Tag: Chris Hemsworth

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Movie Reviews

Thor: Love and Thunder

Marvel Studios, 2022

After embarking on a series of adventures with the Guardians of the Galaxy, a battle-weary Thor (Chris Hemsworth) prepares to seek out a life of peace before a distressing message from an old friend warns him of the threat of Gorr (Christian Bale) – a cursed being on a personal mission to end the existence of gods. When Gorr sets his sights on Earth and Thor’s ex-girlfriend turned super-hero Jane Foster (Natalie Portman), Thor and Jane embark on a journey across the universe in search of a way to defeat Gorr and find meaning in their lives again.

Rating: 5 out of 10.

Starring: Chris Hemsworth, Natalie Portman, Christian Bale, Tessa Thompson, Taika Waititi, Chris Pratt, Dave Bautista, Karen Gillan & Russell Crowe

Watch it now in cinemas

Marvel Studios, 2022

Love and Thunder is a Taika Waititi movie through and through, for better and for worse. 2017’s Ragnarok signalled a reinvigoration of the uptight Norse god – infusing Thor with a bro-ish charm and dim sense of humour and surrounding him with a colourful cast of characters – in a move that was unexpected but welcomed, packing all the action and emotional character beats that Marvel fans expected into an exciting new world. The sequel is Waititi fully let loose and in doing so, Love and Thunder loses itself in the incessant improvisational comedy Waititi so clearly enjoys. It’s not that it doesn’t work sometimes, but when the characters and story are sacrificed and you’re exhausted rather than elated at the end of it all, something isn’t working.

As a character, Thor has undergone a lot of reinvention throughout his many appearances in the MCU, and the start of Love and Thunder finds him in an interesting contemplative place. Pairing the God of Thunder with the Guardians of the Galaxy seems like the obvious next step in this reinvention, a natural segue into comedic hijinks that can exist on a smaller scale than infinity stone-seeking titans and Asgard-ending colossuses. Thor has been through so much, and it is natural that he should feel some fatigue. Waititi’s solution, then, is to shift this fatigue onto the viewer, completely undercutting any exploration of Thor’s mental state with joke after joke – rarely soliciting anything beyond than a chuckle – to the point where even the Guardians get so sick of it they leave.

Marvel Studios, 2022

Marvel movies have always leaned into comedy, with a quick quip often underpinning dramatic moments so as not to let things get too serious, but Taika takes Love and Thunder into full-blown comedy territory. The problem is quantity over quality. The Waititi schtick – off-kilter, improvisational one-liners interjected at awkward times – is so tired at this point, after films like Free Guy, Lightyear and Jojo Rabbit in the intervening years, that two hours of nothing else is simply interminable. Very few of the jokes here break from the formula, and those that do are rarely given more than a second to breathe before a handful more are thrown at you. This endless stream of gags wreaks havoc on the main storyline’s pacing, creating a hollow emptiness that often means you completely tune out until a serious dramatic moment is suddenly thrown into the mix and shocks you into paying attention again.

It’s a shame given Waititi’s track record. His films have always proudly worn their hearts on their sleeves and leaned into really dramatically resonant emotions, and those moments are buried here underneath all the comedy. Jane and Thor’s goofy reunion is underpinned by a heart-wrenching reality check that always threatens to boil over and create a genuinely moving scene, but the theme is never given a substantial amount of screen time to turn the tide against the onslaught. Christian Bale’s Gorr the God Butcher could have provided a moving counterpoint to Thor and Jane’s journey of loss, and Bale is giving an incredibly fun performance here, but is tossed aside and seems to only be brought back into the fold whenever a studio executive has told Waititi that joke time is over and it’s time to get back to business.

Marvel Studios, 2022

Ultimately what saves Love and Thunder from approaching The Dark World territory is Hemsworth’s utter commitment to the role. Thor is as much a part of him now as Harry Potter is to Daniel Radcliffe and the film is carried by Hemsworth’s bumbling swagger and charm. There’s an ease about him, as someone so supremely confident in this character, that you as an audience feel a certain level of confidence in letting him take Thor in new directions knowing he truly cares. The comedy may fall flat a shocking amount of the time, but it certainly isn’t Hemsworth’s fault, and a lot of the jokes that work, only do because of him. The same sadly can’t be said for Natalie Portman’s Jane Foster, who is saddled with some of the worst material in the film and given an incredibly rushed arc that doesn’t allow her to really stretch as an actor, outside of the impressive physicality she displays once powered up.

