Pretty average at best.

Rating: 6/10 (11 May 2011)

Boy, was THOR average. Absolutely nothing on screen surprised me (other than a scene I apparently missed which I guess appears after the entire end credits). Basically, Thor is a hotheaded warrior who just smacks ice monster men with his hammer and/or tackles them and later humans who are guarding his hammer on Earth where it lands in a desert and becomes like Excalibur's sword where no one can pull it out. The actor who plays Thor looks great and is very likable, but the rest of the cast just walks through the paces. Natalie Portman's character could have been played by anyone, Anthony Hopkins seems bored and tired, and the cute Amanda Sefreid is completely wasted and adds absolutely nothing to the proceedings as Portman's pal. The story is: Thor's about to become King but the ceremony is interrupted by a few ice monster creatures who are Thor's people's sworn enemies. Thor and a few of his buddies attack that race's world without a plan which causes the King to banish Thor to Earth without powers as his hammer is stuck in a desert a la Excalibur. Meantime, Thor's brother takes over as King and (no) surprise turns out to be kind of a traitor. Boring. A giant Iron Man looking thing is sent to Earth by Thor's brother, Thor asks it to spare the Earthlings and kill him, which it apparently does with one smack to the face. Then Anthony Hopkins' sleeping king sheds a tear as he telepathically hears how kind Thor is now (he has transformed from hotheaded to understanding in no time) and frees Thor's hammer which flies into Thor's hand, waking him up and allowing him to beat the tar of of the Iron Man robot thing in seconds flat. His buddies came to visit him for a few seconds before this, couldn't fight the monster for squat, and then they all return home so Thor can beat up his brother. The end. Until the post credit scene nobody stayed for. Too bad. I really like the concept of Thor and Nordic legend type warriors/gods. This story was really simple and offered absolutely nothing new to filmdom. Where IRON MAN rocked in a half humorous/half serious super hero way, the Tim Burton BATMAN movies were visual masterpieces, the Toby MacGuire SPIDERMAN movies were fun and colorful comic books come to life, and the newer BATMAN movies were dark and serious, THOR doesn't really make much of its own mark (although lots of the CGI bridge scenes make the characters look like tiny sized ants instead of big warriors when they walk upon them if that's a visual distinction albeit not a very good one). Not enough humor, not enough pathos, and not enough action to make it stand out (the coolest and most memorable action moment comes when Thor uses his hammer to fly through a monster's mouth and comes out the back of its head; the other fighting is pretty uninspired and consists of a lot of punching, basic kicks, and tackling which is fine and fairly realistic but not anything that stands out as extraordinarily memorable). THOR misses the potential to cash in on both the fish out of water and the Men In Black/CIA being a hindrence story lines. Hope Thor's next movie tops this one which should be an easy task. It doesn't stink, but it's just nothing to hoot about. Oh, and see it in 2-D. The 3-D scenes are really few and far between. All they added to the experience was a foil greater than Thor's brother as they made it hard to see when walking down the stairs at the hour twenty mark on the way to the can after a 20 dollar movie drink.