With Margie out of town on business, we’ve been having Father/Daughter Movie Nights. Which let us get a bit caught up with some of this year’s super-hero flicks.
It’s not easy being the under-appreciated son of Odin. Especially when your brother — who you really do love dearly (or tell yourself you do) — is such an arrogant oaf, easily tricked by your mischievous jokes and clever manipulation. It’s far worse when your father decides your brother’s the one who deserves the throne, even when he manifestly doesn’t. And it’s even worse than that when you discover you’ve been lied to all these years.
So when you get your chance (not intentionally, but opportunisitically) to put things right — well, it’s probably going to lead to some major drama.
Thor is really about Loki (Tom Hiddleston), in a lot of ways (even moreso when you watch the “deleted scenes”), who is far less the “Prince of Evil” in the comics than a guy who makes some bad decisions for reasons that are a mixture of noble and venal. He’s just out to protect Asgard (esp. from his arrogant ass of a brother), and prove to his dad that he’s strong enough to be his heir.
Which, in some ways, is where Thor starts the film, as the Ultimate Jock of the Gods, grinning and charismatic and a true hero — when he’s not letting his confidence and his passions get in the way.
The main arc of the film is, of course, Thor learning his necessary lessons of humility, courtesy, and compassion, with the help of a fun family of human astro-physicists in a little New Mexico town; his Asgardian comrades the Warriors Three + Sif; and despite the best efforts of SHIELD to figure out what’s going on with the strange hammer embedded the desert …
Oh, yeah, the Destroyer pops in for a nice knock-down-the-town, drag-out-the-plotline appearance.
For comic book fans, there’s some triffic stuff here. The sets, the costumes, the FX are all Aesiriffic. Thor flying through the air is great, Thor throwing his hammer is great, the Warriors Three are great character bits, the Destroyer is appropriately ravening, the crazy Kirbyesque sci-fi Norse world is crazy, Thor’s cape is billowy, the Rainbow Bridge is lovely, Odin (Anthony Hopkins) is All-Fatherly (if sometimes a bit of a softy), Heimdall (Idris Elba) is ominous …
Fun, fun, fun.
Appropriate, perhaps, for comic books, the biggest problem is with the women. Sif (Jamie Alexander) is a cypher — she presumably has the hots for Thor, but barely shows it. Jane Foster (Natalie Portman), now promoted from nurse to amateur astrophysicist, is plenty passionate, but her role doesn’t give her a lot of opportunities to do much besides yell at SHIELD agents (including Iron Man‘s Agent Coulson, Clark Gregg) and moon after Thor (which I guess is twice as much as the original comic book character did).
And then there’s Frigga (Rene Russo), Odin’s wife and Thor’s mom. Who is almost a non-presence in the comics, but here gets at least as much screen time and as many lines as Odin. It feels … odd.
Chris Hemsworth does Thor, and he does the job admirably early on. Heck, all of his appearances are just fine. If there’s a problem, it’s that his arc of redemption — going from bloodthirsty home team jock to noble, humble, self-sacrificing hero — feels way too short. It’s a good, classic tale, but it takes too little time and — except for one majorly traumatic moment — feels forced for time.
One of the minor controversies of the film was the casting of Idris Elba as Heimdall. I mean, Norse Gods, right? We’ll leave aside Grim Hogun (whose ethnicity has always been a bit cloudy — I thought if him more as Finnish, but Tadanobu Asano does okay). It’s sort of a reverse racebending charge … but it works just fine here. Heimdall stands apart, with unique talents and abilities and he looks just fine.
Odin being so gung-ho for peace was a different take on the character.
Kenneth Branagh’s direction is good, if not great. This isn’t Shakespeare, after all, but he still instills appropriate fun and drama. The writing is as smooth as can be expected with three screenwriters and two storywriters (one of whom was Joe Straczynski). The deleted scenes on the Blu-Ray include some good character-fleshing-out bits (that are missed), and some miscellaneous bits that certainly were properly edited out.
The movie also serves as a nice lead-in (including an after-the-credits bonus scene) to Joss Whedon’s upcoming Avengers movie (complete with another Avenger-to-be cameo).
Overall good stuff. And a movie I’ll watch again.
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