Sunday, May 8, 2011

Cinema 2011 #43: Thor


Thor’s a homo.

That’s pretty much the entire referencing point I had when it came to this, the latest installment in Marvel’s efforts to pull off the ultimate spectacle in superheroics and 3D derring-do. A 1987 Elisabeth Shue starring teen-flick favoured by my sister, Adventures in Babysitting. Well, that and a loose recollection of Norse mythology and its mead-chugging Viking warrior frat-boys after-living it up in Valhalla. Perhaps that is why I viewed Thor as the big gamble in Marvel’s mix, as convincing an audience, much grounded in pseudo-scientific superhero lore and post Dark Knight gritty realism, that a magical God from a non-Christian heaven could end up on Earth, fighting off baddies with a bewitched hammer named Mjolnir, is a pretty big feat. Throw into the mix a lead actor best known in these islands for playing the buff fella with a girl's name on Home & Away, a director famed for his Shakespearian roots and a film languishing in developmental Niflheim for years, and you get Thor. And by Odin’s beard, this god of thunder arrives with a bang.

The film tells the story of Thor, the Norse deity and crown prince of Asgard, whose father Odin is none too pleased with his offspring’s devil-may-care brawling and foolhardy antics. When Thor and his sidekicks go one step too far, causing an intracosmos war with the Jack Frost giants of Jotunheim, Odin, played with voiciferous gusto by Anthony Hopkins, banishes him to Earth. Separated from his godlike goodies (hammer and powers) until he can learn the humility to be a just and righteous leader, Thor becomes a bumbling, and genuinely funny, fish out of water when slumming it with us mere mortals. Luckily, he catches up with Natalie Portman’s Jane, an astrophysicist whose research has caught the eyes of secretive organization S.H.I.E.L.D. (the glue holding this sprawling superhero scrapbook together), who aims to help him out. And help he needs, as up in the heavens, brother Loki (Tom Hiddleston) starts to sow seeds of dissent in an effort to bag the thrown.


Kenneth Branagh was something of a surprise choice as director, having never made an action film in his 20-year career of Elizabethan dramas and oh so British comedies of manners, but he’s really scored high with Thor. The action sequences are energetic, big and bold and the 3D gives the lavish rendering of Asgard a very professional polish. Unsurprisingly, Branagh really comes into his own in the costume-heavy histrionics and backstabbings of the Asgardian royals, with the rich art direction and big booming family feuds right up his Shakespearean alley. Add to this an extremely enjoyable down-to-earth down on Earth arc, which fleshes out the already fleshy lead with good humour and slapstick fun. The only cloud on the horizon is the inevitable romance, which is perhaps a tad underdeveloped, but expect heartstrings to be strung as two beautiful stars light up the screen.

The actors are uniformly excellent, from Portman’s plain Jane to recurring S.H.I.E.L.D. errand boy Agent Coulson (Clark Gregg). All of the supporting cast get memorable moments too, with Kat Dennings particularly shining as Jane’s cynical assistant Darcy. Even Loki, who sounds like the archetype jealous sibling baddie, is given an actual character to work with, and Hiddleston, originally in the running for Thor himself, nails perfectly the scheming brother with serious hammer-envy. But ultimately the film falls on the shoulder of the main man, and Hemsworth is a breakout star. Having done some serious bulking up (you’ll feel slightly depressed as you shovel the buttery popcorn into your gob), he looks every bit the all-powerful God, and handles the action scenes with zeal. That he should also be so charming as the naïve Norseman abroad, well that’s just divine intervention.
Avengers is still on track.

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