![\"\"](\"https:\/\/wp.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/55\/2011\/05\/thor-imax-movie-300x164.jpg\" "\\"thor-imax-movie\\"")
<\/a> Norse mythology is in some ways predictable.\u00a0 Of course they imagined Frost gods.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 When you live in a region regularly prone to weather like the inside of a freezer locker,\u00a0 you imagine really cool deities\u2013 literally\u00a0 (cue now Foreigner singing \u2018You\u2019re cold as ice\u2026\u2019)! \u00a0 These guys give Jack Frost a bad name.<\/p>\nAnd of course the weapon of choice in a frozen solid world has got to be a massive hammer\u2014 nothing else could smash through all that ice. \u00a0 Throw in some giant fiords,\u00a0 some Viking like heroes, gigantic halls that look like the mines of Moria in the Lord of the Rings,\u00a0 and you are in business.\u00a0 The alert viewer will readily notice various similarities between this latest in the Marvel franchise of movies and the Lord of the Rings\u2014- both draw heavily on Norse mythology. \u00a0\u00a0 There are then both visual overlaps, and overlaps in concept and content as well. \u00a0\u00a0 But alas, this movie,\u00a0 does not have the epic scope or grandeur of\u00a0 LOTR. \u00a0 But as the first real summer popcorn movie\u2014 it\u2019s not bad.<\/p>\n
In the first place,\u00a0 it has an excellent cast\u2014- Anthony Hopkins as Odin All Father, \u00a0 Rene Russo as Frigga his Queen (who has too small a part and too few lines), \u00a0 Chris Hemsworth as the uber-buff Thor, Natalie Portman as the nerdy scientist Jane Foster hanging out in New Mexico looking for a bridge to eternity,\u00a0 Tom Hiddleston as Loki, the erstwhile brother of Thor,\u00a0 and in a nod to true Norseness\u2014 Stellan Skarsgard playing\u00a0 English speaking Professor Andrews\u2014 too bad he couldn\u2019t have given us some good gruff Norwegian at least. \u00a0 The movie also sports an all star actor cum director\u2014 Kenneth Branaugh (which explains the sometimes Shakespearean flavor and ethos of the film\u2014 think King Lear with a leer :). \u00a0 For two hours and a bit we flip back and forth between Asgard and earth and earth and Asgard and Asgard and earth, which can give you a bit of motion sickness after a while. Sometimes I felt like they should have had a music theme to announce the transfers to Asgard\u2014 say King Crimson\u2019s \u00a0 The Halls of the Crimson King.\u00a0 Those halls sure are massive\u2013 and almost entirely a figment of the CG imagination.<\/p>\n
And what of the plot.\u00a0 Well\u2026. sometimes the plot thickens and sometimes the plot sickens. \u00a0 But again, its not all bad.\u00a0 The humorous scenes on earth serve as comic relief for the overly serious business that always seems to be going on in the realm and neighborhood of Odin.\u00a0 But then when you live in a region prone to galactic frigidity it\u2019s understandable you are often glum or blue\u2013 literally.\u00a0 Which also explains the lack of romance in Asgard\u00a0 (\u2018not tonight honey, my toes are frozen\u2026.\u2019). \u00a0 But I digress.<\/p>\n
The basic story is that Thor is cast out of Asgard for being arrogant and ignorant and not ready for prime time royal weddings or the throne, and he lands on earth with a thud, as does his mighty hammer.\u00a0 It\u2019s not quite Superman coming in a spaceship from the planet Krypton,\u00a0 but close. \u00a0 Marvel comics always were the edgier alter ego of the squeaky clean DC comic franchises like Superman and Batman, and more interesting as well.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile in a coup d\u2019etat or at least coup d\u2019jour in Asgard Odin succumbs to a long winter\u2019s nap and bad brother Loki suddenly becomes\u00a0\u00a0 King.\u00a0 Thor\u2019s misadventures on earth do not accomplish much, that is until the final battle with Loki\u2019s Metal Head flame-throwing zeitgeist, except that he and Jane Foster seem to have a certain, shall we say, chemistry (although she seems to be a physicist),\u00a0 though it lacks the magnetic attraction Thor has to his hammer.<\/p>\n
Along the way we have side trips to Frostbite Falls ( the realm of the Frost gods), lots of CG battles and muscle flexing,\u00a0 a poor little New Mexico town turned into a barbecue pit, and of course the inevitable infernal governmental interference of SHIELD,\u00a0 last seen in the last scene in Iron Man II. \u00a0 For those who did not read the Marvel Comics as I did,\u00a0 some of this is bound to be a bit bewildering,\u00a0 but hey, those 3D effects (of which there is not much real compelling evidence in this film)\u00a0 can divert one from recognizing that a real plot is not in progress.<\/p>\n
The great problem with filming long running comic books is which story lines do you pick, and if you make a gumbo or smorgasbord ( a more nearly Norse word)\u00a0 will the pieces actually fit together? \u00a0 The answer in this movie is\u2014 sometimes yes, and sometimes no. \u00a0 But the characters are like-able enough to carry you along to the credits.\u00a0 And if you get bored you can always try to pick out the Hitchcockian scene where Stan Lee makes his cameo, as he does in the other Marvel movies.\u00a0 In this case\u2014 look out for a pick-up truck that is clearly not Ram tough, as it can\u2019t even haul a hammer out of the ground! (Cue the \u2018Like a rock\u2026.\u2019\u00a0 commercial music). \u00a0\u00a0 This movie clearly does not ascend to the heights of say the first Iron Man movie or for that matter a Spiderman movie or two.\u00a0 But it is not bad. \u00a0 And it\u2019s not like they didn\u2019t have script writers capable of one liners and sight gags, but the larger plot leaves much to be desired.<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s hope that the next installment doesn\u2019t turn Thor into a crashing bore.\u00a0 For now he is just crashing\u2014 into everything, including into the life of UFO chasing Jane\u00a0 (perhaps they could have used the line\u2013 \u2018Me Thor, you Jane\u2019). \u00a0 Stay tuned. \u00a0 Marvel is not done for the summer.\u00a0 We will be bequeathed another uber-buff dude\u2014 Captain America, in July\u2014 \u2018the First Avenger\u2019. \u00a0 Odds are, he and Thor can have a buff-off\u00a0 when the Avengers are finally assembled.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Norse mythology is in some ways predictable.\u00a0 Of course they imagined Frost gods.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 When you live in a region regularly prone to weather like the inside of a freezer locker,\u00a0 you imagine really cool deities\u2013 literally\u00a0 (cue now Foreigner singing \u2018You\u2019re cold as ice\u2026\u2019)! \u00a0 These guys give Jack Frost a bad name. And of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-784","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n
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<\/a> Norse mythology is in some ways predictable.\u00a0 Of course they imagined Frost gods.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 When you live in a region regularly prone to weather like the inside of a freezer locker,\u00a0 you imagine really cool deities\u2013 literally\u00a0 (cue now Foreigner singing \u2018You\u2019re cold as ice\u2026\u2019)! \u00a0 These guys give Jack Frost a bad name.<\/p>\n