/ 29 April 2011

Hammer and tongs

Hammer And Tongs

One is always amused by the froth of commentary, advice and invective that breaks out all over the internet whenever a new superhero movie hoves into view.

Multitudinous comic-book geeks have very firm opinions on the right way and the wrong way to adapt those inky heroics to the glossy computer worlds of the cinema.

In the case of Thor, I feel a bit of the sense of ownership that drives the comic-book geeks. At age 10 or so, I discovered Marvel’s version of the Norse god and added that publisher’s take on the god of thunder to the old mythological visions I’d already absorbed. I followed a twisty story line through many slender editions of The Mighty Thor over several years. This was what is, it appears, now deemed one of the comic series’s classic periods.

Since those days, of course, Thor and his cohorts in the “Marvel Universe” have been reinvented, redrawn and relaunched several times. I can’t say I’ve managed to keep up (and I was never interested in Thor as one of the Avengers), but I did note that at some point Thor acquired the beard he must originally have had in the Viking imagination but which he lacked when he made his Marvel Comics debut in 1962. Beards were then probably as unlikely on a superhero as, say, a little light cross-dressing.

In Kenneth Branagh’s film of Thor the god’s got his beard back, though it’s a very neatly trimmed one — more supermodel than superhero or Norse god but there you go. Fashion doesn’t stand still, does it? That’s why superhero outfits have to be updated regularly, too, and I think the latest incarnation of these deities makes them look rather good.

It’s a bit tricky because if you went all Viking on their outfits you’d have too many fur cloaks and the like, not to mention a tendency to remain unlaundered for, oh, practically centuries at a time. No, we need to get some glitter in there, some shine. And gods being gods it makes sense to neaten them up, add some shimmer to their robes, butch up the bits that are going as armour and give them helmets that look like they’ve been designed in metallo-plastic by Philippe Starck.

Neat and shiny
In general, if I may get the geeky stuff out the way, I think the outfits in Thor look good but, as places go, Asgard is a mixed bag. The home of the gods is reimagined efficiently enough and the “interiors” are okay in the way a computer-generated model of a future hotel might be okay, but on the outside Asgard feels way too neat and shiny. These are Norse gods, for heaven’s sake, and this is their fortress in the sky, not the headquarters of some globe-straddling corporation. (No mention, by the way, of Valhalla and all those roistering dead warriors. I can’t imagine they do much cleaning up after themselves.)

As for the story, I think director Branagh and the script committee have done a decent job of an origins story, introducing all the basic elements of what could get a II, a III, even a IV, in years to come. We have the impulsive young thunder god cast from Asgard by “All-Father” Odin for making a pre-emptive strike on some ice demons without a mandate from the United Nations, or something of that ilk. On Earth, the bewildered and understandably rattled Thor has to relate to modern-day humans Natalie Portman, Stellan Skarsgård and Kat Dennings, playing the scientists who first note his appearance on our little planet. Meanwhile, back (or up) in Asgard, Thor’s wicked brother, Loki, is plotting to grab the throne — So far, so good.

These storylines work reasonably well, and Thor feels like less of a rush between set pieces than many another superhero movie. Naturally the three scientists’ field of study is some incomprehensible amalgam of astronomical techno-babble and New Age nonsense, but that’s to be expected.

What doesn’t make sense to me at all is to pivot the plot on a succession battle in Asgard: these are gods, guys, with Odin being chief among them, and Supreme Beings don’t do succession battles. What next? Jesus leans over to Jehovah one day and whispers, “I think it’s time for you to retire, Old Man”?

The drama itself is pretty well played, though, whatever sillinesses the characters have to endure. Branagh’s long career in acting and directing must have helped here; there’s a nice understatement in much of Thor, including an unusually restrained Anthony Hopkins as Odin. Compared to his recent scenery-chewing in The Wolf Man, this Hopkins is practically catatonic. But it works; one is reminded of how much Hopkins can do with his eyes or with a tilt of his head.

As the official love interest Portman is her usual proficient self, and Chris Hemsworth as Thor certainly looks the part, though he does seem to suffer from a certain emotional blandness. In fact, he seems generally very good-natured for someone whose rage makes the sky shake and darken and whose hammer, Mjolnir, sends slashes of lightning across the sky.

The fact that Thor is in 3D makes little difference to the quality of the film. It does not enhance it in any meaningful way, but at the same time it is not too irritating. Here again Branagh has held back, eschewing the usual expedient of hurling things indiscriminately at the audience — or taking it on too many seasick-making rides through the swirling ether. This Thor flies in an admirably straight line.