A strong set up movie for the Avengers

Rating: 7/10 (16 March 2018)

Thor is the introduction of the god of thunder with an introduction and expansion for a lot of other big name characters and plot elements featured later in the MCU. With major characters like Stellan Skarsgard as Professor Erik Selvig, Clark Gregg as Agent Coulson, and Samuel L. Jackson as Agent Nick Fury with the small part by Jeremy Renner as Hawkeye as well with various teasers throughout hinting at more to come possibly years later in the MCU too.
Story wise this is my least favorite origin film in the MCU including second stage characters like Ant Man, Dr. Strange, and Guardians of the Galaxy. When I first felt this film I didn't get the same impact I did from watching Iron Man or Captain America in their first movies in the series. And honestly this movie is very much a bridge movie. This was the last film in the series of origin stories until Avengers came out and this movie just exploded with setting up that film. With Tom Hiddleston's Loki being the main villain and the after credit scene setting up Avengers with showing more of Shield too, a lot more than any other film yet. It feels that the story is almost put on the back burner to get what is considered today to be 'the best team up movie of all time'. Even the romance story between Thor and Jane feels weak and hollow during it compared to Pepper and Tony, and Steve and Peggy.
Directing wise, Kenneth Branagh, who's famous for 'The Murder on the Orient Express', 'Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit', and 'Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets'. Directed this film instead of producing and acting like he typically does in cinema's. Overall this film is probably my least favorite film he's directed because of the over use of dutch angles. I don't mind them when their used sparingly but when every other scene or every third scene is on a very dramatic dutch angle it bugs me and honestly gives me a headache. They also feel misused during production of this film. They worked very well in the interrogation scenes and some of the fight scenes early on but when it's just normal dialogue scenes, it gets sickening.
Writing wise done by Ashley Miller, Zack Stentz, and Don Payne. They did a good job defining the dialogue and making each character feel unique with their sentence choices and feel special and not so generic. The small scenes of comedy comes very strongly too like the Stark jokes throughout and Thor adjusting to Earth are very funny and makes some boring scenes enjoyable and almost memorable. The best performance on the whole movie that was written perfectly for Hiddleston is Loki. He comes off so relatable but so hateable as well and it makes the film so much more enjoyable. And especially with his mixed emotion during various scenes makes the audience really puzzled on what his next moves will be.
Acting wise and special effects all look good. It bugs me that they bleached Hemsworth's eyebrows though to stick to the blond while in Avengers and every Thor movie after that they stick to his dirty blonde brows instead. But the costume designs and set designs look amazing, by far the biggest production of the MCU so far and the special effects have a big jump in it too compared to even Captain America which came out roughly 3 months before Thor.
This film had a lot of potential and sadly fell short on a few things but gave us a strong bridging movie for the upcoming Avengers that premiered a year after this. It is still a fun movie that has some great characters in it and expands the universe for the MCU.
Thor gets a 7/10