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MAKE MINE MARVEL AGAIN
THOR (PG-13) The summer of second-tier
superheroes begins with Marvel's latest pre
cursor to next summer's all-star Avengers
movie. The mighty Thor, with his magical ham
mer, Mjolnir, joins the Hulk and Iron Man as
Avengers recruits brought to the big screen
(only Captain America,
coming this July, remains
to complete the team),
and the God of Thunder's
premiere issue falls squarely
between the gold standard
of Iron Man and the green
giant's two bronze-medal
finishes.
After a raid on the
Frost Giants goes awry,
a petulant Thor (Chris
Hemsworth) is put in tim
eout by his Allfather, Odin
(Anthony Hopkins). Until
he learns to use his god
like powers selflessly, he
is forced to exist as one
seriously cut, regular dude
who gets to woo Natalie
Portman as astrophysicist
Jane Foster.
When Odin goes down for the Odinsleep,
Thor's trickster brother, Loki (Tern Hiddleston),
assumes the throne while his banished bro
cools off. To connect Thor to its older Marvel
siblings, Shield Agent Coulson (Clark Gregg)
arrives to investigate the mysterious hammer
that fell from the sky.
Kenneth Branagh proves an excellent
choice to direct the initial adventure of the
banished Norse god. The acclaimed Brit lends
a Shakespearean gravitas to the halls of
Asgard and the game of thrones orchestrated
by Loki. Surprisingly, the film's best feature
is not its well-executed,
though pedestrian, action
sequences but its super-
powered humor. Hemsworth
is no Robert Downey,
Jr., but he imbues Thor's
confident reaction to his
god-out-of-realm situation
with a hearty conviviality.
It's not hard to understand
why Jane falls for Thor,
AKA Donald Blake. Portman
seems to be having a blast,
meshing well with her
unlikely entourage, which
includes Stellan Skarsgard
and Kat Dennings.
Thor, an intriguing
comic-book character
whose appeal I've never
quite gotten, transitions to
the big screen, where his exploits are less epic
and more human than Odinson would probably
desire yet better than some of his peers. While
Thor doesn't redefine the superhero movie, it
does show how far the genre—where quality is
now the rule, not the exception—has come.
Drew Wheeler
Chris Hemsworth
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MAY 11, 2011 FLAGPOLE.COM 11
