Thor

Thor
It's no big revelation to say that comics are the modern mythology, particularly the superhero ones the Americans are enamoured with. Most of the archetypes of the hero's journey, as described by Joseph Campbell in his seminal work Hero with a Thousand Faces, are present, but never more so than in Marvel's Thor. This is hardly surprising as the comic was revisionist Norse mythology catering for an American audience. As a kid my favourite Marvel comics were Iron Man, Thor and, of course, The Avengers, with a bit of X-Men thrown in if the pocket money stretched that far. What I liked about Thor wasn't just the fantastic tales of the Norse gods, which fired up my already fervent imagination, but the fact that frail, crippled Don Blake could transform himself into hammer-wielding übermensch. Of course something like that would appeal to any youth going through the transition into manhood. In fact it is the basis of a lot of Marvel's most popular comics; the human who gains superpowers but still has all the human foibles to deal with.

One of the problems I have with a lot of mythologies, especially the European ones (Norse, Roman and Greek) is that they give their gods human failings, and in doing so, by bringing them down to human levels so that we can relate to them, they lose their divinity, and history shows what has happened to those once great civilisations. Actually the problem came more when the humans put themselves on the same level as their gods, which is somewhat akin to the nouveau riche and the aristocracy – the breeding and culture is not there to understand the correct social behaviour.

Thor
In Kenneth Branagh's version of THOR, the God of Thunder is banished to Earth for disobeying his father Odin's wishes, although to be fair, Thor was actually doing what a warrior god should do, even if he did have a blonde moment and get fooled by his half brother Loki (the trickster archetype) into attacking the ice giants. So, Thor lands in the US desert, stripped of his powers, looking like a musclebound Aussie surfer who took too much peyote, didn't know where he was and developed messianic delusions. This does actually supply some great moments of comedy as Natalie Portman's Jane Foster keeps bumping into him (literally) as he has to learn some humility. Now this is where I am going to have a bit of a fan-boy rant. Don Blake has been completely written out of the story, except for as a passing snarky comment masquerading as an inside joke. For me, Thor without Don Blake is like Hulk without Bruce Banner (although given the last two movies it might be better to have Bruce Banner film without the Hulk), or Spider-Man without Peter Parker. I understand that they are using the Ulimate Marvel universe for these movies, and are even rebooting SPIDER-MAN into the superior Ultimate Spider-Man, but if they are trying to give the God of Thunder some humanity and humility then what better way than with the character of Don Blake?
Thor
This movie is clearly part of the massive series of prequels to the forthcoming AVENGERS movie, which began shooting this week – all hail the magnificent one who is named Joss. So why couldn't they have simply made this Thor the original origins story? By the end he would have still been the Earthbound God of Thunder, they could still put in all the S.H.I.E.L.D. stuff, and everyone would have been happy. And to be honest, if it is just a set up for the Avengers, they could have lost a lot of the CGI-laden storyline about Asgard. And did they really need to convert it into 3D?

Whinging aside, this is only a comic book movie, even if it does have greater aspirations with Branagh at the helm and Anthony Hopkins in a helmet. As such it is a good bit of "pulp" entertainment and another fun precursor to THE AVENGERS, although nowhere near the level of Iron Man because none of the characters have the onscreen charisma of Robert Downey Jr, except maybe the woefully underused Kat Denning as Darcy Lewis, and a fine turn by Tom Hiddleston as Loki.

It's already ramping up to be another comic book movie summer. We've already had Luc Besson's fun ADELE BLANC-SEC, with PRIEST coming out next, so let's see if it can deliver something different to the genre. If you want to see something big and dumb this weekend then THOR will do the job, but if you want some movies with smarts then go to SCI-FI-LONDON.

THOR is in cinemas now.


Thor Trailer

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