By Asgard’s Hammer!: LFM Mini-Review of Thor

By Jason Apuzzo. THE PITCH: Muscular Aussie newcommer Chris Hemsworth swings the heavy hammer in Thor, a big-budget adaptation of Stan Lee’s superhero comic series – featuring an expensive, A-list cast (Anthony Hopkins, Natalie Portman) and operatic direction from Kenneth Branagh.

THE SKINNY: Thor brings muscle, pomp and even Marlovian court intrigue to this revered Marvel Comics property – while never losing its sense of humor. In a genre that sometimes takes itself too seriously, Thor strikes a nice balance between campy light humor and mythic/fantasy storytelling.

WHAT WORKS:

• Chris Hemsworth, who between Thor and Red Dawn (which I’ve already reviewed, in its original, non-castrated form) is about to become a major star. Physically, Hemsworth reminds me of the linebackers who played for Pete Carroll at USC – big, wild, ripped dudes with long hair, like Clay Mathews or Brian Cushing. As an actor, though, Hemsworth excels in moments when he needs to project warmth, sensitivity or shrewdness. He’s the complete on-screen package, and should have a strong career ahead of him. The rest of the film’s pricey cast is similarly solid – especially Anthony Hopkins as Odin, and Tom Hiddleston as Loki.

• Thor’s boffo set pieces and art direction from Maya Shimoguchi and her team make Asgard look like something out of Wagner’s Ring-cycle as performed by The Met. Shimoguchi and cinematographer Haris Zambarloukos also elevate the film’s New Mexico desert town into a cozy, archetypal burg out of classic 1950s sci-fi. I wanted to move right in and hunt aliens.

• Strong, humanistic values. Thor is a lover and a fighter, you might say. Banished to Earth by his father Odin (a highly grizzled Anthony Hopkins, complete with eyepatch), and having lost his super-powers, angry young man Thor matures and comes to enjoy Earth and all its human pleasures (coffee, beer, cute astrophysicists). Plus, although our government doesn’t know who he is – after he weirdly drops out of the sky into the New Mexico desert, and cheerfully clobbers everyone in sight – and although government agents quasi-threaten him with ‘enhanced interrogation,’ Thor eventually comes around to the government’s side, pledging himself to defend Earth’s security. Thor’s very much a team-player, a good egg who digs small town America, and you basically get the sense he would fit in well on SEAL Team 6.

WHAT DOESN’T WORK:

• CGI overkill. Way too much of the film is spent on dull FX sequences that lack style, grace or imagination. (Although I loved the automaton-robot that looks like Gort from The Day the Earth Stood Still.) Also: I’m getting really tired of seeing massed CGI armies on-screen. Nothing could be more dull at this point. Mano-a-mano action is where it’s at, which fortunately Thor has enough of.

• The costumes didn’t always work for me, occasionally drifting a little too close to Cirque du Soleil by way of KISS.

• The mythology of Thor’s universe is a bit too complicated for the screen, and not very interesting. The film’s various CGI astral realms bored me. Thor worked much better while it was in New Mexico, with Thor drifting around between trailer parks and bars – downing beers, bossing people around, flirting with chicks.

THE BOTTOM LINE:

Although I’m not a fan of the comic book genre, Thor basically won me over. The film is actually 3 things at once: a comic book movie, a sword-and-sorcery epic of the 1980s variety, and an old-fashioned sci-fi film. As a result, it covers a lot of ground in its almost 2-hour running time. The film is very concerned with questions of war and peace, of which wars are worth initiating or not, and the filmmakers have made an obvious effort to make the film’s pseudo-mythic storyline ‘compatible’ with our contemporary War on Terror era.

On this point, it’s interesting that Thor is depicted as the son of a king, an earnest, good-hearted hothead who lets himself get provoked into an unnecessary war … whereas his brother/successor Loki is depicted as bi-species, a smooth-talking manipulator and a traitor with a questionable birth. Quite a coincidence, eh? I’m not saying the film has a political subtext, because Thor has an old storyline that goes back to the comics – and before that to hoary characters of Norse mythology. But, you know, it’s hard not to notice these things …

In any case, Marvel and Paramount cut some very large checks to find the talent that could elevate this basically campy material into something viable. They’ve certainly accomplished that, and created a compelling new star in Chris Hemsworth … but I wish somebody would’ve told them they could drop 20 minutes worth of bad CGI FX sequences (maybe $50 million worth) and probably found themselves with a better film. I enjoyed Thor, but watching the film in 3D IMAX left me with a headache – kind of like listening to a Led Zeppelin album at full volume, while tenderizing meat with your skull.

Still, the superhero genre – with all its neurotic teenagers, and schizophrenic billionaires in tights – has been conspicuously lacking in muscle and old-fashioned masculine bravado, and Thor really brings all that back. Back in the day, Chris Hemsworth might’ve fit in with Kirk Douglas and Ernest Borgnine in The Vikings … and that’s the highest praise I can give.

SPECIAL NOTE: Make sure to stay through the end credits. You’ll get a brief teaser for a forthcoming film. All I’ll say is that the teaser involves Samuel L. Jackson and an eyepatch …

Posted on May 6th, 2011 at 7:26pm.