I really disliked marvels animated home release movies, they just never grabbed my attention or interest, and i decided not to watch them, but when The Avengers movie came out, and i started watching Avenger earths mightiest heroes, i decided to give marvels animated films a chance, most were just as dumb and uninteresting as i had predicted, but a few were real gems, Thor: tales of Asgard is the shiniest jem there is. Despite not being the origin story of the live action Thor, i decided it must be the origin story for the Thor from avengers earths mightiest heroes. The story starts off pretty generic, a hot headed prince, who believes hes the greatest warrior there is despite never leaving the castle, he wants to prove himself and have an adventure ( you know like a Disney princess), despite this Thor never comes off as too annoying, you understand that he wants to be taken seriously by his father, his brother and his people, so he decides to go on a journey that will prove his manhood. In this day and age, boys no longer have a right of passage as they used to, so most turn into man children who have no sense of responsibility or respect for others, so i found this movie to have a really good moral lesson and ill get to that in a couple of sentences. I just want to talk about Loki, i was expecting him to be envious of Thor or show some indication that he will become his arch enemy someday, instead were treated to a loving brother who respects and takes care of thor, ends up saving his life many times throughout the movie, and towards the end you suddenly remember that they will be sworn enemies one day. Lady sif and the warriors 3 are Thor's friends in this movie, and their all very good supporting characters, warriors 3 are really funny and i enjoyed them a lot more here than in the live action film. Lady sif is surprisingly an interesting character, its obvious she has a crush on Thor but she hates herself for it ( im pretty sure there is a Selena Gomez song that describes this sort of thing), sif decides to join the Valkyries which resemble the feminazis of today. Odin seems like a regular dad in this movie not like a god, his voice is very gentle but stern at the same time, and he gets quite a lot of character development himself throughout the movie, trying to become a better father. There really isn't any cookie cutter villains in this, the frost giants are the antagonists, chasing Thor and his friends and attacking Asgard, but that's only because Thor accidentally killed some of them with his fire sword. Algrim the dark elf is a very complex villain, and yes its not hard to figure out that a dark elf is not going to be the villain, but surprisingly as you hear his stories of his dead family and the genocide of his entire race by the hands of the frost giants, and just the way hes so pleasant towards Thor and Odin, you actually begin to hope he doesn't become the villain, so when he takes Thor's fire sword and starts talking crazy, your saying to your self, "don't you do it!"this scene is very tense, and one of the soldiers sees this betrayal coming but in a sudden burst of fire algrim kills everyone except Thor and his friends, and then he tries to go kill Odin ( for failing to stop the genocide of his people) this fight scene is very epic and impactful, since you've seen Odin and algrim be really good friends, Thor eventually stops algrim, but cannot bring himself to kill him, so Loki kills him instead starting his fall to darkness, Thor then takes responsibility for his actions against the frost giants, even offering his life in exchange, but he is forgiven by the frost giants. Thor then has a very emotional conversation with his father, making you aware of how Thor will someday become worthy of his hammer. The movie is very good, the animation looks like its from japan but that's fine, the characters are all well developed and the story is very engaging,i didn't think the romance( if u can call it that) was necessary between Thor and sif, but i did really like their kiss at the end, i saw it as them finally respecting each other. But the action is breathtaking, the fight scene between algrim and Odin is just incredible. There are tons of cameos and references, such as Thor's hammer, the enchantress, and Loki being a frost giant. This is a movie i fully recommend, and i guarantee you will want to go swing a hammer like Thor by the end of it.
Review of Thor: Tales of Asgard
