*** out of ****
Directed by: Kenneth Branagh
Starring: Chris Hemsworth, Natalie Portman, Anthony Hopkins, Tom Hiddleston and Stellan Skarsgard
Running time: 114 minutes
As Marvel Studios begins to maneuver the pieces together for their magnum opus, The Avengers, a long-awaited teaming up of their brawniest superheroes, they have delivered big-budget profile pieces on each of the constituents. These include Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk and Black Widow (from Iron Man 2), and now we have Thor, the bulky, Herculean Norse God.
The big challenge with tackling a character like Thor is constructing a vehicle for him that faithfully delivers his mythology without detracting from the modern verve of other Marvel-ous comic-book adaptations. With that in mind, Thor is quite successful, impressively balancing thickly noble pageantry and breezy humour in a way that recalls Shakespeare. Perhaps that’s why Kenneth Branagh, best known for directing recent retellings of Hamlet and Henry V, was called on to helm the project.
Thor, the film and the captivating hero himself, travels through two ‘realms.’ The first is Asgard, a golden kingdom full of sound, fury and lush CGI cityscapes. Its ruler is Odin (Anthony Hopkins) and the supposed heir to his throne is his strong-willed son, our title character played by Chris Hemsworth, whose hubris is his tragic flaw (yes, this is making me recall my high school English class, too).
After engaging in battle against his father’s wishes with his hammer of choice, Mjolnir, Thor is stripped of his godly power and banished to another realm – Earth. Here, he is discovered by a trio of scientists, led by Jane Foster (Natalie Portman) and Dr. Selvig (Stellan Skarsgard), who are curious on finding the source of the thunderous storm that unleashed the Norse God into their vicinity.
But, wait! A franchise is brewing, so S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Coulson (Clark Gregg), currently rounding up his Avengers team across several films, is called out to investigate the mysterious wormhole that Thor descended from. Also, since every great hero deserves an even better nemesis, Thor’s cunning brother, Loki (Tom Hiddleston) has plans of his own to find a passageway to Earth, kill his sibling and capture the throne himself.
The characters bare closer similarities to Shakespeare: Thor draws comparisons with Henry VI, while Loki recalls Edmund from King Lear, with his treacherous plan to usurp power. Thor's dialogue - at least in Asgard - is as descriptively stylized as the Bard's.
This could have been recited in a hilariously campy manner had Branagh and his cast not had the sufficient command for the material. Hemsworth is terrific in his first starring role, matching the charm of Errol Flynn and the physical strength of Achilles. The earthlings offer strong support: Portman is terrifically at ease as the cute brainiac Jane (and nobody recalls a cute brainiac quite like Portman), Skarsgard is a welcome addition as a noble aide to our Norse God, and Kat Dennings plays the fool’s hand delightfully as Darcy, the former scientists’ assistant.
With Bard enthusiast Branagh on board, Thor makes terrific use of its vast, regal interiors. Production designer Bo Welch and her team of art directors build chambers and castles that have a sleekness of golds and crimsons, making Asgard look as if the metropolis from Tron: Legacy had leapt back to medieval times. Branagh, who is used to getting intimate performances from gargantuan settings, captures both the acting and the grandeur of the scenery with an assured hand.
Still, these vivid interiors are often overwhelmed by a flurry of CGI, and unfortunately Branagh doesn’t have the same grace with action sequences that, say, Jon Favreau or Christopher Nolan have developed. The fights often use close framing and tight editing, which makes some of their finer elements hard to decipher (and the dimness of 3D glasses can only hinder the excitement further).
But with these minor reservations, Thor accomplishes what it sets out to be: an enchanting and entertaining myriad of humourless mythology and breezy, humourous fun – the latter which arrives as soon as our brawny hero steps down in the foreign ‘realm’ of planet Earth. And on top of being a fine introduction to a character generally unknown to the general public, it manages to be an even better introduction to an excellent young actor, Australian native Chris Hemsworth.
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