Thor is latest Marvel comics character to be brought to the big screen. As a kid I was a fan of the comics (I happened to read it during what is still considered to be it's best run of stories) and was hopeful when I heard good reviews (almost as good as Iron Man and the best comic book film since The Dark Knight). I don't think either of those things are true but I mostly enjoyed it.
In the Marvel comics, Thor is a superhero who's really the Norse god of thunder. Hercules and other Greek gods have made appearances too but Thor is one of the main heroes, invented around the same time as Iron Man, the Hulk, and the Fantastic Four. Thor is a hot headed warrior and his brother Loki, being the god of mischief, is his typical nemesis. Thor's father Odin cast him down to Earth to learn humility and gave him a meek human form. Instant comic.
The film did a surprisingly good job of representing the gods. I bought Chris Hemsworth as the god of thunder and thought he even pulled off one of the stranger superhero costumes. Asgard was well rendered and I liked seeing Thor's friends (Sif and the Warriors Three). Loki was devious enough and though I found most of his turns obvious one surprised me a little. Still, the other Asgardians were totally clueless and they should have been at least a little suspicious.
The humans didn't fare as well. Thor is cast down to Earth, New Mexico actually, and literally runs in a team of scientists played by Natalie Portman (as Jane Foster), Stellan Skarsgard, and Kat Dennings. I didn't buy any of this. I didn't buy the town as being real, it looked like the town in Pixar's Cars. Hemsworth was a more convincing Norse god than Portman was a scientist. The government agents were completely generic.
As I saw the credits it all made sense to me. I liked the story. There was enough plot and the characters all had motivations for their actions. The story was credited to J. Michael Straczynski (of Babylon 5 fame and he also wrote the Thor comics for a recent two year run) and Mark Protosevich (The Cell and I Am Legend). The problem was the script. The characters didn't say much and what they did say was banal. There's some love interest between Thor and Foster but aside from a brief scene of him without a shirt, there's no real reason for these two to be of interest to each other. The Warriors Three and Sif have one scene with a real conversation. Odin mostly narrates a flashback and is unconscious for most of the film. The three people credited with the script are Ashley Miller, Zack Stentz and Don Payne. Miller and Stentz are known for the TV series The Sarah Connor Chronicles and Andromeda and a little for Fringe. Payne worked on The Simpsons but also wrote the abysmal Fantastic 4 Rise of the Silver Surfer and My Super Ex-Girlfriend. I don't understand how Marvel rehires the guy that wrote FF2.
But it's a comic book film and it's directed by Kenneth Branagh. The question is how was the action? The answer is okay. The camera stays too close but you can make out individual actions. This makes it far better than Transformers. You see Thor do all his classic moves, the spinning hammer, the thrown hammer, slamming the hammer down to call a lightening bolt. I also really liked a quick shot of Volstagg losing in battle and Sif coming in from an odd angle to save him. But there was too little of that stuff and too much of generic fight scenes that didn't make a lot of sense (lets have the giant robot walk through the town destroying cars). Also, Thor was a bit too powerful, there has to be some risk of him getting hurt to make the fight meaningful.
I thought a bunch of scenes looked like tllt-shift photography where everything looks like a model. I saw it in 3D and it was just ok, no great need to pay extra for it. The sky above Asgard were particularly nice views of nebulas and galaxies and you fly through them during the credits (there's a short scene after the credits). That was cute but it was also the best of 3D in the film.
I'm looking forward to The Avengers in 2012 since Joss Whedon is writing and directing it. Captain America comes out in two months, but it's writers are known for the Narnia series, so I'm not particularly hopeful. Marvel does well at casting and is getting good directors. Now they just have to pay for the writers.
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