Scolding Reviews- Almighty Thor

Not even Steve Carrel wanted in anymore.

Allright. I'm ready. I'm ready Asylum! You hear me, bitch! I'm ready! Motherfucker, I own  Starquest: The Oddysey!  I can take your shit!

Bravado asides, this cash in films are notorious for preying on confused grandparents and ridiculous baffling moments, but what defines this particular one is it's complete lack of direction, motivation and a bare minimum of characterization you need to forget you aren't just watching people make money  off of Marvel's hype.

The film opens to...the dread demon Loki assaulting Asgard with his magic. Hmm...straight to the point are we?

Loki and his giant...monster Chihuahuas make a joke  of the defending forces. I'm not much of an  Aesir(or comic book equivalent)guy but aren't the people in Asgard like...tough?

Then we meet our Protagonist, Thor, who hath claimed his hair from the beast Owen Wilson, his Father Odin, who not only sports awesome tattoos they couldn't be bothered to cover, but with his white beard and trident like spear,  and lack of an eyepatch, reminds me much more  of Neptune, king of the Seas. We also meet Thor's brother, who's name I didn't catch, but who's only distinguishing feature is a Stallonian facial paralysis, and since I can't make fun of that, let's move on.

Here's some guys with facial paralysis I can make fun of for other reasons.

Thor gets word of this mass murder of everyone in his kingdom deal, and heads for the fates to divine what to do. Which...is okay I guess. I think the situation might have benefited from a more... direct approach.

We're gonna save the town...right after checking my horoscope.

The fates tell them how they're all screwed and should gear up for a nice old dying...or give Loki what he wants: The Hammer of Invincibility. Which...seeing Loki's attitude so far, I don't think giving it to him might make him more reasonable.  Odin and his elder son are game to getting their clocks cleaned, but Thor says he can change his own destiny.

So they run into battle and fight, like, one or two superdawgs before Loki shows himself to Odin. Loki is...sort of a guy. By which I mean he doesn't feel like an ominous figure who should be feared. He's just a guy, going "C'me on, man. I just need the Hammer of Invincibility for a couple of hours! I promised my wife I would be finished before he weekend."

"I'm good for it! Ask Charlie!"

So Odin fights Loki in a comically poorly edited fight. But when Odin gets the upper hand, Loki starts apparently teleporting around Odin. The cuts are so terrible  it gets hard to tell. So Loki tricks  Odin into killing his own son, and then he kills Odin with a fairly non-fatal looking blow.

How does a spear that was stuck on a guy end up like that?

Thor is unconvincingly distraught that his brother and father have been murdered as they so wanted, but then Loki finds him and kicks his ass too.  But a mysterious hooded Hispanic warrioress played by the bad girl from the first two Mummy movies saves him. Isn't there a low budget "boycott Almighty Thor website"?

 The two escape and we get to to know the woman's name is...Jar Sadsack? Yah Zapzap? Jarred Salsa? I'ma stick with that last one.

Con extra Fjorn!

So Thor is all "I should get out there and keel that Lo-Ki! and Salsa is all "Jis Tu Paguerful. Iu nid more treinin!". And then she kicks his ass just to demonstrate that he can't beat Loki.

Now, I guess they took the part of the Thor trailers in which he is impulsive and tried to take a similar route, but this Thor comes  off as a useless moron who needs constant babysitting so he doesn't die.  In one baffling sequence we learn Salsa knows to fight because she was trained by Valkyries whereas Thor learned to fight because he watched his brother fight. It's clear that Thor isn't really much of an actual warrior or hero or...anything.

After an extended sequence of escape-talk-escape, they get to earth, where we learn Salsa has apparently been living and has a hideout stocked with guns and stuff. And within less than a minute on  Midgard a stock mugging scene. Even as it's cut, you can tell they really wanted a cliched woman-getting-mugged, hero-stumbles-upon-it, hero stops mugging sequence.

