Thor

Thor is another film from the good people at Marvel and was released in preparation for The Avengers. Unsurprisingly, given that it is the first film in the Thor franchise, it introduces the character of Thor and gives us an idea of his purpose in the franchise, as well as giving us a bit of a teaser for The Avengers after the credits.

Thor is part of the Asgard people, an incredibly powerful race who are demi-Gods. His father is king and he is next in line for the throne. However, after an ill-advised trip to the home of the enemy, the Frost Giants, he risks bringing war to his people after many years of peace. He is subsequently banished to Earth where he tries to return in order to help defeat his brother who has plotted with the Frost Giants to kill the King.

Chris Hemsworth takes the hammer in hand in this film. For those of you who haven’t seen the film, or don’t get the reference, this means that he plays Thor. He does very well vocally, adopting a ‘Lord of the Rings-esque’ voice for his character that creates a sense of great power around him. Additionally he is very enjoyable to watch when Thor first arrives on Earth. These scenes are very well written and it is quite something that the writers haven’t made them too corny. The middle section of the film contains much of the humour that is characteristic of the Avengers’ prequels. Chris Hemsworth is very enjoyable to watch on screen and brings the character of Thor to life perfectly. He is very well cast in the role and I look forward to seeing more of him in the sequel to be released next year I think.

Natalie Portman also stars as the human lead, Jane Foster, who is investigating atmospheric disturbances and inadvertently comes across Thor. After hitting him with her van a couple of times she begins to help him and naturally falls in love with him. Natalie Portman doesn’t excel in this film, but she isn’t terrible. It’s an average performance in all honesty. Average doesn’t mean bad though, and I quite liked watching the relationship between Jane and Thor emerge. Although as ever, it was quite predictable, I was pleasantly surprised to see that the end of the film left the two apart from each other. Instead of a triumphant return scene at the end, when Thor is left cut off from Earth, it stays that way.

As with every Marvel film of late, the supporting cast is equally entertaining as the leading cast. Tom Hiddleston does very well as Loki, Thor’s brother who emerges as the chief villain of this film. He has quite a good look for a villain and is the character who evolves the most throughout the film. He starts off on an even keel to Thor and then through a series of events he becomes twisted and conspires with the Frost Giants. Kat Dennings is quite enjoyable to watch too. Obviously building on her experience of comedy work she plays quite a dry humourous character, not dissimilar to her role in 2 Broke Girls. I think she has a lot of potential and found her to be very amusing in Thor. Finally, Anthony Hopkins. It gets to a stage in an actor’s career where they have proved themselves as an incredible actor and start to be offered roles of ‘great king’ and stuff. Thor is a great example of this for Anthony Hopkins. He carries off the role of Odin very well, and seems to have an air of ‘Great King’ about him. It’s definitely not one of the best roles but he is quite good to watch nonetheless.

Finally I want to talk about the visual effects. All of the Marvel films of late can be characterised by amazing visual effects and Thor is no different. Most notable is the creation of Asgarth which is absolutely marvellous. Equally, the effects for the battle scenes are brilliant and really add to the impact of the film. Marvel studios can pride itself on the scale of the visual effects within their films and the Marvel franchise is resultantly, and deservedly one of the highest grossing franchises ever.

Overall, if you enjoy the other Marvel films such as Iron Man, The Avengers, Hulk and Captain America then you should love Thor too. It is very entertaining and engaging, and provides a bit more excitement and background to The Avengers. However, if you are not a fan of the comic book hero then it is probably one to avoid. I think you might quite like this film if you are interested in Norse mythology though because of the portrayal of several Norse Gods. A very good film all in all.

Iron Man 3

Having seen the first two Iron Man films and really enjoying them I was quite excited to see the third one when it was released. Sadly I had exams when it was first released and so I had to wait until last Tuesday to go and see it. I was looking forward to it, and once again, it didn't disappoint. Too much. There were good things and bad things about Iron Man 3 and all-in-all I think it balanced out to be a fairly good film.

