Thor review

From its announcement, it was pretty obvious “Thor” was going to be an interesting experiment from Marvel and Paramount. Considering the pool of superheroes who have seen success on the silver screen so far, each has been relatively realistic; Iron Man’s a dude with a messed up heart and some sick armor, Spiderman was bitten by a radioactive spider, Batman has the super ability of having dead parents, etc.

In contrast, Thor is a literal god, on a different existential plane. He’s got the power of magic, which is the opposite of realism. For his movie to be good, Marvel would need to do something drastically different, especially concerning the whole “he needs to go to Earth to set up ‘The Avengers’ next year” thing.

To combat this issue, it seems the company threw some of its new Disney money at a lot of prominent Hollywood figures; Anthony Hopkins gets the “And Anthony Hopkins As…” credit, while Rene Russo gets her own “With” despite having less than 3 minutes of screentime, and the Black Swan herself, Natalie Portman, follows up her Oscar with a turn as love-interest damsel scientist Jane Foster. These actors’ appearances in a comic-book movie aren’t even surprising when one considers “Henry IV” director Kenneth Branagh helmed the production.

With all of this talent, the movie has to be good, right? There’s no way $150 million and such prestigious talent could go to waste? Well, yes and no. The film itself is uneven, at times triumphant and at times painfully, laughably bad. While it shines at some points of its run, it never overcomes its many issues to become truly “good.” I have found, though, that “good” and “entertaining” do not mean the same thing; in that respect, “Thor” definitely falls into the second category.

First, the good; the actors on Earth. Chris Hemsworth, last seen getting blown the fuck up in the opening of “Star Trek 09,” does more than enough with his character, a literal God on Earth, to make his casting shine. As Thor becomes banished from Asgard, the elemental plane where the Gods live, his arrogance and Viking tendencies become hilarious transported to our planet. Whether he’s shattering coffee cups in approval of the drink’s taste (“MORE!”), getting slizzard with Stellan Skarsgard’s head scientist (Foster’s boss) or protecting the people of some podunk New Mexico town, the God of Thunder is welcome on Earth.

Portman, Skarsgard, and Kat Dennings (as the poly-sci intern who tags along on their expeditions) make a nice team as well, with true chemistry and friendship obvious in their roles. Whether they’re giving each other orders, disobeying each other’s direct orders, or Tasering Thor because “he’s freaking me out,” each of the earthly characters acquits themselves well. Even S.H.I.E.L.D.’s brief role in the center of the film works well, especially Jeremy Renner’s cameo as super-archer Hawkeye (in advance of his introduction in Whedon’s “Avengers” next year).

But as the film sparkles and cracks with life on Earth, it fizzles out when it reaches Asgard. It’s unknown exactly why Branagh presented the beautiful perfection of the land of the Gods with such strange pacing, timing and portrayals. The sets are lavish, futuristic, and unconvincing; the dialogue is stilted and, while not catastrophically bad, forced at best; and the roles of the Gods are strangely decided. Tom Hiddleston’s Loki is a serviceable bad guy, though he’s fairly weak as they come; this is another problem with Marvel’s second-tier superhero movies, as I don’t think there’s been a great one yet (outside of ol’ “BOX OF SCRAPS” Jeff Bridges in Iron Man). In addition, everyone overacts and yells, which leads to many unintentional jokes in the early going.

The worst scenes of the superhero flick are the action scenes, which are also supposed to be the best part of a superhero flick. One might say this automatically leads to a complete failure of a film. I won’t go that far, but let’s just say it hurt the film’s score. Thor’s powers are never really explained, and when he and his Warriors Three And One Sexy Lady For Gender Parity launch into warfare with the Frost Giants, a supporting enemy, the proceedings look more like an episode of Power Rangers than a $150 million extravaganza. The Giants resemble characters from an episode, actually. The scenes cut quickly, have a lot of blur (though that may be the fault of a shoddy 3-D upconversion) and are fairly unexciting, save for Thor’s one-man infiltration of S.H.I.E.L.D. midway through the film (though that’s a mortal-on-mortal fight, so maybe it doesn’t count). There were a shit-ton of Dutch angles, as well. It’s like Branagh just found out what they were and said “Well, I’ve made a lot of movies without these, might as well pack ‘em in here!” without realizing that maybe, possibly, they didn’t completely work like they should have.

So, am I Thorry I saw Thor? No, although I am sorry for using that pun. It wasn’t even original, I took it from someone on Twitter. Anyway, the movie’s a serviceable start to the summer, though it probably won’t light any hearts, or the box office, on fire. I’ve got my hopes up for Captain America and Avengers, now; let’s hope Marvel doesn’t fuck them up.

THOR: 6/10