Thor (film)

"That's not a bad thing, finding out that you don't have all the answers. You start asking the right questions."

Q. Who goes to see a film called Thor?

A. Comic fans. Probably fans of Norse mythology too. Certainly not the general public.

The makers of Thor know this, and from the opening credits embrace their work like enthusiasts.

The bleak melodramatic world of Asgard might be quite hard to make accessible to newcomers, but for this audience it doesn't matter. It's set in the same shared universe as the Iron Man films, and embraces this to the point of making SHIELD's Phil Coulson (Clark Gregg) the principal human opponent. (not to mention also tagging a teaser scene onto the end of Iron Man 2)

In fact the more I look, the more stuff emerges that only genre fans would appreciate. Nick Fury (Samuel L Jackson), J Michael Straczynski, and did I really fail to spot Hawkeye, also from next year's big Avengers movie? He was the marksman with the bow and arrow, right?

And as for that guy driving the pick-up truck…



Wait a minute… his character was called "Stan the Man"?! So… he's playing the same character as in Fantastic Four 2? So that film ties into the upcoming Avengers movie as well??? Gee, well, I sure hope that Captain America (Chris Evans) and the Human Torch (Chris Evans) meet.


In fact, given how I was watching an airline edit of Thor, I have to wonder just how much else I may have missed out on here…


(available in a slightly different version here)