In the pantheon of Comic Book heroes being brought to film, by a variety of directors and studios, "Thor" now thunders into theatres by Paramount Studios, directed by none other than Kenneth Branagh. I will admit, my knowledge of the Thor mythos was never extensive and my anticipation for the film reflected this. "Thor" just didn't seem that cool sounding to me. Couple that with a director, while very well regarded as an actor and director, isn't well known for action blockbusters, and my desire to see this film was not high. The trailers changed all that.
One thing that became clear from the outset was that wherever Thor might rank in popularity, the director seemed to take him as seriously as the character's ego. The look of the film was eye-catching in the both the trailers and the various television spots. What we have here is essentially two films that have to accomplish the same objective within a narrative that expands to a larger Marvel story arc that has been building since "Iron Man" and "The Incredible Hulk" and will culminate with "The Avengers" next summer.
I enjoyed "Thor" quite a bit more than "Iron Man 2," in large part because it stays relatively self-contained. There is a scene about a third of the way through the film that duplicates a scene from the end credits of "Iron Man 2," but for most of its run time, "Thor" wants to tell its own story. After a swift opening and brief glimpse of the titular hero landing in the desert, we get sent back through time in the cosmos as the ever-reliable Sir Anthony Hopkins provides an admittedly half-hearted back story of Asgard's role in the universe, and how it relates to us mortals. Hopkins is almost always welcome for a voice-over, but it is revealed that he is relaying the story to his sons, Thor and Loki, as children, and that fact helps eleviate it's short-comings; wouldn't you explain an extensive history of your immortal lineage in simpler terms to young children?
After watching Thor flex his hammer and muscles on Jotunheim and it's native 'Frost Giants' against his father Odin's (Hopkins) orders, Thor is banished to earth for his arrogant behavior. Then we catch up to the opening scene where Dr. Erik Selvig (Stellan Skarsgard), Jane Foster (Natalie Portman) and the utterly useless college intern Darcy (Kat Dennings) stumble upon a newly mortalized Thor. As far as I could tell, Darcy exists in the narrative for 'witty' one-liners and comic relief in a movie that doesn't need the relief. The movie already has the light-hearted feel of the "Iron Man" pictures and many of the laughs come from Thor's alien behavior on earth or the far more clever lines provided by any number of the main players. Perhaps the studio felt that Natalie Portman's comely astro-physicist wasn't adequate female representation in a movie dripping with testosterone. Fair enough, but why add another pretty face just to toss her into the background and give her juvenile sit-com lines? A minor criticism in a movie that has expert pacing and a narrative that is surprsingly engaging considering it's other-worldy origins.
Part of my early reservations about the film had much to do with the Thor mythos. Iron Man, Hulk and Captain America are all larger than life characters, but inhabit our home planet and the things that provide them their powers originate from some super-science gone wrong, or right, in Captain America's case. Then there is Thor, a character that brings to the Avengers an element of the meta-physical realm. Indeed, the Asgard and Jotunheim passages of the film feel like a more competent version of the "Riddick" films and have an art direction that feels as immortal as it's characters. The earth passages feel similar in tone to certain portions of "Iron Man" and especially re-call scenes of certain Kryptonian villains destroying small-town Idaho in "Superman 2." Yet these different elements are blended cohesively by Branagh, who must have understood the aspects of Thor that make him relevant enough to earth to ground him in an ever-growing Marvel story-arc.
'Thor' certainly wouldn't be in my top 5 comic-to-film adaptations. Yet it's a worthy addition to the rest of the Marvel Avengers team. It has the good regard to not rely on visual CGI to make a summer entertainment work, but instead polishes the portions of the film that require it. 'Thor' has a heart, and at that heart is essentially a bombastic coming-of-age tale in which Thor has to learn his lesson before teaming up along side the rest of the mighty Avengers. I suspect a significant portion of that lesson has something to do with the astro-physicist.
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