The summer of the SuperHero kicked off in fine fashion last night with the debut of Thor on the silver screen and this movie was a truly pleasant surprise and an overall extremely excellent movie. Best surprise I've had all year.
Basically, arrogant, brash Thor (played perfectly by Chris Hemsworth) defies his one-eyed father Odin (played by Anthony Hopkins) and risks war by storming into the realm of the Frost Giants demanding satisfaction after they disrupt the day when he was going to be named heir to his father's throne. For his foolishness he gets stripped of his powers and banished to Earth to be taught a long overdue (from his Dad's point of view anyway) lesson in humility.
Physicist Jane Foster (played nicely by Natalie Portman) hits him with her van and the usual hijinks ensue. Thor and Foster develop a love connection- the mere mortals figure out that there's more to the big hulking Scandanavian than meets the eye and eventually, as you'd expect, Thor learns his lesson, gets his mojo back and saves the day.
(Meanwhile back in Asgard, trickster brother Loki (Tom Hiddleston) manuevers his way into power and starts causing trouble and threatening to destroy pretty much everything- becoming Thor's enemy in the process and eventually getting his butt kicked by our hammer-wielding hero.)
On the face that brief synopsis, you'd think it'd be just another run of the mill second tier superhero movie that appeals only to comic book fanatics and not much else, but I think having Kenneth Branaugh direct this film was a touch of pure genius. Branaugh has a good sense of how to tease the big, bombastic, Shakespearean moments out of the scenes in Asgard and found the right cast to pull it off, but he also doesn't try and overburden the Earth parts of the story with too much plot. Yes, it is an origins story and yes, once Thor gets to Earth, there's a certain amount of 'fish out of water' going on, but it's understated. The character developments feel real- the romantic connection doesn't feel forced and Branaugh took a second tier superhero and gave him one helluva movie to shine in.
And the cast was key to that- Anthony Hopkins as Odin? Awesome, if a little reminiscent of Jor-El in the Superman movies. Chris Hemsworth? Perfect balance between arrogance and humility and gave real depth to a character that could have been exceedingly one night. Natalie Portman? She looks happy just to be eating cheeseburgers again after Black Swan. Idris Elba as Heimdal the Gatekeeper shines- and even Rene Russo shows up as Thor's Mother. I mean, Rene Russo? How awesome is it to see her again? Pretty damn awesome!
Of course, the build-up to next year's Avengers movie continues, with a teaser scene post credits and Jeremy Renner making an appearance as Hawkeye (who is from Waverly, Iowa... awesome) and I have to say that Thor pushed the bar that much higher- not just for Captain America, but for the Avengers movie itself. Hopefully it can live up to the hype.
Overall: An excellent movie- mythology, science fiction, superheroes all blending together in a nice complete very enjoyable movie. perfect start to the summer movie season. We'll see if Captain America can measure up.
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