Sucker Punch Squad: ‘Thor’ Script Drops Hammer on Metrosexual Political Correctness

by AWR Hawkins

Editor’s note: Script reviews of upcoming projects have been around for as long as there’s been an Internet. Therefore it’s no secret that a film can evolve into something quite different from its screenplay. Please keep in mind that this article represents a look at a particular script and not the final product. *some spoilers*

Thanks to political correctness, ours is a rough day for masculinity. Strong men are painted as tyrants, heroic men as ego-centrists, and moral standard bearers as bigots, or worse. This is particularly true in Hollywood, where a purposeful revisionism toward manhood has been under way for decades.

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Not surprisingly, big screen super heroes and mythic figures of valor – male figures – have been among the hardest hit by this revisionism. As a result, the mighty have learned to cry, the powerful to admit vulnerability, and the brave to second-guess themselves, all in an effort to win over the effeminized masses. And this is what makes the screenplay for the upcoming feature film, “THOR,” so wonderful: not because it carries on the ridiculous revisionism, but because it shatters it with a hammer blow from Thor himself.

Through its clear portrayal of an unapologetically strong male who comes to the rescue of female characters, risks his life in the defense of right and wrong, and loves his world (his realm) in an undying fashion, “THOR” promises to revitalize masculinity in 2011 the way “The Expendables” did in 2010.

Early in the screenplay we see Thor as a young man, and a citizen of the realm of Asgard, about to be crowned king of that realm by his father, Odin, who had been King of Asgard for some time. In that moment of passage, Odin’s words to Thor set the tone for the rest of the film — a speech about how responsibility, duty, and honor” are central to the charge Odin gives Thor, and as the screenplay unfolds, they are central to all that Thor does.

Yes, there are moments when a young Thor demonstrates the brashness of youth and launches attacks against other realms (particularly Jotunheim) that threaten the peace of which his father spoke. (Yet even in attacking another realm Thor never seeks his own glory but the defense of his people.)  Nevertheless, Thor’s father banishes him to earth for having “betrayed the throne” via his brash attack on Jotunheim, and in casting him to earth strips Thor of both his immortality and the powers that attended that immortality.

Once banished, Thor’s mortality is represented by the fact that he and his famous hammer are separated. From there the rest of the screenplay is ultimately the outworking of Thor doing what he must to recover his hammer, and thereby his powers. The catch is that the hammer can only be lifted by “one who is worthy.”

While on earth, Thor is befriended by a group of scientists, among which is Jane Foster: a female who never becomes a romantic love interest yet who loves Thor nonetheless (and by the end of the screenplay is loved by him in return). It is for Jane that Thor risks his mortal life more than once, and in risking himself learns what “responsibility, duty, [and] honor” really mean.

Moreover, through these risks Thor unknowingly proves himself worthy to lift the hammer once more.

As the screenplay approaches its final, climatic pages, Thor learns that his hammer had fallen to earth when he had fallen from Asgard. Thus he determines to retrieve it.

If the screenplay remains as it is, suffice it to say that Thor’s efforts to retrieve the hammer will provide movie goers with an excellent display of things like focused aggression, righteous indignation, and a proper use of one’s fists: for these things are all on display in Thor’s character, as he uses brute force, cunning, and unbending determination to break through a small army of men who are dedicated to keeping him from the hammer.

I will neither tell you that he reaches the hammer nor that he doesn’t: Nor will I provide the details of the many battles he wages along the way.

What I will tell you is that “THOR,” as presently scripted, promises to hit us the way “Rocky” hit us in 1976. In other words, it could be a movie that men who shun political correctness will enjoy for generations to come.


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Posted Mar 15th 2011 at 4:42 am in Culture, Featured Story, Film | 122 Comments