In a canny bit of behind-the-scenes casting, the director’s chair is filled by Kenneth Branagh, still best known for his bold and critically well-received cinematic adaptations of Shakespeare’s Henry V (1989) and Hamlet (1996), and the biggest surprise is that the film works best where you would least expect it. One would think that Branagh would excel with the film’s more serious and mystical elements and perhaps struggle with its more comical elements, but it is exactly the reverse.

Roughly half the story takes place in Asgard, one of the nine “realms” in the universe, which is ruled over by the wise King Odin (Anthony Hopkins). Thor (played by Australian newcomer Chris Hemsworth) is Odin’s eldest son and is thus in line for the throne, but he is brash and arrogant and impulsive, which is why he leads a team of warriors on a pre-emptive strike against Asgard’s enemies, the Frost Giants, who inhabit a different realm. For this, Odin strips Thor of his strength, which comes from his mystical hammer Mjolnir, and banishes him to Earth, where he is taken in by Jane Foster (Natalie Portman, in her third decidedly non-artsy screen role since winning the Oscar for Black Swan), an astrophysicist who is in the early stages of theorizing the very wormhole through which Thor just came.

Not sure exactly who he is, Jane suspects that Thor might not be of this world, although her partner, Erik Selvig (Stellan Skarsgård), is doubtful since all the words and names that Thor uses are familiar to him from his Scandinavian upbringing. Nevertheless, they end up helping him in his quest to retrieve Mjolnir, even though the super-secret government agency S.H.I.E.L.D. (led by Clark Gregg’s Agent Coulson, a familiar face from the Iron Man movies) has found it first. Meanwhile, back in Asgard, Thor’s younger brother Loki (Tom Hiddleston), who at first appeared to be a voice of reason, is conniving behind Thor’s back to ensure that his banishment is permanent and he inherits the throne.

Given Branagh’s background in Shakespeare and literary adaptations (his 1994 version of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, while undeniably flawed, is still highly underrated), one would think that the royal and familial intrigue on Asgard would be the film’s high points, but these sequences are actually quite rote, if not sometimes a bit turgid (perhaps it is because of all the digital sets and backgrounds, which are beautifully realized, but never feel entirely physical). Rather, Branagh brings the film to life in the scenes on Earth, which display a light and humorous touch that never detracts from the larger dramatic issues. The first half hour of Thor is actually a bit of a slog because it feels too self-serious, but once Thor finds himself in the deserts of New Mexico and realizes (quite comically) that he is no longer as powerful as he once was, his lessons in humility and reason take on a genuine emotional depth. Hemsworth is not the most expressive of actors, possibly because he is weighted down with the need to speak in some kind of pseudo-medieval English (“I need sustenance!” he declares at a small-town diner, just before smashing his coffee cup on the floor), although the dialogue in Asgard is sometimes strangely modern (one woman, upon seeing Thor’s egotistic displays of power, rolls her eyes and actually mouths, “Oh, please”). Uneven though it may be, Thor works as a whole, establishing the character and his mythology while also achieving the most important goal of all: making us want to see more.

Copyright ©2011 James Kendrick

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