: 1hr 55 minutes (Action, Super-hero, adventure) Dir: Kenneth Branagh Cast: Chris Hemsworth, Tom Hiddleston, Natalie Portman, Anthony Hopkins, Idris Elba Plot: The powerful, but very arrogant god of Thunder (Thor) is cast out of Asgard to Midgard (Earth) by his father, Odin to learn humility. Once there, he learns the errors of his ways and becomes one of our greatest defenders. What's right with it: Where to begin. Kenneth Branagh has done an amazing job bringing Thor to the big screen. There's so much subject matter with a comic book hero, but with Thor you have the added element of real world mythology. Which in the hands of a lesser director, may have been pushed aside in exchange for explosions and heavy CGI. Not so in this, everything has a right balance. The script and dialog is well done. it's very funny in parts and moving in others. It's snappy and moves the film along at such a pace that you're fully engrossed and really rooting for the characters on screen. The performances, especially from Hemsworth and Hiddleston throughout are sublime, their chemistry is electric. Both are legitimate stars. You kinda know award winners like Hopkins and Portman are gonna bring their a-game to something like this. It's nice to see everyone firing on all cylinders. Visually, the film is stunning. Asgard looks absolutely beautiful. You genuinely get the sense you are looking at another real world. Also, the subtle nods to the other Marvel films, which we're now so used to seeing are done without ever over emphasising that all of these films (phase 1) are working towards something bigger, namely The Avengers Assemble. What's wrong with it: Jane Foster's friend Darcy, was really annoying, I mean one "oh my god, he's so buff" joke is enough. But all the time, it's just ridiculous. The Loki-Frost Giant-Laufey backstory is a little glossed over quite quickly, which is shame, as I feel that there is a lot more there to tell. To summarise, Thor was fantastic. It was much better than I expected. Branagh manages to bridge the gap between Norse mythology, Marvel universe and real world perfectly. The dialog is great, the film looks STUNNING. My only regret was that it took me this long to watch it. Certainly up there with the best of Marvel's Phase 1.