Rating summary

Movie		1.0
Video		3.5
Audio		2.5
Extras		1.0
Overall		2.0

Almighty Thor Blu-ray Movie Review

Almighty Bore

Reviewed by Martin Liebman June 24, 2017

So The Asylum got in on the superhero craze. No surprise there. The studio, famed for its blatant rip-offs of studio blockbusters and the resultant poor facsimiles thereof, has chosen Thor as its comic book-to-"movie" target. The God of Thunder, previously the subject of two films (with a third on the way) under the Marvel Cinematic Universe umbrella, has now become a laughing stock in a terrible low-budget adaptation. Fortunately, not too many people will be laughing, because not too many people will be watching, and many who do will be in it strictly for the LOLs anyway. The movie is all Asylum, poor in every conceivable manner but, to the studio's credit, the Blu-ray is priced to match the film's (and the disc's, for that matter) quality. It's worth it for a laugh; Marvel fans can marvel at bad filmmaking and go back and see just how much better the big boys do it.

The god of boredom.

The mischievous Loki (Richard Grieco) is determined to get his hands on the Hammer of Invincibility at all costs. Standing in his way is Odin (former professional wrestler Kevin Nash) and his son, Thor (Cody Deal). When Odin falls in battle, the Hammer is sent away in an effort to keep it from Loki's hand. Thor is tasked with retrieving it. First, he must undergo intense training under the tutelage of the powerful and wise Jarnsaxa (Patricia Velasquez). But before Thor can finish his training with Jarnsaxa, the two are transported to Earth where a final showdown with Loki for the Hammer will take place and the fate of the universe hangs in the balance.

The movie in two words: "typical Asylum." Really, this one has it all: bad acting, a terrible script, bland visuals, awful special effects, dull settings, hideous costumes, lackadaisical editing, poor composition, and on and on. The movie recycles various shots over and over again, like one of Loki walking down a random city street. Special effects are hazy and lazy. The acting isn't so much "acting" as it is "reciting lines and standing in front of the camera," which works well enough until a poorly composed shot comes along that lops off the top-third of Thor's head when he's learning to fire a Beretta handgun (prop with visual effect muzzle blast). Music is ever-present, either above or below the action, in a futile effort to give every moment added weight and adrenaline. It doesn't work. Almighty Thor isn't that much better than a (good) amateur production. A couple of name actors, a decent camera, and a larger team than a few teenagers with a camera are really all that separate this from homemade (by a few rich kids). The movie is through-and-through bad, so bad that even a smash with Thor's hammer couldn't demolish this dud far enough into oblivion.

But one really cannot say that anything "went wrong" with the movie. This is The Asylum. "Cheap" is the studio's trademark, and it wouldn't be an Asylum movie if it were even polished to the level of the typical big studio direct-to-video dud. No, one practically expects a zero effort film. Sure, someone bothered to act and point the camera in the general vicinity and work up the bad visual effects and edit the footage into a reasonable runtime and with a basic cadence, but the results speak for themselves. Hey, they tried, but it's so embarrassing to watch that the general effort gets lost in the plot's tedium or the poor characterization and visual effects. That fine line between "honest effort" and "bad results" is lost on this one. It's clear it was made to fit a budget and probably a timeframe, not because of any deeply rooted passion for the project. The entire movie is all about the money, and sure, one can say that of every studio, but in most every movie one can at least find a glimpse of passion behind it. Not here. The movie is cold, heartless, and even if the filmmakers did care -- and to be honest they probably did at some point -- The Asylum's bottom line overshadows everything else.

Almighty Thor Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Almighty Thor's 1080p transfer, sourced from a digital shoot and producing a very slick, clean image, looks good considering the movie's inherent limitations. Its most valuable asset is its ability to squeeze out razor-sharp fine details throughout the film. Close-ups are excellent, showcasing pores and facial hair with striking efficiency and clarity. Costumes and a few environments are very well defined, too. The good largely stops there. The movie is heavily filtered, playing with a heavy sepia tint to begin and a very cold, gray-blue dominant coloring on Earth. There's no color punch whatsoever, and even would-be vibrant natural greens lack any sort of spirited pop. Visual effects are hazy. Establishing and transitional shots are noisy. Black levels don't stray too far from norm. Skin is ghastly pale, particularly Loki's, which seems to be per design. It's more or less technically sound, but the movie itself is hardly one of any kind of rich visual excellence.

Almighty Thor Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Almighty Thor's Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack is rather puny. It offers a serviceable level of front-side spacing and general clarity, but the film's low budget nature shows throughout. Musical spacing stretches the fronts in no meaningful way. It's wide, but not notably so. Surround envelopment is minimal and really not noticeable. A few action effects offer decent movement along both axes; Loki's fireballs or passing traffic help to open up the stage, but never does the listener feel any way immersed in the action. Gunshots and other action-oriented effects -- various clashes between Thor and Loki -- offer enough baseline detail, spacing, and power to satisfy general requirements but never to draw the listener into the action. Dialogue is serviceably clear and front-center focused, though there are times when it's notably shallow, particularly early in the film.

Almighty Thor Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Almighty Thor contains a featurette and a blooper reel.

• Making of Featurette (1080i, 8:59): Cast and crew interviews are interspersed with on-set footage.
• Bloopers (1080p, 2:57): Humorous moments from the shoot.

Almighty Thor Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Almighty Thor is as bad as it looks. It embodies the worst of The Asylum, with the single exception of Alien Origin, which didn't even have a plot. This does have a plot, but it offers nothing else of value. It's lowest-common-denominator studio filmmaking, bad enough that it's a blatant rip-off, worse because it's not even a good rip-off. The movie has no soul, shows no qualities that make the audience think that anyone even cared. They certainly did, to an extent, but the suffocating Asylum style wipes out any semblance of heart in any area of the movie. The Blu-ray offers a few short extras along with decent video and uninteresting audio. Skip it.