Almighty Thor

Lately, the SyFy network has been in cahoots with making "Mockbusters," films that rip off big budget films that are still in the theater. Last night, being that Thor is a character from mythology, there was no force on earth to stop SyFy from putting out "Almighty Thor" to squeeze out an extra nelson share or two.

So the plot is Thor has to find his hammer and hammer his evil brother Loki. He comes to earth and is helped by a beautiful maid. Loki is helped by huge CGI monsters. That's the plot, enjoy.

The good news is actually for once the CGI was not complete suckage. Mostly they take the form of Loki's three giant wolf/jackal things with tattoos. The design is actually striking and the are well intergrated.

Now for the bad news....

The script was pure blah. blah blah blah, walk walk walk, glower glower glower, blah blah blah. It's like if an Adult from Peanuts would have written a script. Part of the problem is that Thor is basically powerless throughout most of the film. He doesn't even touch his hammer till about an hour in. All he can do is bluster and screw around. The film is long on walking/running scenes and short on everything else. It thinks it is going somewhere but really not so much.

Oh, and the hammer. Good Lord. Folks, I have rarely seen a prop look so fake. We are talking high school drama department here. Also bad was the whole bit set in Asgard. It did not feel like the land of the Gods. It felt more like the land of the LARP (live action role play). It didn't help to have the scenes on Earth in blue. If anything it made the Earth look more interesting than Asgard.

Finally, the acting. It's about as bad as you could imagine it to be. Very much wanting to go over the top but ther was no top provided in the script. So basically everyone is just left to bluster ineffectively.

In the end, this was as bad as I expected it to be. It's not the worst thing the SyFy people have proudly presented to us, but it lacks action, quality, and any sense of fun. The real Thor would hurl a lightning bolt at this sucker.