Thor, a Victory in Box Office, a Failure for a Director

Rating: 4/10 (23 July 2011)

The most important motive of an epic story is the conflict between protagonists or heroes. Particularly when the story is related to the ancient gods, we are sure that there should be a big conflict between the two sides of challenge; good and evil. As Thor begins, Frost Giants attack earth and transform men to frozen statues, but men are not alone. Odin a major god and the ruler of Asgard comes to earth and defeats Frost Giants. By here, we are watching a movie that its main conflict is between gods and Frost Giants. Of course due to taking the main source of Frost Giants by Odin, one side of conflict seems too weak and the story should find another motivation. Thor and Loki are two sons of Odin. Thor is strong and brave, but Loki is slim and smart. As the movie goes on, we get sure that the conflict will move to brothers' competition for kingdom and very soon it shows us that Thor is the hero and Loki, the villain. The problem is the inequality of their capabilities. Thor is a strong handsome mythic warrior and Loki looks like a gay guy of modern era. So we can't believe their competition for the kingdom. Then Odin exiles Thor to earth and divests all his powers to be a simple man. Odin goes into some kind of coma and Loki gets the kingdom. But the brothers are not still equal in our minds and they are in two different world. We hope to see a conflict like the one between Commodus and Maximus in Gladiator (Ridley Scott); where the two challengers look equal by their positions, powers and limitations. Troy (Wolfgang Petersen) is another movie we can compare it to Thor. In Troy, a supernatural hero like Achilles has a human character. He can love, he can hate and so when he sacrifices himself for his loved one, we believe and feel it. But when Thor is on earth, we see just a handsome wrestler who has no idea of what he is going to do. He tells nothing to us about his feelings and we feel no sympathy for him. He has a constant character and even his sacrifice is due to his nature as a god who should help human kinds. What happens on the earth is more disappointing. Thor is neither an alien from another planet, nor a confused lost man. He adapts the new circumstances very fast and before we know these men and women around him, he falls in love with one of them. That is not a sweet love as we saw in "Meet Joe Black", when Brad Pitt played as death and made love with Claire Forlani. In the same way, when Thor sacrifices himself to save his human friends, it doesn't hurt us. Even Natalie Portman can't save this scene of the movie, when a ridiculous iron giant nearly kills Thor. I think all of these failures refer to the story and screenplay, where there is no characterization for heroes, villains and men. The movie spends a lot of time for action scenes, so it doesn't have enough time to pay to the characters. Thor is a god that his behaviors are predictable, as Odin. Jane, her father and friend are just some shadows around Thor. We know nothing about them, even about their researches. Worse than all, are the governmental guys who have just cars and cloths of secret agents, but their actions are just like cops in animations. Anyway, the Norse Gods, Frost Giants and the story are just some elements for making an action movie. But the strangest thing in the movie is the name of Kenneth Branagh as the director; a veteran Shakespearian who has been nominated in Oscar for his magnificent works in Henry V (1989) and Hamlet (1996). Thor could be made by a director like Zack Snyder who doesn't know anything about the myth and history, not by Branagh who is famous to be loyal to plays or creative in adaptations of them to movies. Thor may be a victory in box office, but surely it is a failure for the director.