No Thor-prizes

Rating: 6/10 (15 September 2013)

Pretty straightforward adaptation of the comic book from the House of Marvel, Chris Hemsworth is suitably young, dumb and full of bravado as the Mighty Thor and there is a good performance from Tom Hiddlestone as the scheming Loki. Anthony Hopkins is effortlessly god-like as Odin, but Natalie Portman's role is off-the-shelf action heroine - which she could do in her sleep I'm sure. The presence of Stellan Skarsgard is reassuring as is Clark Gregg's return as Agent Couslon, and a brief cameo by Jeremy Renner as Hawkeye, the last two being preludes to great things to come (we hope). There is clunkiness to some passages of dialogue, but there are also many nice touches. Asgard is beautifully rendered; the juxtaposition of the different modes of speech works nicely and Stan the Man makes his habitual Hitchcockian appearance. Kenneth Brannagh makes a great job all round including generating a feeling of great distance between Earth and Asgard. The Earth-bound scenes seem narrow in scope, but that's a minor quibble, in the end it's all good comic book fun and whets the appetite for the main event – 98 days and counting!