more than Mortal.
From the hands of the director of Troll Hunter (2010 CE) comes another foray into the fields of NorsePlay: Mortal (2020 CE).
Vagrant American tourist Eric (Nat Wolff) is hiding out in the Norwegian forest, on the lam from an apparent arson fire/murder at his cross-Atlantic family's farm. Eric is apparently emotionally damaged with post-traumatic stress from whatever actually happened, and has nightmares involving fire. Another apparent murder lands him in the local Ossa jail, where rookie psychologist Christine (Iben Akerlie) is called in to speak with him before U.S. authorities are to show up and extradite him. Willing to talk to her, Eric then seems to manifest some electrokinetic powers, which she intuits are related to his volatile emotional state, and manages to talk him down. The film becomes something of a chase movie in its second act, with a final reveal of why Eric is gifted/cursed with his electrokinesis.
This dynamic, however, was explored in The New Mutants, another 2020 CE release, with X-Gene factor teens unable to fully control their powers, the parallel particularly being Sunspot having problems reigning in his high-temperature manifestations and burning someone he loves. More so deeply with Legion's (2017-19 CE) schizophrenic David Haller, who can warp reality itself with devastating effects on those around him.
While André Øvredal repeatedly stated that Mortal's intended as an "antidote" for Marvel's Thor franchise, there's two scenes directly lifted from them:
• Sheriff Henrik goes to a library to find a children's Norse Mythology book, while in Thor (2011 CE) physicist Erik Selvig finds a children's Norse Mythology book.
• When there's a dialogue between Eric & Christine about whether to turn themselves in or to continue trying to get back to Eric's ancestral farm, the rain withdraws from a bubble around them, same as in Thor: The Dark World (2013 CE) when Thor & Jane Foster first reunite and Darcy sarcastically notices that his radius only exempts them from the surrounding rain and not her.
Given what we're dealing with here, the above's not bad material to borrow from, especially if you're using a film to foil and comment on those major motion pictures.
Near the end, a huge excavator crane is called in to break down an entrance into an ancient site, which was not the most believable of procedures in a country that regards its archeology as valuable to its heritage and is thus certainly way more careful than this. A character does say, "Shouldn't we call an archaeologist?", but is then dismissed, so this elephant gun digging solution does get addressed, albeit glancingly.
Shot for $7.4M, the film barely returned $128K, but Mortal really seems to have been a victim of the pandemic in terms of its ill-timed 2020 CE release.
As an audience, we can feel the confusion and tragedy that Eric goes through as he begins to confront the personal truth of something that's far larger than he is. We root for Eric & Christine to bond and then figure out what that truth is, all the while seeing those who are in pursuit realize the divine ramifications of what Eric's extraordinary presence might be seen as, and this last bit is what makes the journey of Mortal worth it.
There are mentions of Eric having visions of differing otherworlds consistently dominated by a gigantic tree that takes up a horizon, but as an audience we're never given those visions, and left to wonder if Eric's having delusions, or if he's privileged with some sort of sight. I would've preferred to have seen those, but his wonder-filled verbal description of them is good.
In terms of its purpose, it doesn't dismantle Marvel's Thor, it only offers a horror-colored alternative, one that's more like Hulk dealing with what he is, and if that first Marvel film had been scripted with comics' Dr. Donald Blake having to work at becoming Thor, there might have been more hard coping moments like Mortal uses as an approach to apotheosis.
Mortal is a solid offering, and while it doesn't pay off as satisfyingly as Troll Hunter, it does deliver more of a character-driven script that tackles the possible darker side of being imbued with powers beyond the ken of mortal men. And like Troll Hunter, it ends on an open-ended crescendo with room for more, and Øvredal has confirmed that he's developing a sequel, so prepare yourself for the possibly distant rumble of Mortal 2! And if someone like Eric exists, then the implied question is, who else is out there? And even more exciting, does Eric exist in the same world as Øvredal's trolls do ... ?!?
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