Thor

***1/2

If there’s a fault to Thor it’s that it feels like two different movies smooshed together into one ying-yang narrative. One of these films is a standard superhero origin story, which is, in fact, part of grander tapestry that will be realized next summer in The Avengers, and the other is a dynamic drama about family and duty and the fate of a kingdom. One of these is very paint by numbers; the other is given a relevant gravitas befitting an epic stage tragedy.

It was an unusual choice to select Kenneth Branagh to direct Thor, who along with Iron Man and Captain America makes up the core trinity of the Avengers super-team. Branagh, known predominately for his screen adaptations of Shakespeare plays like Henry V, Hamlet and Much Ado About Nothing, brings these considerable resources to bear in painting the God of Thunder’s life on Asgard, a mythical realm where the Norse gods dwell. Thor (played by Chris Hemsworth) believe he is ready to be king, his father Odin (Anthony Hopkins) is not so sure, and his brother Loki (Tom Hiddleston) seems unusually shifty.

But when Thor is banished to Earth for jumping the gun to start a war with the Frost Giants, the family psychodrama takes a backseat to the paint-by-numbers superhero origin, and the not-suitable stuffing of Easter egg references of Marvel movies past and future. Clark Gregg reprises his role as Agent Coulson from the Iron Man movies, and is the S.H.I.E.L.D. agent supervising all the other-worldly stuff afoot in the New Mexico desert. Jeremy Renner appears briefly as Clint Barton, better know to the comic book mafia as The Avengers’ archer in residence, Hawkeye.

Aside from all the superhero drama, Thor encounters a lovely human scientist named Jane (Natalie Portman), her sarcastic sidekick Darcy (Kat Dennings) and their mentor Dr. Selvig (Stellan Skarsgård). This aspect of the film is probably the most underdeveloped in an already loaded script that still clocks in at just over two hours. We’re supposed to believe that in two and a half days Thor falls in love with Jane, discovers the value of mortal existence, and learns the lessons of humility and self-sacrifice that his father sent him to Earth to learn. Possible, I guess, but I don’t feel that the film gives this aspect the proper time to develop naturally.

Of course, technically the film is an achievement all its own. Asgard is beautifully realized thanks to master production designer Bo Welch, a seamless mish-mash of futuristic Cloud City and old school medievalism; they’ve got both horses and temporal portholes. After all, Thor reminds us that Asgard is a place where magic and science are the exact same thing. The effects are outstanding and the worlds that Thor explores beyond our mortal realm blend very well with the real world we know. The film is vivid and colourful and jumps off the screen, but it doesn’t overwhelm the humans in their make-up and costumes.

The cast is very solid. Hemswroth makes a convincing Thor in both physicality and personality. He has a commanding presence, but is able to show some humanity, but I’m not sure that the film tests him as much as it could have. Thor lacks the same kind of personality crutch as say Tony Stark, or a pessimistic you lose when you win fate like Peter Parker. Hiddleston does snivelling well, but I have a feeling that the Loki’s true villain potential has been left to be explored in The Avengers. Hopkins, meanwhile, finds a descent balance between scenery chewing and the hyper-reality of playing an old world god.

The DVD includes some simple features, like the barebones “Road to the Avengers,” which doesn’t tell you anything that you couldn’t have gotten from a movie spoiler site three months ago. A commentary by Branagh offers some interesting insight into the filmmaking process and there are a couple of gems in the deleted scenes, including a warm, brotherly moment between Loki and Thor that I wish had stayed in the film. It might have made Loki’s later machinations much more impacting to see the brothers in a rare friendly moment.

As a film franchise, Thor definitely has potential. It would have been nice had in this first outing the film hadn’t been weighed down with all this Avengers preamble, but in this respect it’s a crutch that Thor shares with Iron Man 2. I will say that I warmed more to Thor in its second viewing. Perhaps the characters were more familiar now, or I was able to appreciate it on its own merits. Still, as superhero movies go, Thor demonstrates above average achievement and dedication. Hopefully when the eventual sequel rolls around, Thor might be able to stand on his own.