On the positive side, Robert Downey Jr. is still the same eclectic and charismatic Tony Stark that made both Iron Man and Iron Man 2, as well as The Avengers, so very enjoyable. His unique character makes him immensely likable, when really he shouldn't be. However, his attitude in this film was a bit too controversial for me. There was one moment when he told the kid in the film not to be a ‘pussy’ because his dad left home. I thought that this was too far. Apart from that though he was still at his funny and quirky best. I thought it was fantastic to see some worries and vulnerabilities creeping in as well. After what he saw and did in New York, anyone would struggle and so it was good that he was visibly affected by his experiences in a way that doesn't normally get shown in such films.

It was also good to see some level of continuity with The Avengers. There were obvious references back to the 2012 film and this made the whole Marvel series feel a lot more inclusive. Before The Avengers the five prequels were completely stand-alone around four characters, and there was a risk that afterwards they would return to being stand-alone films. I was quite pleased that they did incorporate some aspects of the last film into this one. I also really liked the post-credit scene with Mark Ruffalo (I wonder how many of you will have stayed behind to watch that one).

The final positive point that I want to raise was how original most of the story felt. I am led to believe that it was based on one of the Iron Man comic books, but it was presented in a very refreshing way. The story also didn't seem to follow the same pattern as the first two Iron Man films where there was a bad guy who wrecks havoc and then the superhero swoops in and stops him. Here it unfolded and was slowly revealed, and this made for a much more enjoyable experience compared to Iron Man 2 at least. The visual effects were excellent as well, as a small side note. The scale of this Iron Man was much greater than the first two and the budget obviously reflects the success of the other three films involving this character. The climax scene of the film was immense and absolutely gripped me, largely due to the scale of the special effects.

However, there were in my eyes a couple of drawbacks with Iron Man 3. Firstly, despite being relatively fresh and original, there were a couple of clichéd moments too. Tony Stark giving his home address to a known terrorist was beyond stupid, and so everything that followed from there slightly reduced my sympathy for him. I found the scenario that he found himself in for the majority of the middle of the film a bit clichéd too. I mean how many times before have we seen the superhero abandoned on his own in the middle of nowhere having lost everything? However, I did that making this part of the storyline softened the cliché. Another problem I had (spoilers) was that when Pepper fell from the crane thingy we were obviously meant to be rocked by her death. I mean no-one could survive that could they? However the guys I saw this with were all in complete agreement that they were certain she was fine. While I didn’t want them to kill off Gwyneth Paltrow’s character, I did think that this bit was weak.

The only other bad thing I have to say about the film relates to Ben Kingsley’s character. Ben Kingsley was absolutely brilliant as the terrorist The Mandarin (or Trevor), and was not only ferociously intimidating and genuinely sinister at times, but also brilliantly zany and quite funny when his character was revealed. He has a certain manner about him that makes each role completely different from any other Ben Kingsley role. However I did think that his character could have been so much more. He played the terrorist threat throughout the film but (spoilers) this was revealed to be a false ruse set up by Aldrich Killian (Guy Pearce) in order to provide a target for the backlash against his schemes. Yet I always felt that his character never really fulfilled the potential that he had. I guess it is quite difficult to see how, but maybe the threat his character posed could have been greater. In the comic books I think The Mandarin is the archenemy of Iron Man, whereas here he is presented as a bit of a joke. This is a shame, and presumably has annoyed a large number of Iron Man fans, and this is the main thing that I felt could have been better about Iron Man 3.

Before I end this review I just want to mention quickly how good Guy Pearce was. His character seemed to pose a genuinely unstoppable force to Tony Stark and was much better than the previous two villains Iron Man has defeated. His character seemed permanently angry, and this was something that Guy Pearce managed very well. I can’t for the life of me work out what it is about Tony Stark that seems to really annoy some people to the extent that they try to destroy and dominate the world (sarcasm of course).

Iron Man 3 is not the film to watch if you want to be introduced to the franchise, but if you have seen the last two Iron Man films then it is worth a watch. Having seen The Avengers is not a prerequisite either, as much of the continuity isn’t critical for the plot. I did really enjoy Iron Man 3 – it kept me gripped and entertained for a while, and I didn’t fall asleep in the comfy chair I watched it in (which after the long day I had on Tuesday was quite a surprise).