Directed by: Kenneth Branagh
Written by: Ashley Edward Miller, Zack Stentz, Don Payne, J. Michael Straczynski, Mark Protosevich, Stan Lee, Larry Lieber, Jack Kirby
Cast: Chris Hemsworth, Natalie Portman, Tom Hiddleston, Anthony Hopkins, Stellan Skarsgård
Thor's an arrogant young man - but it's hard not to be when you can wield a hammer that weighs as much as a mountain troll.
This arrogance gets the best of Thor (Chris Hemsworth) when he leads a renegade raid against the frost giant world of Jotunheim. The frost giants - long languishing on their frozen planet after Odin stole off with their powerful artifact called the 'Casket of Ancient Winters' - had recently attempted to snitch their power back, and failed. Thor wants revenge; Odin (Anthony Hopkins) orders otherwise, understanding that to do so may lead to a long and bloody war, while the giants really have little chance of getting the artifact back no matter what.
Thor's rebellious raid nearly pulls the two kingdoms into open war, and Odin ends up banishing the flamboyant young God in a fit of rage. He sends his son plummeting down to Earth, strips him of his powers, and flings his hammer down after him after imbuing it with magic that causes it to be unwieldable to any who do not deserve its power; which, for the time being, includes Thor.
Thor ends up with a small group of humans, including young scientist Jane Foster (Natalie Portman). It's soon revealed that a rather sinister plot is brewing back on Asgard, led by Thor's treacherous brother Loki (Tom Hiddleston). Thor must somehow regain his power, regain his father's faith, and stop Loki's brutal plan from unfolding before the ambitious villain plunges the kingdom into a bloody and protracted war.
It's all classic comic book stuff and a lot of it is nothing new; however, these sort of things are sometimes about the journey, and not the end. While being pretty much exactly what everyone might imagine it is, Thor is still an extremely entertaining film by keeping things light, keeping the action colorful, and remembering that there's nothing wrong with chuckling at its own characters.
This, to me, was the biggest surprise - Thor is a funny movie. The world of Asgard is a grim place, and all of the sequences within this realm have a pretty serious tone. In often sharp contrast are the scenes from the perspective of Earth. A lot of the humor of the film is derived from the culture clash of having the great Gods of Nordic myth interact with modern humanity. At one point in the film, Thor's friends Sif (Jaimie Alexander), Volstagg (Ray Stevenson), Fandral (Joshua Dallas), and Hogun (Tadanobu Asano) sneak Earthside in order to find and rescue the banished Thor. They arrive in town and march on down the road - looking, of course, like LARPers with really good costumes. The reactions of the people on the street are appropriate. Even funnier is Thor himself, who really doesn't understand day-to-day etiquette and the culture of common small town USA, let alone how to order a proper coffee refill.
All of this humor is rather affectionate and stops just shy of making everything a joke. The character of Thor within the comics always was a little ridiculous, and so it just makes sense to channel some of that ridiculous energy into a bit of humor. If they had tried to play it entirely straight throughout the film, it just would have been a little awful.
The action is great stuff. Thor's personal style of hammer wielding, wherein he can fling the thing about and let it drag him around, is unique enough to allow for some imaginative and engaging action. The villains of the story are often monstrous - such as the frigid frost giants, the massive beasts that serve them, or the huge semi-robotic being known as 'The Destroyer' - and seeing Thor engage these huge opponents with a big magical mallet of destruction is just joyous eye candy.
While Thor excels in its main content offering - that being the action and the humor - it flounders in other areas. The romance between Thor and mortal scientist Jane Foster is one of the most flaccid relationships ever to be forced into film. It's hard to buy that any sort of deep love would grow between these two. I could see why Foster would be attracted to Thor; after all, he's a God, and has the physique of one. But why would Thor be attracted to her? Her character never really does anything special at all. The goddess Sif is a lot more up his alley and is apparently available - why wouldn't he be hitting on her instead? It just doesn't really make sense, and the film never introduces any real reason for the supposed chemistry between the two.
Sillier and more incongruent is the film's chief villain, who is, of course, Loki. As the film would have us believe it, Loki has never been a mischievous villain before now. All of the Gods - from Odin to Thor to the 'Warriors Three' - have complete trust in Loki. Apparently it's still a little early in Loki's storyline, so he hasn't gotten around to the whole betrayal and attempted patricide part of the legends. Yet, the film contradicts itself when one of the human scientists flips through an old book of Nordic mythology and s
tops on a page of Loki, looking as dastardly and evil as ever.
But, wait a minute - if Loki's never actually ever been evil until now, and is trusted by all of the Gods, then why is it he's evil in all of the old myths? By showing a character flip to this page in the book picturing 'evil Loki' is evidence that Loki has been a villain for a millennium or more in Earthly myths; why is it then that none of the Gods are aware that he's a villain, and so allow his treasonous betrayal to unfold so successfully? It's just a huge self-contradiction and this really should have been thought out more by Kenneth Branagh and the rest of the creative team.
Impotent romances and inconsistent villains aside - Thor is ultimately a success. The action is engaging and imaginative, and the humor is clever enough to complete the sale. The end of the film holds the obvious and expected promise that we're going to see more of Thor in future movies; let's just hope they limit the mooning over his dull love interest and he keeps swinging that mighty hammer at the monsters.
This is a Day Two Review.
Rating: (4 out of 5):
Questions: Does anyone ever refer to Mjolnir by name — if so, do they murder it? And, is Thor visually awesome enough to pay the extra $3 for the RealD 3D Experience?
A mind is like a parachute. It doesn't work if it's not open.