After an ancient battle between Odin/Anthony Hopkins father Bor/Tony Curran, and the Dark Elves led by Eccleston - Eccleston and a handful of Dark Elves escape into suspended animation.
In modern-day London, astrophysicist Doctor Natalie Portman discovers a place where objects disobey the laws of physics and disappear into thin air. Portman winds up being teleported to another world. When Thor/Hemsworth learns of her disappearance, he goes in search of Portman as the Asgards learn of the Convergence, the rare alignment of the Nine Realms with portals linking them all. Eccleston and the Dark Elves awaken from suspended animation and return to threaten Asgard and Earth through the Convergence portals. In desperate revenge Eccleston and the Dark Elves, Thor/Hemsworth seeks an alliance with his imprisoned traitorous brother Loki/Hiddleston.
I had mixed feelings about this movie. Actually, I had opposite feelings about this movie than for the first Thormovie. I liked the Earth scenes better than the Asgard scenes. The Earth scenes dealt with more interesting scenes, like scenes in London instead of scenes in the middle of nowhere in America, and the scenes that dealt with the warping of the laws of physics. The Asgard scenes were too human for me, more human street level, instead of using more godlike fantastical situations.
I liked the eventual meeting with Thor/Hemsworth and Natalie Portman, as well as the meeting with Portman and Loki/Hiddleston. Portman of course has issues with both Thor/Hemsworth and Loki/Hiddleston after what happened in The Avengers. Thor/Hemsworth also has to deal with the issues he has with both Portman and Loki/Hiddleston. I also liked the uneasy alliance between Thor/Hemsworth and Loki/Hiddleston. You are never sure when Loki/Hiddleston will betray Thor/Hemsworth. Their relationship was possible the most interesting one in the entire movie. Portman's relationship with Thor's/Hemsworth's parents Odin/Anthony Hopkins and Frigga/Rene Russo. While Odin/Hopkins did not think Portman worthy, Frigga/Russo had a motherly affection for Portman. Frigga/Russo also kicks ass if you mess with her, which I loved.
For Stan Lee fans, I think it is appropriate he is a patient in a mental ward. Chris Evans uncredited cameo was great.
As a by-product, the events of Thor - The Dark World will affect the events in TV's Marvel's Agents of SHIELD.
During the end credits - there is not one, but two scenes that are shown. Most people left after the first scene was shown. The first scene was more concerned with The Collector story - with an uncredited Benicio Del Toro as The Collector - which leads to Guardians of the Galaxy, so the people leaving after learning the story was okay. The next scene was a love story scene with Porter and Thor/Hemsworth.
Rated PG-13 for violence, nudity. Running time: 112 Minutes.
Based on the Marvel comic book, The Avengers - created by Stan Leeand Jack Kirby - the team of heroes that Jackson puts together consists of Captain America, Chris Evans, Iron Man, Robert Downey Jr., Thor, Chris Hemsworth, The Hulk, Mark Ruffalo, along with The Black Widow, Scarlett Johansson, and Hawkeye, Jeremy Renner. This team is a dysfunctional group of people - which eventually become Earth's Mightiest Heroes. The team was so dysfunctional, there was one scene where everyone yells at each other because of their hidden agendas. While this all may seem quite dramatic, and the movie is dramatic, this dysfunction of the team also leads to some funny moments.
With Captain America, Iron Man, Thor, and The Hulk having their own movies previously produced by Marvel leading up to the ultimate team adventure, of which The Avengers is, Marvel built up quite an audience which lead to The Avengers breaking the $200 million mark for an opening weekend and breaking $100 million in it's second weekend - thus setting a couple of new records. I saw the movie as the first showing on a Sunday afternoon the first weekend and the theater was pretty full. When the movie ended, there was a line for the next show when I got out.
While some of the previous Marvel movies were uneven, The Avengers is the ultimate comic book movie. The super hero battles utilized all of the heroes talents and powers, making the battles intense. All of the Avengers had their own little scenes, which gave them some characterization in the movie, allowing you to get to know all of them - although there was not as much characterization done with Renner's Hawkeye - but it was great to see Renner as the World's Greatest Marksman shoot all of his arrows, even if he was not referred as the World's Greatest Marksman but a master assasin.
Hiddleston as Thor's adopted brother Loki is the bad guy of the movie. Although, there were times that Hiddleston seemed to have just accepted things and had just let himself get captured - which made Hiddleston to me appear to be not as strong, or as evil as a super villain who wants to rule humanity as he should have been. Even though I knew Hiddleston had sinister intentions for doing that, I still felt a little wishy-washy about Hiddleston being the ultimate bad guy as a result. However, Hiddleston's interactions and intense battles with The Avengers makes up for Hiddleston being so wishy-washy. Loki's helmet was straight out of the comics and the helmet really made me believe that Hiddleston was the evil Loki when he wore it. With Hiddleston's helmet on, this was the evil Loki that I grew up with.
I was wondering how they were going to bring Hemsworth's Thor back to Earth - because at the end of the Thor movie, Hemsworth had left Earth. While Hemsworth's Thor did return to Earth in The Avengers, Thor's return was more of an incidental thing in The Avengers rather than his return being a significant plot point. Hemsworth's and Hiddleston's fraternal rivalry was great to see again, as their fraternal rivalary is the basis for Hiddleston's sinister motivation - as well as Hemsworth's sense of responsibility, because it is Hemsworth's brother that is causing all of this destruction.
