Awfully Good: Almighty Thor

Last Updated on August 5, 2021

Marvel’s THOR is out on Blu-Ray and DVD this week. If you were hoping to watch the polar opposite of that movie, please check out…

Almighty Thor (2011)

Director: Christopher Ray
Stars: Cody Deal, Richard Grieco, Patricia Velasquez

Is there a plot?

Thor, the Norse God of legend, comes to modern day Los Angeles to defeat Richard Grieco.

What’s the damage?

As one would expect, ALMIGHTY THOR is incredibly epic. Unfortunately, it’s epic in its badness, to a point that’s almost unfathomable. Even for an Asylum movie.

Richard Grieco is confronted by the Ghost of Careers Past.

Not since HERCULES IN NEW YORK has a god so inadequately visited a major American city. Cody Deal, who sounds like a car dealership mascot, plays Thor as a slightly muscular Jon Heder. (I truly expected to hear, “Odin, gosh!”) For some reason, Asylum’s version of Thor is a scrawny white guy with no fighting skills whatsoever. Which is a good thing considering that his arch-nemesis Loki is played by 46 year old 80s star Richard Grieco. Yes, that Richard Grieco.

It sure was lonely at the annual meeting of the Richard Grieco Fan Club.

Here the aging, drug withered actor truly lives up to the promise of his role in IF LOOKS COULD KILL, in that he looks like he should be dead. In ALMIGHTY THOR, Loki is so pale and lifeless he’s either a poor ripoff of Voldemort, or an actor in the middle of detoxing. The villain also boasts no smarts or eloquence, as the character traditionally does, instead opting for an Italian guy who walks around yelling for no reason and blowing stuff up with his magic stick. Grieco also doesn’t even attempt any kind of accent or olden speech of yore. All you get is the man’s very distinct voice asking Thor if, seriously dude, he can borrow a hammer.

It was even lonelier at the first ever Richard Grieco Hide and Seek Tournament.

What can possibly top that? How about wrestling star Kevin Nash as Odin. Let me recap for you. In Marvel’s THOR you get Sir Anthony Hopkins. In Asylum’s ALMIGHTY THOR, you get a guy whose stage name while groping sweaty guys was Diesel, Vinnie Vegas and Master Blaster. Thankfully Nash’s screentime is fairly limited, because I don’t think I could stand more than five minutes of him saying things like, “It portends to be an evil day.” To his credit though, Mr. Nash is not alone. In fact, from the extras to the top-billed stars, the production clearly couldn’t find a single human that can deliver a line naturally. Scenes where people have to emote or, God forbid cry, are just laughable. Even single words like “Wait!” or Stop!” are executed poorly. And it’s not like this was shot in Bulgaria like most SyFy movies. ALMIGHTY THOR was filmed on location in Los Angles. I can tell because it’s obvious a big chunk of the movie was shot right outside their production office building.

“NASH OUT!”
© Chris Klein Corporation

Is the story at least good? Long answer: no, which is shocking since ALMIGHTY THOR comes from a guy whose only other writing credit is a movie called MILF. His bright idea is to make a movie about Thor where Thor is a giant, incompetent sissy. Not only is he a crappy fighter, he gets beat up by a girl early on in the film, which begs the question: why wasn’t Thor trained already? What has he been doing with his life up until this point? Crocheting a scarf for his dad?

In addition to kicking Norse ass, the stick is also helpful for fighting off Bluth brothers.

Eventually a girl with the unfortunate name Jarnsaxa (played by one of the Martas from “Arrested Development”) takes pity on Thor for being such a wuss. The goddess warrior then takes him back to her studio apartment in downtown L.A. (yep), where he’s immediately subjected to a mugging and taught how to use a machine gun. (That’s right, Thor’s packing heat!) What follows is literally an hour and a half of our hero getting his ass kicked by Loki Grieco, running away, refusing training of any kind…and repeat! You could actually skip the middle 50 minutes of the movie and not miss anything, that’s how repetitive and boring it is. Even the moments of action are sleep-inducting, with the horrible fights made even worse by hilarious over-use of slow motion that makes John Woo look like Michael Bay. If you played ALMIGHTY THOR at normal speed it would be about half an hour long. Unfortunately, we’re not that lucky.

THE AVENGERS just got interesting…

“Best” Line

Some of Richard Grieco’s best moments of overacting, courtesy of The Soup.

“Best” Parts

1) This showdown between Thor and Loki is a great example of the terrible action, horrendous acting and laughable CGI. So, ALMIGHTY THOR in a nutshell.

2) It’s Thor vs. Random Knight in one of the most boring fights ever conceived. (Unless you find constant slow motion exciting.)

Nudity Watch

Nada.

Enjoyableness Continuum:

Get more Grieco! Buy this movie here!

Play Along at Home!

Take a shot or drink every time:

Richard Grieco yells “Odin!” or “No!” or “Ragnarok!”
You confuse Thor for Napoleon Dynamite
You see an extra on the street watching Richard Grieco and clearly thinking “Holy crap, that’s Richard Grieco!”
Someone calls forth a mystical gateway by simply chanting the word “gateway”
There’s terrible CGI

Double shot if: