Thor

I had virtually no intention of seeing Thor, until I noticed that it was directed by Kenneth Branagh. Yes, exactly. It stars Chris Hemsworth as the Norse god of thunder who is banished from Asgard and sent to Earth (why Earth? It’s not clear). This is not a storyline based on Norse mythology, though, but the Marvel Comics’ characters. It proceeds to rip apart, debase and trivialise that elegant, ancient mythology. We live in an age, however, when myth, history, literature and art are rehashed and remodelled to service movies, video games, popstars, clothing brands, websites and apps. So, I suppose we must embrace it. The incongruity of the mighty god in a remote New Mexico town is played with humour and post-modern irony (as we’ve come to expect from adaptations such as this). There is a slight fault in the structure in the way we start with his arrival on Earth, then go back to explain how he got there. It may have been better to do without the explanation completely, as his time on Earth seems fairly short and insignificant by the end, which is perhaps not what was intended. The romance with Natalie Portman is amusingly quirky and perverse, and has a sensitive conclusion. For all their vast powers, the gods are reduced to taking part in fist fights to decide anything, but this seems like an inescapable outcome for many movies like this. It isn’t the best, but it isn’t the worst, of these modern remakes of comic characters. This is partly explained when we find out that the film was only made to introduce the character of Thor for the forthcoming The Avengers film – also starring your old favourites Iron Man, Captain America and the Incredible Hulk. Again, this would seem like a terrible idea (the term ‘cash cow’ can’t be far from many people’s minds), but it is being written and directed by Joss Whedon, so there is hope. Fans of Kenneth Branagh might be mildly disturbed by this film, but fans of comic books might understand the oddities better when they realise who the director is.