Full Frontal Stupidity

(It's sad when the review's better than the movie.)

Looking for something to do next weekend? Well, you could rent a movie I just watched about the Norse god, Thor. Or you could just spend ninety minutes hitting yourself in the head with a brick.

Either way, you'll be guilty of murder. Either way, you'll have butchered an hour and a half.

Imagine this:

"I'm Thor."
"You are?"
"Yeth. I'm really thor. My arm hurth."

You think that's lame? Wait till you hear the real script.

As we all know from our in-depth undergraduate cross-doctrinal studies in ancient Scandinavian theologies, or from comic books, Thor is a hunky, cut-through-the-chitchat-and-get-down-to-business-type god, with blonde hair and a blunt hammer, who hails from Sweden or somewhere like that. (I could be wrong about Sweden, but as an undergraduate, I missed the day when they pulled out a map and pointed to Scandinia.)

Now, before I start getting e-hate mail from the Norse Deity Pantheon Anti-Defamation League (and I'm quite sure there is one), let me say that I was a big fan of comic book Thor. That Thor was this great big football hero-looking guy with long blonde hair, and he could use words like "Thee" and "Thy" without getting called a weenie by his junior high school peer group.

But comic book Thor was nowhere to be found in this movie. This Thor spent most of his on-camera face time whining and saying "No." No matter what kind of good advice he'd get from his deity peer group, movie Thor would pout and refuse to listen. He just jogged back and forth, from mystical dimension to mystical dimension, along with a nearly dressed deity named Breastus Maximus.

In the entire movie, I don't think Thor ever said "Thee" once, but it was hard to tell, what with all the whining. And all the Breastus Maximus.

By the way, Breastus Maximus was not her real name. According to the internet, Thor's distaff playmate was a ridiculously over-mascara'd Valhallan named Jarnsaxa (literal translation: Gladys Knight, but with Gothic eyeliner).

And movie Thor didn't even have long blonde hair! He looked like a surfer with chin stubble and questionable dental hygiene. I kept waiting for him to hop in a hopped-up '69 Dodge Charger and start running moonshine with his brother, Luke Duke.

Somehow, the movie's "Historical Accuracy" department decided that all the good deities in Valhalla used to wear the same outfit - some minimal undergarment, practically no pants at all, and a 250-pound wooly mammoth fur coat. But they all wore monstrous leather-laced leggings, perhaps because they wore no pants. The leggings looked like paint rollers look after being soaked in water. Everybody looked like they were on their way to some mystical Aesir Aerobics class.

Given this movie's extremely high Lame Quotient, it wouldn't be right for me to use the word "plot," so let's just discuss some of the scenes. Witness:

• Odin, the immortal god of Valhalla, either gets killed or gets hidden somewhere by that evil prankster Loki, the god of Stupid Pet Tricks And Congressional Ethics. (I know, I know. Odin, the immortal god. Apparently, in Scandinia, you can be immortal and dead.) In the movie, Loki looks like Fleetwood Mac's Lindsay Buckingham, but with a bad skin condition.
• Odin's disembodied voice commands Breastus Maximus to protect young Thor until he grows up, or the universe ends, whichever comes first.
• Breastus collects Thor, who asks, "Where are we going?" Breastus replies, "To my dwelling." See? See what I mean about the script?
• (Author's note: "Dwelling" is one of those words that nobody has ever used in an actual out-loud conversation on this planet. Never. It's like "persnickety," or "Congressional ethics.")
• Somehow, perhaps due to Norse deity insider trading, Loki manages to acquire Thor's hammer, a magical weapon of mass destruction that, to be honest, looks like a concrete block popsicle.
• Thor and Breastus spend the next eighty-one minutes trying to find Loki, Thor's hammer, and the plot.
• Loki, equally confused about what movie he's in, unleashes three giant dogs with Egyptian heads and tattooed chests. He and the giant mythical tattooed dogs roam around Los Angeles, which surprises no one.
• Suddenly, Breastus and Thor materialize through a magic portal. They take a moment to consult one of those fold-up gas station road maps, despite the fact that they're immortals with access to magic portals. Since they're in LA, she teaches Thor how to use a semi-automatic weapon.
• (Author's note: It was at this point in the movie when I started looking for a brick.)
• Loki manages to find Thor by smelling the pavement. I am not good enough to make this stuff up.
• At this point, Thor shows up with two swords, because the movie's producers forgot to hire a Continuity department. Next, naturally, Thor strips down to his chain mail Underalls and performs that same, tired, nunchuck-like, two-sword-swishy-crossy maneuver that all movie barbarians are forced by law to do at least once per movie. After the obligatory scimitar-swinging, Thor marries a Kennedy and runs for Governor of California.
• It begins to rain, in a film noir slow-motion kind of way. Somehow, Thor finds himself in a cave (see "Continuity department, lack of"). Inside the dark cave are three magic whispering people called The Norns (literal translation: Gladys Knight's Original Backup Singers). Nothing much happens, which apparently is the theme of this movie.
• Breastus appears from somewhere (see "Script, lack of"), and she and Thor try to find their way out of the Norn cave. Shortly, she finds a wall. Breastus says, "Can you feel anything?" Thor - the hero of millions of young boys, the immortal God of Thunder - replies, "A wall."
• I am not good enough to make this stuff up.
• Meanwhile, in an entirely different movie, Loki unleashes a new dreadnought from his eternal arsenal of mystical, immortal weapons - a bone. A magic bone.
• Yeth. A bone, for Odin's sake.
• Thor, energized by having added "wall" to his vocabulary, reappears in LA and hits Loki. Loki drops his magic bone, because Thor hit him. Next, in a line sure to trigger the keen radar of every Academy Award "Best Screenplay" judge, Loki says, "Give me back the bone."
• Not to be outdone by Loki sniffing sidewalks, Thor talks to the bone.
• Oh, no, he didn't!
• Oh, yeth, he did.
• Breastus Maximus did not appear in this pivotal bone-talking scene, because her West Coast agent had landed her a last-minute gig as a guest-god on "Dancing With The Netherworld Stars." But she did show up just as Thor was shaking the magic bone, as if the sculpted, immortal moron thought that jiggling it would make the bone speak up. She posed in profile and managed not to look condescending.
• (Author's note: At this point, it's entirely possible that I hit a Derision Overload and passed out.)
• Suddenly, both Thor and Loki realize that there are only five minutes left in the movie. So, naturally, they start fighting, because they're guys. Thor seems to have misplaced his semi-automatic street gun, but somehow he got his hammer back, possibly thanks to some nebulous Hammer Deity government bailout. Thor hurls the hammer at Loki, but Loki deflects the blow, and the hammer kills two warehouse walls and a commuter bus. Thor pouts, reloads and swings again, but Loki sprays Thor dead in the face with a handful of something - either magic dust, or crack. (after all, they are in LA)
• Fortunately for mankind, Loki trips over the closing credits. Thor closes in and goes all Mallet Monster on him, which is not going to help Loki's skin condition.
• As Loki lay dying, in an immortal, can't-really-die kind of way, Breastus appears through a nearby magic portal and poses in profile. Thor tries to hit on her, because he's a guy. Breastus, however, shuns Thor and reveals her secret - she is, in fact, a he. Breastus is a former football coach, disguised and hiding out in Valhalla, until things settle down at Penn State.

Have a great weekend! Let me know if you want to borrow my brick.