I found myself enjoying Kenneth Branagh’s Thor much more than I thought I would. In the film’s world, Thor, Odin, and the other viking gods are actually aliens that have technology which allows them to travel to other realms. These norsemen have been at war with the frost giants for millennia. Thor is about to be made king when a group of frost giants infiltrate Asgard and try to steal a major weapon. In retribution, Thor attacks the frost giants, despite being explicitly told not to by his father, King Odin. For being reckless, Thor is cast to Earth without his powers, where he must learn responsibility before he can return to Asgard. Meanwhile, his brother Loki is implementing a conspiracy.
If it sounds confusing, it’s because there is so much going on. However, one of the strengths of the film is how well it explains this information to people who have no previous frame of reference. As someone who has never read a Thor comic, I was still capable of understanding everything that was going on.
I believe that the greatest strength of this film is Chris Hemsworth’s portrayal of Thor. His arrogance and brash nature are likable nonetheless. It would not be a surprise if this film makes him a star, similar to Hugh Jackman’s stardom emerging from his portrayal of Wolverine from the X-Men movies.
Asgard and all the scenes off Earth are visually incredible and simply a blast to watch. In most cases I am opposed to creation of entire worlds out of CGI, but this is one of the rare cases where I believe it worked astonishingly well. Because these worlds are so foreign in concept to us anyways, the epic nature that CGI is able to convey works wonders.
The movie falls flat on Earth, however, as it turns from an unusual superhero film to a traditional fish out of water comedy. This is tonally jarring and introduces us to the earthlings, none of whom have any depth. Kat Dennings is particularly obnoxious, uttering buzzwords like “facebook.” Natalie Portman is given nothing to do but sit around and look pretty, particularly unfortunate considering Black Swan demonstrated just how talented she is.
The largest problem with the Earth scenes though, is that most of them have little to do with the overall conflict. These scenes could have been cut to a more reasonable length, but then the already illogical and unbelievable love story between Hemsworth and Portman would make even less sense.
Overall, I do believe that this film is worth watching. If you’re looking for a fun popcorn flick, you could certainly do a lot worse. There is a great deal of potential in this film, but also several drastic miscalculations. Because of this I can’t give it as high a score as I would like.
3.5 out of 5
© Tanner McCullough, 2011
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