Predictable, cliché, poorly executed and poorly acted - don't believe the exaggerated hype

Rating: 5/10 (4 May 2011)

The announcement of a Thor live action movie was already a pretty blatantly bad idea from the beginning. The whole premise of 'a godly civilization casting down one of their own who would come to save and protect humankind' seems to have been done a hundred times in the past, taken on a variety of forms and interpretations, etc. - and as a result has become a rather stale and unoriginal plot. But even so, despite the hokey costumes and cheesy acting I witnessed in the trailers which further diminished my faith in this film's quality, I decided to give it a chance to prove me wrong, as I do with every other movie. And, hey, it's a Marvel production, and they've made some of my favorite superhero films, so why not? In short, I was sorely disappointed...more so than I have been of any other Marvel movie in the past couple of years, since I thought they were back on track. My wishes for Thor to be in the vein of previously successful Marvel flicks - such as the first two Spider-Man and X-Men films, Iron Man, and so forth, which actually had some semblance of substance to them - were crushed as I was instead treated to a soulless cash-in movie in the vein of unfortunate failures like Ghost Rider, Elektra, Fantastic Four, etc. which relied heavily on special effects or a star-studded cast alone to carry the success of the films. But anyway, enough of the comparisons and onto this movie itself...
From the beginning until the end, we're treated to a non-stop barrage of overdone clichés, painfully unfunny one-liners, a linear, predictable, and uninspiring story...and various plot holes and inconsistencies. The first scene opens with Natalie Portman's character and her crew seeing something falling from the sky and going to see what it is, then we're quickly thrown into the bizarre realm of Asgard where we're given a quick history on it's existence, along with the other realms, and Earth's part in it all.
And from then on you pretty much know what happens from the trailer - bad boy Thor pisses off his dad Odin and gets banished from Asgard to live on Earth with humans as punishment. This is about where the beginning of the movie picked up...but now, instead of falling from the sky a distance away from Natalie Portman and her crew like he supposedly did in that opening sequence, he lands RIGHT in front of their damn VEHICLE this time!! WTF? In a highly predictable series of events, Thor alienates everyone with his bizarreness, gets imprisoned by the government, gets rescued by his human friends, starts bonding with them and falling for Portman's character, she starts falling for him, blah blah blah...and in between all of this is a ton of bad acting from the ENTIRE cast, surprisingly, most of whom try to be amusing by telling jokes or acting oddly, but fail miserably. The jokes are actually horrible, especially from Thor (who surprisingly gets into more mischief than his brother Loki, who is supposedly the GOD of mischief...), and the relationships the characters attempt to establish with each other are either unbelievable and bland, or just plain cheesy...or a combination of all three.
We're treated to a brief over-the-top action scene in the beginning of the film, but it isn't until about halfway through that it picks up again, when Thor finally gets his powers back. I must say that the special effects during the action scenes are quite nice (as expected from any marvel film), and the expansive scenery and shots of the towering Asgard looks great, but that's about all this movie has going for it. And while I say that the SPECIAL EFFECTS during the action scenes are good, the action scenes themselves are often pretty short and boring, and of course...predictable. For example, in the final fight between Thor and his brother Loki, the all-powerful GOD OF THUNDER gets slapped around like a bitch by his wiry-framed brother before finally, as expected, fighting back in a hormonal explosion of rage after Loki threatens his 'Earth girlfriend'. Ooooh, how original and intimidating....
Really, it's as though everyone - the writer, the director, the actors/actresses - were all amateurs and had no idea what direction they were going for. Did they want the characters to try and be funny and heroic, yet turn out unfunny and lame like Thor? Did they want them to try and be mischievous (hardly) and intimidating, yet turn out to be a total bipolar wuss like Loki? In the end, it all seems to have fallen apart and we're left with a sloppy script, cliché, stereotypical characters, wasted renowned actors'/actresses' talents, and a poorly done and predictable storyline that probably would have been better off left in comics/cartoons.
Here's to hoping the next Marvel adaption is better, and they don't rely solely on the popularity of the character to overlook the film's overwhelming amount of flaws and bring in the $$$ - which this movie seems to already be doing quite well, and will undoubtedly continue to do so. But...if this is what the mindless movie-going majority wants, then so be it... I guess I'll stick to the minority who still prefers substance and sophistication in their superhero flicks.