One can credit this to Branagh, but also credit must be due to Hemsworth and the writing. From the script up, this is a character study. Not an origin story, or something rooted in a climactic battle, but rather a small tale of a god becoming the man he was meant to be. Again, much like Iron Man, the heart of the film is in the characters. You care about Thor, and halfway through, you don't even realize that you haven't witnessed an enormous battle on Earth yet, and even when you do, you don't care all that much that it was relatively lame. The beauty of Thor is that you see the change a normal, more bloated battle would tell you...but Branagh and Hemsworth show you instead. Like that less-than-awesome RDJ vs. Bridges fight to close out Iron Man, this Thor vs. Hot Laser Machine is more of an means to and end than an attention grabbing climax. The greatest of all superhero movies hold their climaxes for off the battle field—Iron Man, Spider-Man 1 & 2, The Dark Knight, etc.—because they know the hero is what really matters.
To be fair, Thor isn’t really a god. He was merely seen as one by Viking culture way back around 965 A.D. He is immortal though and I can see how that might be misinterpreted as god-like but no, Thor is just a man – from another galaxy, with super crazy strength, who can never die … and who has an insane body. Still, mistaking him for a god makes his fall from grace oh so much further. Thor (Chris Hemsworth) is heir to the throne of Asgard and is on the cusp of inheriting the crown from his father, Odin (Anthony Hopkins) when he allows pride and selfishness to guide him down a path that leads his people into war. Odin banishes Thor to Earth and strips him of his power, including his infamous hammer, which some of you geekier readers may know as Mjöllnir. God or no God, everyone has their lessons to learn.
Once Thor is on Earth, the action cuts back and forth seamlessly between the mystical heaven-like beauty of Asgard, where magic and science are one and the same and this teeny tiny town in New Mexico, population next to nothing. While the setup that precedes this act is certainly densely weighted in mythology and mysticism, it gets decidedly lighter once Thor crashes to Earth from the heavens. This is in great part due to Thor’s interaction with the team of scientists he runs into, led by Jane Foster (Natalie Portman) and the quick witted repartee they partake in. Thor is now a strange demi-god in a strange land and Hemsworth plays his predicament with great resolve. He cannot help but be humbled by the damage he has done, his inability to rely on the strength he always has and the genuine caring he gets from Jane. The real chemistry between Hemsworth and a hilarious Portman plays a key role in grounding this otherworldly tale.
What truly cements this fantastical story as still undeniably human is the father-son struggle between Thor and Odin. Brannagh, with his extensive background in Shakespeare, both on screen and on stage, knows that the action in THOR is the easy part. That hammer gives him the strength to defeat armies practically on his own and so whatever action he gets himself into, it will take care of itself. But the heart of the film has to be relatable. Thor is but a boy learning how to become a man, learning to put the good of the universe before himself. Odin is just a father, waiting for his boy to find the inner virtue he knew all along to be there. We’ve all been there, more or less. And so, Brannagh becomes his own incarnation of Odin, providing the tools that make it possible for a comic book to grow into the movie it was always meant to be.
I spent most of YOUR HIGHNESS with my mouth wide open in stupefied awe of what I was watching. Wait. Was that a mechanical bird I just saw in this medieval setting? Hold on a second. Is James Franco masturbating that strangely unconvincing, Yoda-like alien creature? Uh, is that a minotaur’s penis I see and is it erect? Between all this nonsense and the broken “Ye Olde English” mixed with random cuss word diaglogue, I had no idea what was going on most of the time. And I was sober! Imagine the poor folks who actually prepared ahead of time to see this movie the way it was intended to be seen. In their impaired state, how could they possibly make sense of this insanity? And if you thought James Franco was bad at the Oscars, wait until you hear him sing.
Somewhere behind all the smoke, there is something resembling a plot in YOUR HIGHNESS. Whiny younger prince, Thadeus (McBride), lives in the shadow of older brother, Fabius (Franco). Together, they embark on a quest to stop some wizard type (Justin Theroux) from impregnating Fabius’s new virginal love (Zooey Deschanel) with a dragon baby. That’s right; I said dragon baby. Natalie Portman shows up half way through to kick some random monsters but doesn’t serve much other purpose. (She probably only did 5% of the ass-kicking anyway.) Aside from that though, it is pretty much one completely pointless scene after another, featuring a talented cast making complete boobs of themselves. (Seriously – Toby Jones: Why would you sign on to make yourself look this bad?)
Speaking of boobs, I imagine that McBride and his writing partner, Ben Best, basically inhaled as much ganja as they could before whipping out their penises, dipping them in ink, and sitting down to write YOUR HIGHNESS with them. How else could they possibly explain the total lack of reality in this film (even by fantasy standards) and the disturbing and obsessive manner in which every joke seems to lead back to McBride’s crotch? (Ladies, you have been warned – this movie is especially not for you.) YOUR HIGHNESS might have seemed like a hilarious idea high in McBride’s basement, maybe even genius by their altered standards, but on screen, the buzz is long gone before the credits are even done.Oh, and David Gordon Green might want to try some actual direction next time.
