Too many cooks spoil the broth

Rating: Null/10 (29 August 2011)

Kenneth Branagh directs "Thor", a superhero movie which mixes the director's fondness for William Shakespeare (and theatre) with big budget, CGI, superhero, comic book nuttiness. Ironically, it's the film's Shakespearean aspects – a "King Lear" inspired narrative in which Gods and Wizards jostle for power and plot against one another whilst a wise King divides his kingdom between sons, outcasts and half-breeds – which work horribly. Probably because it's fundamentally impossible to take such "high brow drama" seriously when everyone is wearing underwear, capes and standing on glowing rainbows. It would take a genius to conceive of a believable "trans-dimensional landscape" in which alien beings, Gods and lords can convincingly frolic whilst quoting The Bard.
Still, the film's other subplot, which takes the form of a culture-clash comedy in which the mighty Thor bumbles about contemporary America whilst a chirpy Natalie Portman lusts after his heavenly body, works well. Think such "fish out of water" comedies like Arnold Schwarzenegger's "Hercules in New York", "The Voyage Home", "The Terminal", "Moscow on the Hudson" or "Time After Time", and you've got an idea of what Branagh is tapping into. This aspect of the film is cute, but not worth suffering the director's Greco-mythological train wreck.
Like most super hero movies, the overriding theme is proto-fascist: "how to wield absolute power benevolently".
6/10 - Worth one viewing. See Branagh's underrated "Frankenstein".