It’s been a while since we’ve had a truly disappointing sequel in the MCU but Thor: Love and Thunder is unfortunately just that. With a returning Taika Waititi that refuses to tone down his idiosyncratic humour and take the time to sit with his characters, the first fourth outing for a Marvel hero is a disappointingly exhausting one, despite Chris Hemsworth’s best efforts to imbue renewed vigour into a character audiences have loved for over a decade now. There isn’t much to love, but a few sparks here and there suggest the thunder could be brought back in the future, it just might be time that Taika took a step back.

5 / 10

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Movie Reviews

Spiderhead

Netflix, 2022

Incarcerated in the mysterious Spiderhead facility – an isolated prison without cells or violence where inmates are subjected to medical experiments – Jeff (Miles Teller) undergoes increasingly strange experiences at the hands of the charismatic but creepy doctor Steve Abnesti (Chris Hemsworth) which push him to his limits.

Rating: 5 out of 10.

Starring: Miles Teller, Chris Hemsworth, Jurnee Smollett, Tess Haubrich & Mark Paguio

Watch it now in on Netflix

Netflix, 2022

Having helmed the blockbuster of the year so far in Top Gun: Maverick, Joseph Kosinski’s new thriller Spiderhead looked like a thrilling shift in momentum; a creepy slow burn about convicts subjected to increasingly strange experiments starring returning Maverick star Miles Teller and a gleefully insane Chris Hemsworth. The actual result is far less impressive, but is held together through the sheer force of will of the leads and a tone that doesn’t quite work but is always so bizarrely off-kilter that you can’t help but keep watching, even if the story loses all steam long before its two hour runtime comes to an end.

The problem comes in the pacing. What starts as an intriguing mystery about the Spiderhead facility and the potentially nefarious experiments devolves to tedium by the halfway mark, as Kosinski relies heavily on sequences of experiments which don’t bring enough variety to warrant returning to the well so often. Only one of these scenes truly excites – an increasingly hard to watch look at a woman completely surrendering control over her body as substances drive her insane.

Netflix, 2022

The central premise driving the film – testing new chemical compounds promoting artificial love, a thirst for violence, or unimpeachable obedience – is rife with potential, but the sequences between these experiment scenes move the plot forward in such a negligible way that when things suddenly pick up in the last half hour, it feels needlessly rushed. A little less of Jeff’s boring backstory and a scattering more mystery and Spiderhead might have been a much better time.

Part black comedy, part sinister asylum break film, Spiderhead struggles to balance the pairing, ultimately doing neither considerably well. The humour isn’t particularly biting or subtle in its approach to oppression, but strikes a perhaps unintentional goldmine in Hemsworth’s completely unhinged performance. Where Teller acts as the audience surrogate, playing Jeff fairly straight-laced and devoid of personality, Hemsworth is the total opposite, relishing the chance to go full villain and chew the scenery as the 80’s music blasting, cheap pleasantry spewing sociopathic scientist. There isn’t much to the character underneath all this surface level sheen but Hemsworth is so committed that it is hard not to get swept up in the fun of the role. At a certain point you stop caring about Jeff’s predicament and just look forward to the next bout of Hemsworth weirdness.

Netflix, 2022

Where Kosinski seems to have devoted most of his time (and budget) is in the antiseptic aesthetic of the actual Spiderhead facility – think a mad scientist’s dream James Bond villain lair. It’s a labyrinthine series of passages and cold, lifeless concrete that surrounds the prisoners of the island, and although they receive comforts in the form of personal rooms, video games and delicious meals, the presence of imminent danger always lurks; that Abnesti’s sinister plan could suddenly reveal itself and swallow everything up in an instant.

