Thor: Tales of Asgard

Why they felt the need to expand upon Thor’s origins, I don’t know. But at the very least they made an action-packed, highly enjoyable coming-of-age story along the way.

Thor: Tales of Asgard is a loose prequel to the live action film since it shows Thor and Sif’s first interactions and budding romance, Loki and Thor’s complicated relationship being developed and showing the first signs of fracture, and Thor’s first meeting and adventures with the Warriors Three. Yet it also covers much of the same emotional ground and a few of the same story beats.

Thor goes from braggadocios, war-loving meat-head to caring, compassionate and thoughtful leader who will take a moment to decide a course of action instead of just jumping into a situation and fighting his way out of it. There’s also the tenuous truce between the Frost Giants and Asgard, which Thor crumbles during the course of the film and repairs at the climax.

If there’s nothing terribly original about it, at least it does a good job of expanding the universe for those people who are new to the mythos. The general consensus was that Thor, the live-action film, was at its most unique, engaging and cinematically fulfilling while in the Asgardian scenes. This film makes the wise decision to keep the entire film in the Asgardian realm, and expanding upon the wars, genocides and histories of the kingdoms within it.

The vocal cast is competent, mostly a collection of various name voice actors who appear in everything. They don’t really do any voices we haven’t heard before from them, but they keep it moving at a nice clip. And the animation, as in all of these Marvel films, leaves something to be desired. They’re never embarrassing to look at, but they never touch the level of quality that DC produces at a continuous rate with their direct-to-DVD films. DC also hires a more unique group of voice actors for their projects instead of relying upon the same core group.

It’s streamlined and keeps a nice propulsive energy, never truly achieving greatness. Thor: Tales of Asgard is worth a glance on Netflix’s streaming service. And if they kept the fantasy look and vibe of the film and properly translated it, it could make for an entertaining and unique animated series from the Marvel/Disney partnership.