This "Warrior from Magic Land ends in our world" movies...

So our heroes head for the Tree of Life, where the hammer of Invincibility was hidden. But first Thor needs to defeat a knight who defends it. Just...some knight. Guarding the Tree of Life. I guess I need to read some more runes to get it.

So Thor swordfights the guy and wins. And then everything goes slomo and it rains. As much as you can and should make fun of this movies effect's, this scene is sort of beautiful. But it's pretty pointless. Having seen the other Thor, a similar rain and slomo scene occurs when Thor discovers he can't use his powers and he's humbled. That's effective. Here he just beat the last boss.

So Thor gets the hammer of invincibility. and searches for Loki. As they stare at each other face to face Thor...draws his hammer. From his long coat. Here, tell me if this makes sense.

Yes, that looks about right.

In short, despite having an weapon with the term "invincibility" appended in the name, Thor is no match for Loki and needs to be saved by Jarred Salsa yet again. You know, in most fictions, when there is a race for an item that  would prove catastrophic in the wrong hands, the good guys acquiring it pretty much ends the action. Not here. Here the bad guy is still actively seeking the item and the good guys have no use for it.

Here, Loki is about to use the "Sword of unrequested urological check"

Thor wouldn't know it, as he insists and fights Loki a third time...and a fourth time. During the fourth battle, Thor manages to take the...Bone of Errol...from Loki. Loki claims that his bone is useless to him, and Thor says he's gonna destroy it. But Loki backflips on the issue and says the bone can be used to revive Odin, then pretends to die. Thor will later claim he saw him melt, but I saw nothing of the sort. Somebody forgot to add the effect?

In either case, Salsa again she steps in and saves him from an obvious trap. Tired of just trying to walk up to Thor, Loki summons up his mutadogs again with the second usage of  his prerecorded voice saying: "Come, my Friends".

I don't know. Think of the kinds of villains that have minions, and think of one of them that refers to them as "friends". Not like, singular "my friend", but as a collective. Darth Vader, Shredder, Dr Doom. No. Maybe Magneto, but then his minions have an ideal and this dogs, until deleted footage proves otherwise, don't.

They don't seem particularly interested in friendship, either.

So an...epic battle ensues. The now infamous scene of Thor running and Shooting an Uzi at Loki ensues as well. What's more, Loki use force pull, takes the gun from  Thor and shoots him to the ground.

Also, the effects guys fail to understand what a strong force would do to a truck.

Now, when I saw the trailer, I assumed this was part of Thor being depowered. But he's shooting with guns when in his other hand he has the Hammer of Invincibility! Come on! He's only used to shoot lightening at the air! What CAN the Hammer do?

Thor again almost loses to Loki when Salsa intervenes. They try to portal away but Salsa gets pulled away by Loki. He returns to find her dead and gives her the Hammer. But she was Loki in disguise.  So Loki crucifies Salsa and Thor and sends them to hell. Sorry...Hel. Aesir, got it.

So Thor is in Hel and he's crying and there's lava and Loki's plan to destroy everything ever is about to unfold. But he hears encouraging voice over and he..grabs a bunch of lava in a clear misunderstanding of what Lava is or does. He forges it into a polished Metal hammer with his fists, which is an even more ludicrous thing than the last one. And where does he find  wood for the handle in Hel? Why is his hammer polished and the old one look like it's a paleolithic weapon?

It all comes down to a climax where both Thor and Loki fight with their respective Hammers. Thor finally wins and kills Loki and cures the Tree of Life and stops the Ragnarok and all that stuff. Then he goes to the fates, who are very cross that he defied fate itself, and he breaks their weaving equipment.

He's the master of his own fate as long as people are willing to save him.

This movie is as directionless as they come. The villain has no real reason to do things, the hero is a singleminded dolt, and everyone else is monster fodder.  They weren't even trying, which is what Asylum  does. Not try.