Thor

I didn’t care about Thor, so I didn’t care about Thor.  Since I didn’t care about Thor, I didn’t care about Thor’s antagonist, his love interest, his friends, or his problems.  You know who I did care about?  Agent Coulson, the guy who appeared to be Samuel L. Jackson’s #2 at SHIELD, which was sorta the FBI for superhero stuff.  He played a minor role in Thor, but I’d go to see a movie about him.

Here’s the problem: Thor (a totally ‘roided out Chris Hemsworth – I mean, really: compare a photo of him from the Star Trek reboot with a photo of him from this film) is a god.  Yeah, the film presents him as super sci fi bs alien, but he’s basically a god.  Not only is he a god, but he’s a dick of a god.  He’s obnoxious and egotistical and has a lot to learn.  The film is all about him learning to not be such a dick, but so what?  Show me a movie about a guy who isn’t a dick in the first place.

Natalie Portman plays Thor’s love interest, a graduate student in physics with her own ‘roided out Land Rover, her own supercool lab, and her own sidekick.  When I was a grad student, I could barely afford ramen.  How was I supposed to care about this magic princess scientist, doing research in her fantasy world?  Now, fine, I know what you’re thinking: this is Natalie Portman we’re talking about.  I don’t contest that she’s an absolutely outstanding actress, but this film gives her nothing to do, really.  Any reasonably competent, age-appropriate actress could have played this role (that is, pretty girl who digs ‘roided out guys who are dicks).  I doubt I’d have believed in any of them.

Thor’s friends?  Hey, they’re gods, too!  One’s a younger version of Xena, one looks like a youthful Cary Elwes with silly facial hair, one’s a glutton, and one’s just a guy with a mace who doesn’t even do anything cool.  I couldn’t relate to any of these gods.  If I met them socially, I wouldn’t like them and they wouldn’t like me.  Why should I care about them?

Loki’s the antagonist, here presented as Thor’s brother and, essentially, the nerd to Thor’s jock.  Problem is, he’s a god, too, so his problems also aren’t my problems.  What are his problems?  I’m not entirely sure (Well, he does wear a goofy helmet, and there have been times in my life when I could relate to that.).  Is he consumed with jealousy?  Is he ambitious?  Self-hating?  How ‘bout just plain evil?  I don’t know, and neither does the film.  It keeps changing.

Ok, so I didn’t like the characters.  What was so bad about Thor’s problems? I didn’t feel like I had a dog in the fight.  Since I didn’t care about Thor, I didn’t care whether he or Loki sat on the throne of Asgard.  Yeah, there was some stuff in there about evil frost giants, but I didn’t see them as a threat to Earth, so what exactly were the stakes for me?  I’ll tell you: zippy.

And yet, Thor manages to stay marginally entertaining for a couple of hours, thanks primarily to Kenneth Branagh’s direction and the presence of one Agent Coulson of SHIELD, assayed by Clark Gregg.  Coulson’s an actual human being, a disciplined and efficient government agent bringing cold federal processes to a fantastical world of heroes and monsters.  Now, that’s interesting.  I want to know more about this guy: where does he come from?  How’d he get into this business?  What does he think of all this craziness?  There’s your movie.

Generally speaking, I enjoy spectacular action movies.  I wanted to get into Thor.  It looked pretty, lots of stuff blew up real good, and Natalie Portman did bite her lip once or twice.  But I needed more.  I needed some skin in the game.  I needed to care.