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Film Review – Thor: Tales Of Asgard

By | May 17th, 2011
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Now is the time where Marvel is going to push Thor like crazy. With the Thor film currently in theaters, Marvel is doing everything they can to get the erstwhile and ignorant public onto their property with a relaunched title, a retitled title, a bevy of graphic novel/hardcover releases starring the character, and an additional animated film. And it is said film that brings us here today, as it is now in stores across the country waiting for you to buy or rent it.

So, with the live action Thor film being an undisputed success of the property, how does the supplemental animated film (which is not connected to the movie aside from the name) live up to the standard?

Find out some thoughts after the cut.

For those who don’t know, Thor: Tales of Asgard is an adaptation of a comic book Marvel released a few years ago back when they tried harder to have a more diverse line of all-ages/teen/young adult comics. The book starred young versions of titular heroes as they got through those oh-so-difficult teenage years, learning about their powers in the most difficult way possible. This line produced everyone’s favorite Runaways, and my personal favorite Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane. And while those properties have yet to see adaptation, we now get the long-discussed Thor: Tales of Asgard, which is really Thor: Son of Asgard.

Starring a younger Thor, Thor finds that his father Odin has been coddling him on purpose due to Thor’s inability to not make a spectacle of himself. Enraged by the discovery and seeking to prove himself inadvertantly to the young maiden Sif, who has recently left Asgard due to his brazen ways and self-centered nature, Thor and his brother Loki sneak aboard the vessel of the Warrior’s Three in order to go on a quest to find the sword of Surtur, the great demon who fought Odin long ago. It’s a story that mixes a lot of classic Thor elements that we’ve all come to know and love about the character, presented in a playful new setting.

The only inherent problem then is that this is just a really bad film.

Let’s be honest. Fate was stacked against the film before I even had a chance to watch it. While I’m tertially familiar with the source material, I saw the live action Thor two week’s ago, bought the Walt Simonson Thor Omnibus (which is excessively beautiful and the new prize of my hardcover collection), and have been greatly enjoying Matt Fraction and Kieron Gillen’s respective Thor books. For me, Thor has a brand new standard that all other versions of the character need to live up to now. Tales Of Asgard doesn’t even come close to the greatness that is any of the other titles that I mentioned, and isn’t better than even the worst Thor story I’ve ever ever read. It’s not often that you come across something that’s entire production is rather poor, to the extent that almost off the bat you’re disappointed.

So let’s start small and build big. The first noticable thing here is the voice acting, which is rather terrible. Again, the live action Thor film isn’t helping any, but none of the voices fit to the characters. Matthew Wolf, Grey DeLisle and Rick Gomez do their best “young people” impression, but we’re talking three 39 years old trying to play 14-16 year olds. It’s rather noticable here, and having actors like Tom Hiddleston already staking a claim to the character of Loki doesn’t help. Meanwhile Chris Britton’s Odin is not nearly as menacing as it should be, as the powerful Norse god with huge muscles and a menacing beard ends up sounding like an average Joe on the street rather than someone to respect and fear. The Warriors Three are only one out of three for voices, with Paul Dobson’s Hogun being the only voice that naturally fits to the character. Jonathan Holmes as Fandral is excessive and forced, and Jay Brazeau – who plays the fully luminous Volstagg – does not match the girth or depth that the voice coming out of that huge belly should have. So without a good voice cast, the whole production itself is off to a bad start.

Continued below

The animation itself is alright, but it’s rather typical of what you can expect from the average Marvel Animation film. To be truthful, none of these films have really broken ground in the realm of animation. Some are reasonably visually impressive, but nothing to write home about. Tales Of Asgard keeps that trend, with a film that wants to look kind of like a Japanese Anime but never really pushes far enough in either direction to take a stance. As far as the characters go, it’s very Western Anime, but the rest of the film just looks like an average animated film.

Then there’s the plot itself. The plot, as I said, is an adaptation of a book that was geared towards younger audiences, so the predictable nature of it shouldn’t be critisized too hard without having that mentality. That being said, it is very average: child goes on impossible adventure, child beats the odds, the villain was the best friend all along, and the child saves the day somehow. The film does push a bit of an interesting twist with how Thor and Loki end up “saving” the day, but up to and through that point everything is a rather paint-by-numbers. You can see pretty much every major twist coming without having read the original comic, and – I am not exaggerating here – if you just listen to the movie without actually watching it (say, as you walk around and pick up trash and clothes from the floor of your apartment), you will still be able to follow the film 100% without even the slightest of issue. A film is supposed to demand your attention, not sloth along while you multi-task.

Marvel Animation has been very hit or miss. Some of their direct adaptations, like Ultimate Avengers and Planet Hulk, have been fairly decent animated films. Others, like Doctor Strange and Next Avengers, just end up being fairly lackluster (although given the right audience, they probably translate a lot better). While I generally have faith in Marvel to produce good versions of their products, Son Of Asgard isn’t the best Thor story they could have adapted for the audience looking for more Thor to watch after they see the live action film. Given the character’s almost 49 years of existence, any other story would have made for a good adaptation. Heck, they’ve got that Thor/Loki: Blood Brothers thing up on XBOX Live, and that’s an adaptation of Rob Rodi’s Loki mini. If they had just put out that, it probably would’ve been for the best. Until then, DC still holds the most wins in the animated adaptation category.


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Matthew Meylikhov

Once upon a time, Matthew Meylikhov became the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Multiversity Comics, where he was known for his beard and fondness for cats. Then he became only one of those things. Now, if you listen really carefully at night, you may still hear from whispers on the wind a faint voice saying, "X-Men Origins: Wolverine is not as bad as everyone says it issss."

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