Hey, have you heard about that new
Thor movie coming out? No, not
Marvel's
Thor: Love and Thunder. I'm talking about
this new one from movie studio
The Asylum, the movie industry equivalent of a
chop shop, which essentially makes cheap ripoff films similar enough to mass-market blockbusters to pull in a bunch of accidental revenue (it's other big offerings this season are a
fighter jet-heavy
Top Gunner: Danger Zone and a
dinosaurs-run-amuck number titled
Jurassic Domination). Not that they are entirely bereft of wholly original subject matter, as they are, as well, the minds behind the ridiculously succesful (for what it is)
Sharknado series.
So the thing is, Thor is a thousand-year-old
Norse mythology mainstay, meaning the myth itself isn't owned by anybody, no matter how many movies Marvel puts out.
Thor: God of Thunder has all the classic unowned elements -- a mischief-making
Loki (in this film correctly made Thor's
uncle, not
brother), a barrel-chested
hammer-wielding red-bearded Thor (a more myth-accurate element as well), a one-eyed
Odin, and a gigantic
Fenris Wolf looking to devour
Yggdrasil, the
World Tree. Thor is acted here by Myrom Kingery, whom you likely haven't heard of, as he has typically appeared in films to date in roles like "guy seen in background in the gym," but what little dialogue he has in the trailer (it's mostly eaten up by the Loki and Odin characters) is certainly passable.
The film is predictably split between its version of
Asgard and modern-day Earth, where Loki has come to do some sort of mischief which will involve the wolf eating the tree, and Thor finds some modern locals to help him. And the
other thing is, after twenty years of churning out fare like
Transmorphers and
Ghosthunters and
Atlantic Rim, they've actually developed enough resources to make a film that looks like a genuine big budget big-studio film. Who knows, it might even be....
good!!