Thor: O Martelo dos Deuses

I didn't have very high expectations for this movie. I was expecting something low budget but watchable, around the standard of 'King Arthur', 'The Last Legion', 'Reign of Fire' or a Uwe boll movie (if you have seen any of those?) or a feature length episode of Xena Warrior Princess... But even with such low expectations I was surprised by how bad this film is. It's much worse than any of the above.

If you have ever seen a movie made by high school students. Which stars themselves and their friends running about in the woods and play fighting... Then you will have some idea of what to expect here. This is not just a cruel exaggeration it really is that bad. In fairness you might wonder where they got the money for a boat and a snow machine, but otherwise 'school media project' is about the standard we are talking here.

This movie is basically about a bunch of Vikings who sail to a distant land, which turns out to be inhabited by low budget werewolves. Don't be fooled into thinking that the movie has any relevance to the Viking god Thor or actual mythology... It doesn't. They just reused the name (presumably to add inaccuracy to the long list of flaws in this film).

The film has a distinctly amateur feel even by TV movie standards. At no point did I ever believe I was watching real Vikings. I'm not even sure if I was watching real actors since most of the lines are simply read aloud rather than acted. And half-heartedly forcing out a 'ye' or a 'thou' in a modern Liverpool accent didn't add anything to believability.

The set is quite literally 'the woods at the bottom of someone's garden' and most of the film takes place within 50 feet of an old shed, which we are supposed to believe is a village.

It's difficult to find anything good to say about this movie. Some of the girls are nice looking I guess... that's about it *shrug* You might want to watch this just to see how bad it really is, but most of it is boring and painful rather than amusing.

I normally reserve ratings of 1 and 2 for films where the sound and picture quality is so bad that the film is virtually unwatchable. This film doesn't have those problems but I just can't bring myself to give it a 3. Unless you are Todor Chapkanov's parents, you aren't going to be impressed by this.

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.

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.

They paid someone to make this movie? That is outrageous. There is nothing worth watching in this movie. The acting is horrible, the script is juvenile, the direction is spotty and the werewolves look like extras wearing big plastic masks. This is advertised as a Thor movie, but nothing in it even refers to the Thor of mythology or the Thor of comic book fame. It has all the elements of a POOR TV movie: a female lead who is not needed and just yells out the heroes name over and over, a fellow warrior who gets irate at the hero and turns to the bad side, dialog that is delivered like it was written for a daytime soap opera, costumes that look like they were stolen from an ancient opera and special effects that are gaudy. This movie is awful.

Oh… don't you just hate it when the concept reads refreshingly fun (Vikings battling werewolves) but the final product leaves a lot to be desired. Sadly this straight to TV sci-fi original production doesn't complements its idea, instead we get a very low-rent, quite bland and terribly daft (but not in cheesy way) production that simply feels like its going through the motions with little in the way of excitement and conviction. To cement it just listen to the vapidly clunky script and stilted performances (with Zachery Ty Bryan best known for the TV series "Home Improvement" heading the cast)… although the acting to a certain degree can only be as good as the material allows them to be. Instead I rather just watch 1999 Viking actioner "The 13th Warrior" again… at least that entry wasn't gutless.

It does take a while to get going with squabbling dramas and well-worn clichés hitting the fold, as they do go on and on talking / arguing in many meandering passages, before finally breaking out an injection of blood splattering, if clumsily forced combat. Quite little and without the bite though. The CGI is poorly conceived in that unconvincing video game imagery and the make-up effects (or better put masks) fair no better, but definitely more preferable. The way the camera shoots the werewolves is that there are never any clear shots, especially during the choppy action and the one and only transformation scene is lazily done. The hazy locations are well pitched, however they're clearly set-designs during the night sequences and the atmosphere is virtually non-existent.

I found "Hammer of the Gods" to be a drearily forgettable action fare.