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As with many "superhero" stories & characters that have been reinterpreted, adapted & translated to the Big Screen, fans of the genre-- or at least those who have a healthy "respect" for it (admittedly influenced in large degree by nostalgia) --will always be confronted with emotional ambivalence over the way the characters are handled when translated to live-action film. "Thor" is definitely no exception.

So to answer the most obvious question awaiting the ever-important response… "Did I like 'Thor'?" Well… yes, sort of -- but not for the reason(s) one may think. I did enjoy the movie well enough, but not for what it was "masquerading" as, but for what it actually was on its own merits as a movie/story.

This is not a movie about an uber-macho He-Man type with ridiculously "sissy" features who talks like a King James translator reject and who hides his true identity in the form of a "physically challenged" doctor. Okay, granted, our lead guy still looks as though he may have at one time been a Fabio understudy, but I'm much more inclined to believe that he could actually kick some supervillain okole than I would give the comic book version any real chance going up against "Ravishing Rono," if I were solely basing these assumptions on their looks alone.

This Thor is depicted as an arrogant and somewhat immature short-fuse who's about to be elevated to the kingly throne obviously way too soon. (One wonders if Papa Odin had not familiarized himself just a little with Shakespeare's "King Lear" ...or if perhaps he simply was already expecting to be dead by the end of the film. Enquiring minds want to know.) After a brief security breach which threatens to destabilize a thread bare truce which erupts during his "swearing in" ceremony, Thor and his loyal friends decide to break protocol and foolishly, but with "Coe Jones" in spades, confront the issue themselves on their own terms, which leads to Thor being banished to… you guessed it… Earth until he proves penitent.

Rather than giving him a big city to be culture shocked with (which would've made for a much more interesting story -- just think of all the possibilities), the makers of this movie decided to play it safe and gave us an "Area-51" style desert town with limited population, which does not make for nearly enough havoc when it's time for the big showdown (heck, even the triumvirate of Kryptonian villains in "Superman II" understood that much).

The imagery of "Asgard" was refreshingly reminiscent of the "Suk Saan" realm of "The Legend of Zu," though one has to wonder if they weren't trying too hard, overdoing it with all the gleaming shiny flawless perfection. At the same time though, the surreal atmosphere of this Asgard, while stunning beautiful, is simultaneously uneasily creepy in many respects, which is actually not a complaint.

Also, the explanation of how the various 'worlds' are interconnected (both in 'visual' and 'expository' form) made the concept believable enough that there was no need to suspend disbelief, which is always a tough trick to pull off in the sci-fi & fantasy genres whenever "intergalactic/interdimensional" travel is employed as a plot device.

Another surprising and equally refreshing aspect of this film is the "international flavor" of the proto-heavenly realm Asgard-- again, another tough act to pull off effectively and convincingly (especially when taking into consideration that the legend the story's characters and elements are based upon are derived directly out of Norse mythology), yet "Thor" manages to do both with seeming seamlessness.

There are lesser aspects of the film too. The pace is too slow... or perhaps the scenery is too "reserved" (again, having the drama play itself out in a more populated region may have helped flesh that out, but as it was, the "earth" scenes felt less like a superhero movie and more like "Jonah Hex"). Of course "S.H.I.E.L.D." has to be sticking its nose in all over the place again, for reasons which should be blatantly obvious by now. And the Stan Lee cameo cliché has grown about as old as Stan himself; time to do away with it already.

In the end, "Thor" is an okay movie for what it is: while nothing in the way of "spectacular," it has its periods, and the sets and visuals are done well enough that it scores a few extra points in the "eye candy" department. As a superhero movie, that's a different story altogether.

If comic book stories about "ancient gods turned contemporary superheroes" is what fuels your furnace and you feel they need "silver screen" treatment, I'd say keep waiting patiently for the "Wonder Woman" feature film.

link directly to this review at https://www.hollywoodbitchslap.com/review.php?movie=20200&reviewer=427
originally posted: 05/25/11 04:48:22
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