It all makes for a frustrating watch. Spiderhead nails the technical aspects of its production and Hemsworth is swinging for the fences with his wild performance but the connective narrative tissue just isn’t there. Teller is a bland protagonist – his story uncompelling – and the mystery of the prison’s activity unravels itself into a rote, lifeless reveal and generic final act fisticuffs. A perfectly serviceable film if you’re looking to kill a few hours, but Spiderhead unravels far quicker than it should.

5 / 10

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Movie Reviews

Extraction

Netflix, 2020

Chris Hemsworth isn’t unfamiliar with action. As Thor he has seen his fair share of it. However it has never been as brutal as in his new Netflix film Extraction, which sees Hemsworth re-grouping with many members of the Avengers team, including veteran stunt coordinator Sam Hargrave – who makes his directorial debut here – and Avengers: Endgame co-director Joe Russo, who pens the script. Hargrave’s experience in Hollywood as a stuntman and stunt director on countless films is the film’s biggest strength here, outside of the popularity and likability of Hemsworth. The focus is really on the action and in that regard, it absolutely delivers, bringing intense, extremely well-shot destruction and hand-to-hand combat to the screen. Outside of that however, Extraction doesn’t have much else to offer from a narrative and character development perspective, relying on its extremely swift pace and endless madness to propel you through its 2 hour run-time. It’s a case of what you see is what you get, and if you’re in the mood for a good action flick that’ll keep you entertained, then look no further.

Extraction‘s relatively straightforward story follows Tyler Rake (Chris Hemsworth), a mercenary for hire with a troubled personal history and a pretty heavy drinking problem to boot. When a job comes his way to rescue Ovi (Rudhraksh Jaiswal), the son of an international drug kingpin in Dhaka, Tyler agrees, thinking it will be a stock standard procedure and a welcome distraction from his painful existence. Tyler’s world is quickly thrown upside down when he realises the importance of Ovi in an ongoing turf war between rival gangs in Bangladesh and Mumbai – including the terminator-like presence of Ovi’s former bodyguard Saju (Randeep Hooda) – testing his ability to trust those around him as he attempts to get Ovi to safety, leaving a path of destruction in Dhaka as he goes.

Netflix, 2020

Let’s address the elephant in the room here: Extraction doesn’t have much depth to it. The story isn’t groundbreaking or particularly well done. It’s serviceable and given a welcome shot in the arm by the presence of Hemsworth. The man just oozes charisma and is a foreboding and charismatic presence, believably mowing down hordes of goons in his path to salvation, and I could watch him as this character for hours. It’s such a tonal shift from the character of Thor, less boisterous and jokey and more stoic and reserved. When things do hit the fan, Hemsworth goes into overdrive; a caged beast set free as his survival instincts kick in and the bodies pile up. There’s tremendous amounts of physicality to the performance and from reports of behind the scenes the film was much more taxing than any of his previous work, with Hemsworth performing a lot of the stunts himself (more on those later). The backstory to Tyler Rake, however, is about as bare bones and clichéd for an action hero as you can get, giving you just enough to feel for the man but not enough for you to really understand how he has processed the tragedy and channels it into his work.

Besides the brief flashes of Tyler’s history, that’s pretty much it in terms of backstory or development for the characters in the film. Stranger Things star David Harbour makes an appearance as an old friend (and co-worker of sorts) of Tyler’s who tries to assist him but who may also have his own motives. Harbour tries with what he is given – which admittedly isn’t much – but his presence and performance ultimately ends in a clichéd, forgettable footnote lost in the shuffle of the far superior, and thankfully more frequent, action scenes. Arguably the character who should have been given the most development besides Tyler is Ovi ,who spends almost the entire film attached to Tyler’s hip but who never really makes much of an impact other than an annoying whiny presence that distracts from the action at the worst of times and fades into the background at the best. There’s no attempt to dig into how Ovi deals with being the son of an international criminal or even if he is aware of his father’s business, with the story reducing the character to a series of visual tics meant to denote his fear and his eventual overcoming of them. It seems like a missed opportunity given the obvious potential for a more “buddy-cop” like relationship which could have brought some levity to the otherwise gritty proceedings.