Hiddleston's army from space was alluded to throughout the film, but it is only until the climax that you actually get to see his alien army. The climax is similar to the climax of the Transformer films and Green Lantern, but The Avengers climax is a much better climax as there are multiple threats in the movie and you can tell the bad guys and the good guys apart. Civilians and military are involved in the climax, and not just as victims. One of my favorite scenes in the climax is of a line of New York City police officers shooting up at some attacking airborne aliens in their defense as the aliens are strafing the police. Jackson's Nick Fury must deal with a scenario straight out of the movie Fail Safe. That scene shows how desperate the situation has turned into,although you have a fairly good idea of how it would turn out.
S.H.I.E.L.D.'sHelicarrier as their floating/flying aircraft carrier Headquarters was great, right out of the comic books. To see the Helicarrier take off and fly shows how large a craft it really is. The S.H.I.E.L.D. agents on board the Helicarrier were dressed in the uniforms just like what they wear in the comic books. While I believe there was a resolution for the tesseract, the resolution was not a big enough resolution for me to truely remember it. If the resolution scene is the scene that I think it is, I have to concentrate to remember that particular scene out of all the memorable scenes in the movie. For comic book fans, comic book creator Stan Lee's cameo appearance appears at the end of the movie - so you can concentrate on watching the movie instead of looking for Lee. Cameo appearances of characters from the other Marvel movies also appear in the movie, with the fate of one such character at stake.
With the Hulk being motion-captured from Ruffalo, this was the most believable to me computer graphic of the Hulk. It was still a computer graphic, but this computer graphic Hulk was much more believable as a character to me than other CGI Hulks. It is nice to know that Lou Ferrigno got to do the voice of the Hulk once again after playing the Hulk in various forms over the years since his TV show The Incredible Hulk several years ago.
I saw the movie in Dolby 3D. The film was shot in 2D and converted to 3D. This conversion was most obvious in the slow opening scenes, and was not very good 3D in the beginning, which made me wish that I did not pay for a 3D show - but the 3D did get better as the movie went on and I enjoyed the 3-D look of the movie.
At the end of the movie the audience applauded. There is a scene during the end credits that alludes to the Avengers sequel. While they did not mention the name, the makeup alludes to some known Marvel villains of whom I am looking forward to as they would make great villains - if they are the villains I am thinking of. At the very end of the end credits, there is a little intimate silent scene. Although, like the guy said behind me mentioned at the end - they should have said something during the scene. It was a great place for a joke.
Rated PG-13 for violence. Running time: 142 minutes.
In Paramount Pictures Thor, the Norse Asgardian god Thor, Chris Hemsworth, is stripped of his power by Odin the All-Father, Anthony Hopkins, for being too arrogant and is banished to Earth/Midguard. After hitting Hemsworth with her car, Natalie Portmantakes the strange Hemsworth home as she believes he is a key to her scientific weather research.
Based on Marvel Comics Thor, this film was much more interesting in the Asgard and other realms than while being on Earth. While Earth had all the jokes, with the main settings being in a desert and a small town, it was rather boring compared to the family dynamics between Odin, Thor, and his brother Loki, Tom Hiddleston. Not even S.H.I.E.L.D made up for a boring Earth as S.H.I.E.L.D was just portrayed as another secret government agency that takes over everything and nothing was really spectacular about it. The movie trailer made S.H.I.E.L.D seem much more sinister. Agent Clark Gregg mentioned that Thor made the S.H.I.E.L.D agents look like minimum wage mall cops which was easy to do as the agents did act like mall cops and not the elite special operations teams that they should have been. While back in Asgard, it was rather touching and sad to see a sweet young Loki turn into a bitter man jealous of his beloved brother Thor. This was a better telling of betrayal than Anakin Skywalker becoming Darth Vader. With director Kenneth Branagh'sShakespearean roots, this definitely helped the story which is basically a retelling of Shakespeare's Henry V.
The frost giants were much more agile than what I imagined from the comic books, so the battles between them and the Asgardians were more intense than what I expected. And it is the invasion of the frost giants during his coronation that causes Thor to be arrogant in the first place as he wants to insure the safety of Asgard by invading the frost giants realm with the Warriors Three.
As Queen Frigga, Thor's mother, Rene Russowas an unexpected addition to the movie as I recall no publicity concerning her being a part of the film. Actually I did not recognize her until I read the end credits, although I knew that she had looked familiar when I saw her. There is also a bowman amongst the S.H.I.E.L.D agents Jeremy Rennerwho is uncredited as the character Hawkeye.
In the spirit of Asgard and the other realms, the credits were rather cosmic. There is also a scene after the end credits which goes more into Samuel L. Jackson and S.H.I.E.L.D which, when combined with all the references in the movie, lead to possible sequels like The Avengers.
The band Foo Fighters song "Walk" is also in the film because the filmmakers thought its lyrics were strangely appropriate for the film.
Rated PG-13 for violence. Running time: 115 minutes.
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