Thor
Screenplay by Ashley Edward Miller & Zack Stentz and Don Payne
Story by J. Michael Straczynski and Mark Protosevich
Based on the comic book by Stan Lee & Larry Lieber & Jack Kirby
Directed by Kenneth Branagh
Starring Chris Hemsworth, Natalie Portman, and Tom Hiddleston, with Anthony Hopkins, Stellan Skarsgard, Kat Dennings, Idris Elba, Ray Stevenson, Tadanobui Asano, Josh Dallas, and Jaimie Alexander
Rated PG-13
115 minutes
Warning: this review contains some spoilers, though I’ve tried to keep them limited.
As with many stories these days, in order to start off with a bang, we start at a point nearly half-way through the story line, for a few minutes of whiz-bang, gosh-wow action, as scientist Jane Foster (Natalie Portman) is out in the desert at night with her much older partner Erik Selvig (Stellan Skarsgard) and their quirky young assistant Darcy (Kat Dennins). They’re looking at the stars when something awesome appears in the heavens, crashes to earth almost exactly where they are, and they drive pell-mell to that site, only to hit a god of a man who is nearly unconscious.
Now, we can flash back to the beginning of the story, so that, when we get to that action point, we’ll know what’s happening. And the movie starts, in perhaps the most gorgeous depiction of Asgard ever. I definitely want to visit this place.
About a millennium ago, Odin (Anthony Hopkins) leads the Asgardians in a war against the Frost Giants of Jotunheim to prevent them from conquering the Nine Realms, starting with Earth. The Asgardians win, seizing the Frost Giants’ power source, the Casket of Ancient Winters.
Later (perhaps now), Thor (Chris Hemsworth) leads a band of happy-go-lucky godling adventurers, including his brother Loki (Tom Hiddleston). They go rampaging about, living the good—and for the most part, honorable—life. All is good. Then father Odin calls for a great ceremony, at which he will either cede the throne to Thor, or at least name him heir apparent. But the ceremony is interrupted by a raid in the crypts. The Frost Giants have returned in an attempt to steal back the Casket. The raiding party is defeated, and all is well, but response to the raid causes a rift between father and son.
Odin is content to leave the Frost Giants in Jotunheim; Thor wants to turn the war hot, invade Jotunheim, and defeat the Frost Giants once and for all. His buddies will follow him nearly anywhere, and they head out on the Bifrost Bridge, where Heimdall (Idris Elba) seems unwilling to let them pass. But he is talked into it, and the gang of five heads to Jotunheim, stirs up trouble, starts a war, and Thor has a chance to show just how cockily overconfident he is, nearly losing his companions in the melee. They return to Asgard, where Odin, showing his displeasure, takes the hammer Mjolnir from Thor and banishes him to Earth, throwing him through the same incarnation of the Bifrost Bridge that started the movie, so now we understand how Jane & Co. came to run him over with their truck. Odin then cryingly throws Mjolnir through after Thor, with the incantation that it may only be wielded by one who is worthy. For some reason, Mjolnir lands 50 miles away from the Earthly landing point of the Bridge.
Now Thor must figure out how to live among humans.
Jane, meanwhile must figure out how to live without her research and data, as a team of government agents has descended on her tiny New Mexican town (and nifty laboratory) and packed up absolutely everything. Damn that government interference.
But wait, they overhear some townies talking about the satellite that landed recently, and the fun of people trying to pick it up. It looks kind of like… well, of course, it’s Mjolnir, welded to a pillar of stone (the sword in the stone, anyone?).
By the time Jane and Thor can get out to it, the same men in black have blocked off the entire site, built a silly curving tent around the hammer, and are frantically trying to figure out what it is, where it came from, and how to control. Wait here, says Thor, while I go get it.
He can’t, of course, walk directly to landing spot, but must wander about in the curving tent, in order to give him opportunities to beat up well-trained military personnel. In the end, however, he arrives to find that he, too, cannot pull this hammer from the stone. Then he is taken prisoner by the g-men, interrogated for a moment, and then left alone long enough for Loki to arrive with the news that Odin has slipped into the deep “Odinsleep”, nearly comatose, but alive. Loki has taken the throne, and, as much as he regrets it, he cannot contradict their father’s last command with his first, cannot end Thor’s banishment.
Meanwhile, Loki has learned that the Casket was not the only thing taken in the war: he, too, was war spoils, and is actually a Frost Giant, not a son of Odin. Thus, he flips out, and starts several convoluted plans to either let the Frost Giants in, or take control of Asgard himself.
Thor resigns himself to living out his days on Earth, although his budding romance with Jane makes the prospect far more bearable.
Thor’s buddies are not at all happy with Loki as king. They can’t cross him, but they can search for Thor, see what they can do to bring back the rightful heir. And fortunately for them, they can convince Heimdall of the necessity of bringing back Thor. They come to Earth, find their leader, and, before they can do anything more, Loki strikes.
He, too, knows what’s going on, and knows his tenuous grip on the throne can’t survive his brother’s return (well, that, and Thor showing would ruin his plans to trick the Frost Giants into coming to Asgard to be destroyed). He sends the robotic Destroyer (which is there to protect the crypt) to Earth to destroy Thor. We have a nice battle between a giant robot and several near-gods on Main Street, Little Town New Mexico, things blow up, people run in fear, and Thor gets to be honorable and attempt to sacrifice himself to save others. Mjolnir recognizes Thor has learned his lesson, flies to his hand, heals him, and the world may just recover.
Now it’s time for Thor & Co. to rush back to Asgard, to protect the realm for the Frost Giants, from Loki, from everything. “I’ll be back,” Thor tells Jane, so of course we know he won’t. Home they go, and Loki’s plot is revealed: he’s not trying to let the Frost Giants in, he’s trying to destroy Jotunheim himself, to prove himself worthy of the throne, or something like that. But the very act of attacking is not Asgardian, and Thor and Loki fight. Thor destroys the Bifrost, in order to save Jotunheim from its untimely destruction. Of course, this cuts off his only path back to Earth, and Jane. Then Odin awakens, and saves his sons from their own deaths. Loki, however, can’t bear to live with his shame, and lets go to fall into the abyss himself. Thor is now worthy of the throne, and knows the loss that brings wisdom. Odin is awake, alert, and ready to cede the throne when the time comes. And Jane is lonely at home. The end.
Well, not quite.
Watch through the credits, to get to the two-minute teaser for the follow-on, The Avengers.
For those who’ve seen the other movies in this Marvel universe (most notably the two Robert Downey, Jr. Iron Man films), the men in black will look very familiar, since they’re lead by Agent Phil Coulson (Clark Gregg), of S.H.I.E.L.D. The after-movie teaser gives us two minutes of Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) recruiting Selvig to study a new power source. And a hint of Loki’s involvement in the coming films. Actually, in retrospect, the entire movie seems like just another introduction to the forthcoming Avengers movie. And in that view, it’s kind of disappointing.
For those, like me, who were not steeped in the Marvel universe, and who only know it through these films, this is a very pretty movie, with sufficient eye candy (Hemsworth and Portman, and Asgard, too), but a fairly thin story line. For those who have been reading the comics, I can only imagine this is a disappointing film.