Netflix, 2020

No, what you come to and stick with Extraction for is the action, and boy does it fire on all cylinders, with Hargrave emptying his bag of tricks that he has accumulated over the years to create some of the most jaw-dropping, intense and realistic fight scenes in recent memory. Hargrave is obviously incredibly comfortable behind the camera, with long fluid shots that really allow you to see and appreciate the incredible stunt work in all its glory. There are no quick cuts here to simulate intensity; rather the intensity is brought through the expertise of the choreography, some of which is impressive in its length, with blurringly fast hand-to-hand fight scenes often going on for several minutes at a time. Of particular note is a 12 minute-long simulated “one-shot” scene, which follows Hemsworth as he weaves a car through the crowded streets away from the pursuing police, through to a high speed foot chase through a crowded apartment complex, encountering multiple adversaries along the way. It’s awe-inspiring stuff, and the behind the scenes videos of how they shot it are almost as impressive to watch as the scene itself. Hemsworth is present through almost this entire scene, performing most of the stunts himself, which makes it all the more immersive as he exhibits some serious gun-fighting and martial arts skills that would give John Wick a run for his money.

Extraction isn’t going to change the game for the action genre when it comes to story or character development, relying on many tried and tested clichés to get you through to the next action scene. The film really does shine when these scenes do hit, with Sam Hargrave showing a real aptitude for constructing intense, incredibly well-shot action scenes which keep you locked in and on the edge of your seat. Hemsworth does a lot of the heavy lifting, both physically in these scenes and story-wise, as he anchors the film and provides a charismatic leading man that the audience will follow. If you are interested in seeing some of the best action scenes put to film in recent memory or are just after an exciting flick to pass the time in quarantine, you can’t do much better than Extraction.

Netflix, 2020

Extraction stars Chris Hemsworth, Rudhraksh Jaiswal, Randeep Hooda & David Harbour – Streaming on Netflix now.

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Movie Reviews

Men in Black: International

Sony, 2019

You’d be forgiven in this day and age for not being familiar with the Men in Black franchise. The series, based on the popular comic, had its first cinematic adventure in 1997 – led by the unlikely yet infinitely watchable duo of Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones – and released two more sequels in the intervening 20 years to waning interest and lessening quality each time. Enter director F. Gary Gray’s reboot Men in Black: International, intended to breathe new life into the franchise, with new blood both behind and in front of the camera and two of the most popular actors working today in Chris Hemsworth and Tessa Thompson. It may be time to retire the suits for good after this one though, as Men in Black: International is one of the most bland and forgettable sci-fi action films in recent memory.

The plot (and I use that term loosely) revolves around Agent M (Tessa Thompson) attempting to uncover and enrol in the Men in Black agency following a run-in with an alien creature as a child. Her attempts land her on a probationary mission with Agent H (Chris Hemsworth), a high ranking member of the organisation who, together with Agent High T (Liam Neeson), defeated an alien invasion from a species known as “The Hive” three years prior and hasn’t been the same since. What starts as a routine mission babysitting a highly regarded alien soon turns to ruin after the arrival of two alien beings with the ability to turn into light and murder anyone in their path. Agents M and H must uncover the origin of these deadly assassins, whilst also dealing with the possibility of a mole within the Men in Black and ensuring that the most powerful weapon in the galaxy does not fall into the wrong hands.

Sony, 2019

The story, simply put, is a mess: full of disparate parts with no real connective tissue as we rush from scene to scene. There’s no depth or time given to any scene to let it breathe; things simply happen to the characters and the next scene is something totally independent of the last. For example: one minute the agents are being chased through the streets of Marrakesh in what we’re supposed to believe is a life or death fight for survival, and as soon as they enter a building housing an alien queen that intensity is gone. It’s never made clear to the audience if these assailants chasing the agents have given up, if the building has cloaked them or any number of science fiction options the writers could have used to give the scene some explanation – instead opting to abandon the last scene because now it’s time for the funny alien. This disjointed approach also robs the characters of any real development or arcs. The audience is meant to believe that Tessa Thompson has worked her whole life to realise this dream of joining the Men in Black but when it takes all of 10 minutes to go from nobody to rookie that doesn’t come across at all.

