The MCU Rewatch - Thor (2011)

With 3 bona fide box office hits behind them the MCU really decided to spread its wings a bit with Thor in 2011.

Marvel had never before attempted to film Thor, and it made sense. Until recently, no one could have made a fist of putting the Norse gods on film and making it look decent.

While I was a keen comic collector during my teens and into my twenties, I never really got into the Avengers or their individual books, so what I knew about Thor came from the dreadful 70’s cartoon shows that Marvel did. In that particular version of Thor, the thunder god had an Earth bound alter ego. He was a frail doctor, who discovered Mjolnir in a cave while on holiday in Norway. When he tapped his walking cane on the ground, it changed into Mjolnir and he became Thor. It was rather reminiscent of DC hero Captain Marvel, who by speaking the word Shazam turned from spindly teenage reporter Billy Batson to the powerfully built super hero Captain Marvel. In more recent versions of Thor he’s the thunder god all the time, and that’s also what the film version went with.

Casting was interesting. The company could now afford genuine A list talent, but for the title role they went with Australian actor Chris Hemsworth. At the time the role Hemsworth was best known for was a small part at the start of the recent Star Trek reboot where he played Kirk’s father. He was known to Aussie audiences for his role on long running soap opera Home & Away. Hemsworth had the looks, he was tall, well built, blonde and very good looking, but did he have the acting chops to carry the role off? He was surrounded by a fairly stellar cast. One thing that didn’t become apparent to audiences until later on, although it is present in this film, was his excellent comic timing.

The female lead of astronomer Jane Foster went to veteran actor, and Oscar winner Natalie Portman. Portman was no stranger to big fan roles, having played Princess Amidala in all 3 of the Star Wars prequels. She played Jane fairly straight, but she did have chemistry with Hemsworth, which helped.

Another veteran actor Stellan Skarsgaard (patriarch of the Skarsgaard acting family) was Jane’s mentor Erik Selvigg. I liked his portrayal, it was nicely understated, his character also bonded with Thor, he was the first one to work out that he was actually telling the truth, or at least he believed he was.

Jane’s team was rounded out by Kat Dennings, best known for her role on Two Broke Girls. Her character of slacker intern Darcy was largely used for comic relief.

The Asgardians had all sorts. Shakespearean actor Tom Hiddleston was Loki and put in a highly believable, nicely nuanced performance as the complex trickster god.

Sir Anthony Hopkins played Odin. This was a great get. Hopkins is arguably the greatest actor of his generation and can play anything.

Rene Russo was Odin’s wife and Thor’s mother Frigga. She was largely wasted, being required to look attractive and motherly and not much else.

The role of the loud and large warrior god Volstagg went to British actor Ray Stevenson, who had a name for playing big, tough guys.

The warrior goddess of Sif, who was a sort of love interest of Thor was Jaimie Alexander.

Heimdall was the highly respected fan favourite Idris Elba. He brought an impressive physical presence and a great voice to the role of Asgard’s blind gatekeeper.

Clark Gregg reprised his role as Phil Coulson for the 3^rd time. Samuel L. Jackson cameoed again as Nick Fury. Stan Lee’s cameo was this time as the owner of a truck, who ruined the vehicle by trying to drag Mjolnir out of a crater in the New Mexico desert. Another small role that probably went unnoticed at the time was Maximilian Hernandez as Agent Sitwell, he would become important later on.

Jeremy Renner also made his MCU debut as a bow wielding S.H.I.E.L.D agent called Barton. He would later become Avengers’ member Hawkeye.

Shakespearean actor Kenneth Branagh directed, and he did a very competent job. I suspect the rather correct speech of the Asgardians may have owed a bit to Branagh's direction and background. Thor himself loosens up a lot vocally after exposure to Tony Stark in The Avengers.

The story is just too complicated, constantly moving between Earth and Asgard for me to do a proper precis of it, so I’ll try and do it justice in a different way.

Thor was a game changer for the MCU. While the two Iron Man movies were fairly self contained, as was The Incredible Hulk, Thor hinted at a much wider ranging story.

A lot of the plot seemed to revolve around a large glowing blue cube that was supposed to be the heart of the Frost Giant’s world, but would soon become known to audiences as the Tesseract and was in fact one of the Infinity Stones, a story that is still being played out in the MCU.

The film took the story out of Earth and into another dimension.

With the introduction of Thor and Clint Barton the line up of the Avengers only needed one more member.

Chris Hemsworth took Thor on an interesting journey, turning from a selfish, arrogant, glory hunting brat into a brave man who thought about people other than himself and realised that he still had a lot of growing up to do.

The post credits sequence with the Tesseract, Selvigg and Loki lurking in the background set up The Avengers nicely and left audiences eager to fill in the missing piece of the puzzle that was Captain America.