THOR (2011)

THOR. Kenneth Branagh, dir. USA: Paramount, Marvel (prod.) / Paramount (major dist.), 2011; see IMDb for details. Based on the comic book by Stan Lee, Larry Lieber, Jack Kirby. Bo Welch, production design. Maya Shimoguchi, supervising art director.

The "Third Law" of Arthur C. Clarke is explicitly referenced, but it is more exactly stated by Thor that in the Asgard of the film science and magic are one. The combination of science and magic gets interesting in the "look and feel" of the film, with the militantly mundane images of science and technology (and most everything else) in our world — desert and small-town New Mexico — contrasting sharply with Asgard, which in turn contrasts with the frigid sterility of Jötunheim, the home of the frost giants. Asgard is monumental Art Deco, mostly, in the tradition of the Emerald City in THE WIZARD OF OZ, FLASH GORDON, some of George Lucas's STAR WARS locations, and, of course, super-hero comics of the classic period. The god-like powers of the Nordic gods are mediated by devices, and the general effect is definitely in the Flash Gordon film tradition melding futuristic, medieval, Dark Ages (or the Heroic Age, depending on who's telling the stories), and other periods — with maybe a touch of Steampunk. In a textbook example of a classic B movie move — e.g., Vivian Sobchack's The Limits of Infinity/Screening Space ch. 2) — the climactic Earth-bound showdown of the film has small-town New Mexico invaded by a kind of avatar of the Trickster-god Loki: a gigantic robot that looks like Gort from THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL, but more angular and layered — and with some Victorian stove in his ancestry.

5. DRAMA, RDE, 09/V/11