Thor: Hammer of the Gods

I was misled by a couple of reviews... There are good movies that come out on small budget.. But this one is a real pain.. I am halfway and have stopped viewing.. Nothing's good.. Acting: 0/10. Direction: 0/10. Special Effects: 0/10.. The storyline in this movie is OK.. it could have been a mix of horror-fantasy.. but its all spoiled by the bunch of amateurs (I could not find any definition for 'less than' amateur) . The end result is a movie that does not convey any feeling other than frustration of how you ended up watching it. If you have nothing else to bite.. then go have a walk, don't waste your time on this movie.. I am sure u will be better off..

For whatever reason, I have not given up on the SciFi channel yet but this film comes close to doing it for me. I advise people NOT to waste their time on this. Not only was Zach from Home Improvement hopelessly miscast as a Viking hero but his acting is no better than when he was on the series. There were some moments--unfortunately the moments were badly acted, ripped off from other shows and not very interesting. This was almost an embarrassment to watch. I felt bad for the actors because they didn't have a chance with that badly written script. Fans of SciFi/action will be angered by some of the blatant lines stolen from other shows like Highlander. I thought about skipping this because it looked like it would be bad. I should have trusted my judgement.

All things considered, it was a good movie for a SciFi production. As usual, the acting wasn't stellar, but better than some I've seen. And they spared us too many well-intentioned but poorly-executed CGI effects. Although, they could have gone for something more than over-sized wolf's heads with no body hair. It took me a little while during the movie, along with simultaneous googling, Wikipedia'ing, and IMDb'ing, to understand that this was not the telling of the original story, but its retelling. The recycling of some of the names was clever. But now I am wondering about what would happen next in this new storyline. Maybe we'll find out some day.

Okay just a few quirks for myself here - if you are making a story of the Norse gods don't you think that at least one of the actors would have had a Nordic accent?? And the acting ... well it was good for the dialog, I suppose it could have been worse although I don't know how. I have to wonder if at any time during the production why no one went to the writers and demanded a rewrite. Now if you are going to make a story about a rich mythology, I would hope that someone at sometime would have done at least a little research about it ... I wouldn't be as upset except they made a point of using the name of every god or goddess they could muster - if it were a random bunch of Nordic names it would be one thing, but it was fairly obvious that these characters were meant to BE the Norse gods-- c'mon, get the attributes correct! Its like someone was playing Quake and wrote down all that happened and made it into a script. This is a movie that every Heathen will regret. Pass it by.

I have to confess that Norse mythology is not my field of expertise, but this story is supposed to be how Thor attained Deity status by using his hammer to slay one nasty wolf. The hero of the Hammer Of The Gods is played by Tim Allen's oldest son from Home Improvement, Zachery Ty Bryan who has filled out rather nicely and looks every inch the part of a Norse hero.

Bryan has sailed with his two brothers, several other Vikings even some of their women way up north where the gods live. They do find some very powerful creatures there, Norse werewolf types who walk on their hind legs and have a wolf god whom they serve. The Vikings have a lot of rivalries between themselves and it doesn't make for good unity at a time of danger.

Even the three brothers fall out. Baldur (Mac Brandt) is killed early on and the youngest Bryan has to face the older one Daz Crawford who's gone over to the enemy. Crawford might be the oldest, but he's illegitimate and out of succession. That would give me a bad attitude I can tell you.

Watching the Vikings behave with their talk of glory, dying and Valhalla it was like watching Star Trek The Next Generation or Deep Space Nine in an episode with Worf talking about glory and honor. The Klingons were certainly based on the Vikings and this film could have been an extended episode of one of the Roddenberry series.

Hammer Of The Gods is all right, I'll leave it to those who know Norse culture to comment on the veracity and integrity of the story.