Saturday, June 04, 2011

Thor

I saw Thor this past week and, despite going into it not expecting much, was actually impressed: while it's still very comic-book-ish, it's very sophisticated for a comic book movie, which often retains only the flashiest features of the comic books. The humor is done well. I also think that one of the things they managed to do very well, through a surprisingly good interplay of writing, acting, and directing, is to convey the courtliness that would come from being raised in the court of the gods: even the failings and vices of some of the main characters are courtly failings and vices. The root of this seems to be the Shakespearean background of some of those involved: Branagh apparently pushed this aspect of it actively. Hiddleston, for instance, plays Loki like a mix of Cassius in Julius Caesar and Edmund in King Lear. And a nice thing was that Loki was, in fact, not botched: he was properly subtle, with all the inscrutability caused by over-thinking that such subtlety implies.

If you like comic book movies, this is one of the better ones.

ADDED LATER: Eric Scott has a good review of the film from a pagan perspective.