Clash of the Titans

**1/2 stars

The subject of much controversy, this Easter weekend brings to theatres the new rendition of Clash of the Titans, the big budget remake of the film more famous for being F/X king Ray Harryhausen’s last than for being any good. The controversy comes from Clash’s quickie conversion to 3-D in post-production, a process initiated after studio bosses heard the cash register bells ring off the hook for Avatar. Of course, Avatar had 3-D in mind all along when it went before the cameras. You know James Cameron’s vision and blah, blah, blah. One can hardly blame a studio suit for trying to squeeze out a couple of extra bucks, but you can, however, blame them for the result.

The fault of Clash lies not in the mythology, but in how it ends up being treated. Say what you want about the first Clash, including some harsh words about young Mark Harmon in a toga, but at least one could sense a giddy love of all things Greek. In this Clash, Greek mythology seems a handy system upon which a Lord of the Rings by way of Gladiator story of questing, vengeance and daddy issues can be hung. So far, so unimpressed. And adding insult to injury is the fact that we’re saddled with a Perseus that’s one of those heroes that does nearly as much whining and brooding as he does world-saving.

Sam Worthington beams down from Pandora to fill the armour of Perseus and he does an admirable, if not overwhelming job playing the hero. In other words, he’s perfectly bland but it doesn’t really matter because the point of this movie is action, spectacle and more action. We also get duelling brothers Zeus and Hades as essayed by Liam Neeson and Ralph Fiennes respectively. What’s interesting, as pointed out by one of my sisters, is that in Clash, as in the other recent Greek-centric movie Percy Jackson, Zeus and Hades are portrayed as rivals. The crux of their divide is never really explained (or understood), but at least Neeson and Fiennes seem to be relishing their roles. Danny Huston, on the other hand, gets treated more like a red-headed step child than the third brother in the pantheon.

The story goes that a kindly old fisherman (played by Pete “more grizzled than ever” Postlethwaite) finds a baby boy in a casket the surfaces in the sea near his boat. This boy is Perseus, who grows up to be a fisherman like is dad. But Perseus’ real dad is Zeus, who seduced the hero’s mom in one of his sex-as-revenge schemes against a spiteful King. Now, here we are, 20 years later, and another act of Zeus defiance results in Hades going medieval over Perseus and his family, who just so happened to be in the neighbourhood. Now this I didn’t like. The notion of Perseus stepping out to save the City of Argos because it’s an obvious path to getting revenge on the guy that smote his family rubbed me the same wrong way as when Tim Burton subbed pre-Joker Joker as Batman’s parents’ killers. Isn’t it enough that a hero does heroic things because he wants to, without being driven by personal, short-sighted revenge?

Well, let’s just assume it is and continue. Leaving Argos, Perseus is teamed up with a group of soldiers led by former Bond villain Mads Mikkelsen. In a montage, they march across various landscapes to receive wisdom on how to save Argos from the gods’ wicked wrath and stop the unstoppable Kraken. Oh yeah, there’s a whole thing in there about saving the Princess whom Hades has decreed worthy of sacrifice to placate the gods’ anger, but no one seems to care. As Andromeda, Alexa Davalos gets the award for most ineffectual damsel in distress in recent film history. Can they save her time? I could care less, and what’s worse is that seems to be Perseus’ opinion too.

But if all else fails, if you can’t have fun at a movie, then there really is no hope at all, and say what you want about Clash of the Titans, but it is rather fun. When the gang of warriors has to fight through giant scorpions, or outfox the enormous kraken while riding a Pegasus, that is a sight to see. But the thing of it is, don’t go wasting your money on 3-D. It doesn’t enhance the experience, although it doesn’t do anything to dampen the experience either. It just seems like a whole lot of wasted money, so don’t go adding fuel to the fire by further convincing Hollywood to dump money on this trend. Save 3-D from itself should be the new motto.

Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightening Thief

Rating: **1/2

Everything about Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightening Thief screams mea culpa. It’s director Chris Columbus’ mea culpa to himself for passing up the Harry Potter series after launching it with the first two adaptations, and, I presume, it’s Columbus’ mea culpa to the masses after foisting I Love You, Beth Cooper on us. I kid Chris Columbus, mainly because he’s the red-headed step child of Harry Potter filmmakers having made the least inspired and textually limiting of the Harry Potter movies. Alfonso Cuarón had style while Mike Newell and David Yates had the benefit of more adult-minded material (and in the case of Yates, the added comfort of knowing how the series ends).

So with all the fortitude and impetuousness of a drunken robot yelling at security hooligans that he’s going to build his own theme park with black jack and hookers (Futurama reference), Columbus found another supernatural kid to invest in. Based on Rick Riordan’s novel of the same name, The Lightening Thief follows young Percy Jackson (played by Logan Lerman) as he learns that he’s not a struggling teen slacker with dyslexia and ADD. No sir, he’s the son of Poseidon, Greek god of the seas and earthquakes. That dyslexia he’s got, it’s just his brain hardwired to translate everything to Ancient Greek. And the ADD, why it’s his warrior instinct itching to keep him up on his feet and ready for battle.

Like any good young hero moulded in the Campbell tradition, Percy receives guidance from a wise elder, in this case embodied by his wheelchair bound teacher Dr Brunner, who, in actuality, is the centaur warrior Chiron (both played by Pierce Brosnan). No sooner does Percy discover his lineage does he have to do a runner. Zeus’ famed lightening bolt was nicked and for some reason, Percy’s the prime suspect. Hades then kidnaps Percy’s mom as leverage to get Percy to give him the bolt in exchange for his mother. So with a quest at hand, Percy gets assistance from his new allies Grover the satyr (Brandon T. Jackson) and Annabeth, the severe daughter of Athena (Alexandra Daddario). He also gets magical tools to help with his mission including a pen that turns into a sword and a pair of sneakers that are literally wing-tipped thanks to Hermes. So cue the AC/DC and let’s start on that Highway to Hell.

Now I’ve never read the Percy Jackson books, but I do know that in the original Lightening Thief the main character was 12 rather than 16. I suppose, Columbus wanted to buffer himself in some ways from Potter, and though I would never say that this a line-for-line pastiche of J.K. Rowling’s wizard world, a lot of the same story beats are here. In other words, in keeping with a lot of youth novels getting screen time in hopes of having Harry-like success, I just can’t see what makes The Lightening Thief so startlingly different that it screamed, “I must be adapted.”

Truthfully, I found the movie harmless if nothing else. It’s a satisfying adventure that hiccups over some rather obvious musical cues and some uncomfortable winks to the current world climate, especially Grover’s references to recession-induced cash saving measures. The young actors do a serviceable job to their characters, but a lot of the adult actors seemed sidelined in their parts, as if they were merely there to move the plot along. The casting also seemed a bit chaotic. Steve Coogan as Hades? Really? I take it Paul Reubens was unavailable. However putting Rosario Dawson in the part of Hades’ wife Persephone and giving her a Desperate Housewives style makeover was not necessarily a bad idea. And as I watched The Lightening Thief, an intriguing question occurred to me: who would win in a fight, Sean Bean’s Zeus from this film or Liam Neeson’s Zeus from the coming soon remake of Clash of the Titans?

But back to The Lightening Thief, which despite some serious cynical aspirations I cast, was not actually all that bad. Of course, how a group of teenagers criss-cross the United States inside 10 days is a travelogue of 24 proportions, but this is fantasy after all. I think what really holds this film back though is the filmmaker’s rather clinical vision. Of course Mount Olympus, now accessible through an elevator at the top the Empire State Building’s observation deck, is the exact same Olympus visualized by mortals for thousands of years with clouds, columns and togas. How dull. But despite that, The Lightening Thief isn’t a total time burglar. Sequel? Why not.