The ’97 original film succeeded off the back of Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones’ joint charisma and the running joke of the absurdity of that pairing. The humour that was created out of that combo worked for those actors and for the time in which the movie was made. International attempts that same style of humour without the odd pairing prerequisite Smith and Jones had, especially after Hemsworth and Thompson proved they had chemistry in Thor: Ragnarok, and as such all the jokes that come out of this fall disastrously flat. The only humour that really comes off well here is from Kumail Nanjiani’s pint sized alien Pawny, who joins H and M on their travels. Nanjiani’s trademark scathing humour is dialled down here to fit in with the rating but it always packs a bite, stealing the scene from whoever else is in it. Pawny was undoubtedly the highlight of the film despite the questionable CGI on the character at times. Given that the CGI of the original film was some of the greatest ever seen at that point in cinematic history, it’s unfortunate that is not the case here – alternating between overly glossy to downright awful to the point you can almost see the outline of the shape on the green screen.

Sony, 2019

Your mileage with Men in Black: International will depend on how you feel about Hemsworth and Thompson. Make no mistake they are the main attraction here, and you would be forgiven for being excited to see that combination again following Thor: Ragnarok. Unfortunately that chemistry is largely gone, with Hemsworth and Thompson seemingly operating as though they are in completely different movies. Thompson opts to play the straight woman here, giving the character a harder edge that doesn’t allow for much fun banter with Hemsworth’s character. There’s bright sparks here and there, but ultimately the character is written in such a one note way that there’s only so much a talented actress like Thompson can do with the role, and her lack of surprise at literally anything – even when others around her are shocked – doesn’t allow for the audience to really invest in her character. Hemsworth gets a chance to let his charisma and charm loose – to mixed results. He just doesn’t have the widespread appeal that Will Smith had in the original; and in instances where Smith played his ignorance as endearing, Hemsworth comes across as out of his depth. Despite the character’s shortcomings, Hemsworth never stops being fun to watch and keeps you along for the ride even when everything around him is so bland. Liam Neeson and Rebecca Ferguson also have brief but entertaining roles as the leader of the London Men in Black branch and an alien arms dealer respectively. Ferguson in particular is clearly having a ball with the character and it’s nice to see her branch out of her dramatic and more serious action roles.

Men in Black: International is ultimately an extremely forgettable and uninteresting sequel/reboot that does not do anything new or different enough to justify its existence. The proposed Men in Black / 21 Jump Street crossover which was developed and subsequently scrapped may not have worked in its own right, but it would have at least been something different as opposed to the tired rehash audiences received. Despite Chris Hemsworth and Kumail Nanjiani’s best efforts, in the end it just isn’t enough to save this film from fading from audiences’ minds as if they’d been hit with a blast from the neuralyzer.

Sony, 2019

Men in Black: International stars Chris Hemsworth, Tessa Thompson, Kumail Nanjiani, Liam Neeson, Rebecca Ferguson & Emma Thompson and is in cinemas now.

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Movie Reviews

Avengers: Endgame

Marvel Studios, 2019

It’s almost impossible to talk about Avengers: Endgame, the latest and possibly greatest offering from Marvel Studios, without spoiling it. The film is filled to the brim with the Marvel goodness that fans have come to love and expect over the 11 year franchise and there’s something for everyone to be found here; whether it be the jokes, the bonkers action (on FULL display here) or the perfectly crafted character interactions that make us all feel like kids playing with our action figures again. While the film will undoubtedly please most and shatter box office records, an uneven pace and some odd character choices may leave some slightly dissapointed.

Let’s start with the story, which I can only describe without spoiling things, as truly epic in scope as the Avengers must come to terms with the losses they have sustained and formulate a plan to fight back against Thanos (Josh Brolin). There’s been a lot of talk lately surrounding this film and the term “love letter” has been thrown around a lot. There’s really just no better way to describe it. Endgame works as its own individual story remarkably well, although it’s really a reward for the people who have stuck with the franchise through the last 21 films. The references are numerous and range from the totally obvious to the tiniest easter egg and I can’t wait to revisit the film time and time again to discover new tidbits, as I’m sure most Marvel fans will. The Russo Brothers and writers Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely prove once again just how adept they are at taking the traits that we love about these characters and playing them off one another in new and exciting ways. This shouldn’t be a surprise given how great the character interactions were in Infinity War, but the additions of Ant-Man (Paul Rudd) and Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) in particular, inject some new life into proceedings after so much of it was turned to dust. Rudd in particular gets to showcase why his particular comedy senses work so well in the Marvel universe and watching him interact with the founding Avengers was comedy gold.

