I'm giving it 3 1/2 *s. Not quite a "good" movie, but highly enjoyable, and better than I expected. Not surprisingly, the love story is thin and the special effects, though pretty, are also a bit hollow, a bit too glossy. And there's a whole lot of yelling as a stand in for acting. But it was also genuinely funny at times, especially thanks to Cat Dennings, and Hemsworth makes a charming hothead. It's probably a problem, but also not a huge surprise that I came out of the film more interested in Loki than in Thor: he's a better character, with more complexity built in, and Tom Hiddleston pulled off some nice moments at various places on the Loki-spectrum -- a classic Iago-like poisonous whisper and a couple of glimpses of the son in need of a hug stand out in particular.
All in all, a good time.
5 *s = "WOW!"
4 *s = "Good"
3 *s = "Stupid fun, decent, or at least not bad enough to get 2 *s"
2 *s = "Bad, but not awful, or enjoyable despite its awfulness"
1 * = "The best part was the end, because then it was over."
no *s = "*Deep, pain-filled sigh*...I will never get that [insert running time here] of my life back."
Unsurprisingly, I quite agree with your rating. :) There were a few things that I found so distracting that it almost took away from the movie for me: 1) As lovely as Hemsworth is to look at, the Aussie accent was a problem. No one else from Asgard had one; where did his come from? 2) Jeremy Renner was in the movie for about 30 seconds and I found his character more interesting than anyone else except for Loki. (As a sidebar to this, Ironman's Stark was practically a character even though he didn't make an actual appearance. That was probably for the best, RDjr would've overpowered everyone else.) and 3) For the caliber of actors and director, it was just awfully light-weight.
ReplyDeleteI guess, in the end, it ultimately felt like a part of the Marvel movie universe with all the appropriate nods and winks, just not an especially strong part.
I almost felt like they mentioned Stark in obvious ways to be like, "Hey - this is part of the same world as Iron Man! You like Iron Man, don't you? Like this, too!"
ReplyDeleteThe accent didn't really bother me, but I feel like it was really obvious that he was trying, unsuccessfully, to do a more generic "fancy talking" accent (you know, British-esque but not quite, to denote elevated, archaic, or formal speech). And you're totally right about it being lightweight. I appreciated that it was funny (I think it would have been dangerous to try to make Thor too serious), but it definitely felt more like Iron Man 2 than like Iron Man 1 -- the story didn't really have much substance.
Renner is quite charismatic, which came through even in that brief scene. Hemsworth was also charismatic, but with no real gravitas.