Hercules ...meets Dune ...via Albert Speer

Rating: 7/10 (2 July 2011)

I liked this. It's fantasy mixed with mythology mixed with a superhero; which turns out to be better than anyone should expect. The most interesting aspects are drawn from the fact that this superhero has a full family, and they're pretty much gods. The scenes with the banished, cheerful, humanized Thor are very charming; and serve to reacquaint viewers with nobility in the male gender (pretty much absent in 2011), much like in the awful Kate and Leopold. I didn't care that it lacked great action setpieces per se, but the climax is a bit too underscaled. Still, I was very moved at least twice; when the King realizes that he must regrettably teach his beloved but ignorant son a whopper of a lesson; and when Thor failed at retrieving his hammer (of all things). Heimdall, the bridge guard, reminds a viewer that old school qualities suffice beautifully in producing a figure of admiration. He's unflinching in his devotion, he's 'steady'. The plot is slightly familiar (The central idea of The Sword in the Stone is lifted shamelessly), but the acting is good, and it's better with language than most movies; which I suspect can be credited to Kenneth Branagh. Kat Dennings as Natalie Portman's assistant earns some laughs with her dry line readings.
Thor's home realm (Asgard) looks like the Emerald City as designed by Santiago Calatrava, Albert Speer and Hans Poelig. Not since Bespin (city of pepper mills) has a design aesthetic looked so thoroughly scale-less, unconvincing and cheeseball. The denizens wear things they seem to have bought at Cher's garage sale (although Thor's outfit is pretty great). And the town in New Mexico has 'We GOTTA slash the budget somewhere!!' written all over it. About half an hour of the movie is average or worse, but that not a bad ratio compared to movies that are terrible from start to finish these days (refer to Green Lantern).