Marvel Studios, 2019

Speaking of the founding Avengers, they all turn out the usual stellar performances which have been honed since their first stand-alone features, with Chris Evans and Robert Downey Jr. in particular proving why they are the faces of this truly massive franchise. Downey really gets to play with the psyche of Tony Stark in ways we haven’t seen before and it’s a joy to watch him tip between an overwhelming sense of failure and a rousing desire to fight back. Josh Brolin delivers another impressive turn as Thanos, imbuing the character with a sense of righteousness and confidence which is a hallmark of the best villains: he believes what he is doing is fundamentally right. Whilst Brolin’s motion capture work is extraordinary, Mark Ruffalo as the Hulk proves that he is one of the most impressive actors working today to sport the green tights and face dots. He’s given a lot more to work with here than in previous Avengers instalments and it is remarkable to see him stretch his dramatic and comedic acting muscles, displaying so much emotion through facial expressions alone. Speaking of comedy, an interesting decision was made here in regards to the treatment of Thor (Chris Hemsworth), who is saddled with the task of carrying majority of the film’s humour on his back. While he certainly manages it, and believe me there were some big laughs from him, the choice just seems like an odd overreaction of Thor’s response to the emotionally weighty events of the last film, and I can’t help but wish they’d done something different with him which stuck closer to how the character was represented in Infinity War.

Marvel Studios, 2019

Endgame clocks in at a meaty 3 hours and while this is necessary to conclude this chapter of the Marvel story, the pacing of the film suffers as a result. While we start off at a clip, carrying the momentum over from Infinity War, the film almost stalls and restarts as momentum must be rebuilt moving into the action-heavy final act. It’s an understandable shift given the events that happen yet it’s still jarring, and I found myself slightly let down that the film seems to lose the sense of urgency it establishes in the beginning at certain points. The scenes that do feel stretched out are weighted down by jokes and it almost feels at times as if the writers have been forced to meet the “Marvel quota” for laughs. While these scenes never stopped me from enjoying my time watching the film, they did diminish some of the emotional weight carried over from Infinity War. It doesn’t all have to be doom and gloom, but Marvel has proved before that they are more than capable of throwing in jokes that fit with the tone and don’t distract from the story being told.

Marvel Studios, 2019

As far as action goes, Endgame delivers in every way possible with some of the most ambitious fight scenes ever put to film. I won’t spoil anything but the last hour is jaw-dropping and worth the price of admission alone. The Russo Brothers began their Marvel career helming some of the best action set pieces in the franchise (the excellent elevator fight scene in Winter Soldier) and continued to top themselves in terms of scope in the Airport fight scene in Civil War and the Battle of Wakanda in Infinity War. This is easily their largest fight scene to date and it is ridiculously impressive how the duo managed to pull off fights this large in scope, whilst keeping the action completely grounded with the characters. The audience always has a sense of what is going on because the action is always tied to one of the heroes we have grown to love in past films.

Avengers: Endgame marks the end of an era, the culmination of an unprecedented franchise spanning 11 years and 22 films. Whilst not perfect, this is a wonderful celebration of the Marvel universe and a reminder of why we fell in love with these movies in the first place: they allow us to escape from our normal lives and enrapture ourselves in fantastical stories and characters that show us just how great we can be, whilst still being human and relatable at the same time. I felt like a kid again, sitting there staring at the screen in wide-eyed joy with a huge smile on my face for 3 hours. Is that not one of the most pure cinematic experiences you can hope to have?

Marvel Studios, 2019

Avengers: Endgame stars Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Chris Hemsworth, Scarlett Johansson, Mark Ruffalo, Paul Rudd, Jeremy Renner, Karen Gillan, Brie Larson and is in cinemas now.