One character sells the movie. Everyone else, including the title character, are afterthoughts.

Rating: 6/10 (27 August 2013)

Thor, the movie where a god (alien? demi-god? Not completely sure) changes his century old or so personality in three days. Because of a girl. Come on director if you're going to be cliché at least try not to be so obvious about it. I'm going to review this in parts because I have so much to say about it.
Story- Like I hinted at above Thor is a prince that is exiled from Asgard,a fantasy like world in another dimension, to our meager little planet Earth. Here he has to learn humility if he wants to come home because he pretty much started a realm wide war by being an arrogant prick.The problem with this plot point is that for the first 25 minutes or so, when the story was based on Asgard and one other realm (not earth),the story was actually interesting. That takes a severe nosedive when Thor is thrown to a small desert in the middle of nowhere on our planet. To say this part of the movie was very boring would be like me saying rain is wet. All the interesting bits happen on Asgard with Thor's family, but unfortunately since Thor is the main character it's his sleep inducing antics on earth that we have to follow the most and not the far more captivating Asgardian plot points.
Characters- Overall everyone was decent in their roles. I thought Chris Hemsworth, apparently a newcomer at the time, was good as Thor. He was very arrogant (at first), but overall nice and kinda goofy like a big kid. Natalie Portman, as the earth-based scientist Jane and Thor's unfortunate love interest did what she had to do. However, this wasn't much, but that's the thing her part could have been given to anyone and worked. That's why it was obvious that Portman and Hopkins (to a lesser extent) were only really cast because they were the big name draws in a sea of relative unknowns. Speaking of Anthony Hopkins he had a commanding, but still kind, presence as Odin the King of Asgard.However, the role that shined above all was from,apparently another newcomer, Tom Hiddleston.
He played Thor's younger, quieter, darkly mischievous brother Loki, and my god did he blow everyone out of the water. I watched this movie for the first time on Netflix a few months ago, and not being a superhero movie fan I admit I wasn't expecting much. Especially not the Oscar caliber brilliance from Hiddleston. Loki was a scene stealer and really the sole reason I kept watching to the end.
Romance plot- A plot tumor that should have been regulated to C plot or even better not been in the movie at all. The biggest problem with this plot line however was not its existence, but that the two leads had NO chemistry with each other. To say Hemsworth and Portman didn't have this would actually be an understatement. This is unfortunate since they had it with everybody else. Just sadly not with each other.
Visuals and music-Asgard, and one other world, was beautiful but it was glossy looking and didn't look lived in. It was also very obvious they were on a set in a lot of the interior scenes. Very boxy. The earth scenes were a desert and of course very dry and boring looking. The music had a good fantasy vibe, but it wasn't memorable for me.
The Bad Guy-The villain's overall motivation wasn't executed well, and since this is the essence of his start of darkness a lot more effort should have been done in the writing room in this regard.
Battle scenes -Overall I wasn't in awe. I was barely in meh.
There's supposed to be a war brewing and yet we are not shown this even a little. Definitely takes a whole lot of tension out of the movie in that regard.
A very important character is called a master of magic, his power is this for god's sake, and yet I've seen more magic, big and small, done by the children in the Harry Potter films.
Costumes help you get immersed in a world. Especially in a fantasy setting, but sadly the asgardian's costumes overall looked like they came off the Halloween rack at Wal-Mart. Clearly the 150 million or so budget barely was dipped into for the costume department.
Deleted Scenes- This bares a special mention because after seeing them it's one of those what the hell was the director thinking face-palm worthy things. After watching some deleted scenes from other movies it's usually very obvious why they were done away with. This isn't one of those movies. Even when watching the original cut I felt something was missing. Dialogue that didn't make sense, didn't flow right, or seemed to be gone. Transitions that were off and whole plot points that seem to have more to them then what was shown. Then I watched the deleted scenes and go oh there's the rest of the movie! Why would you cut scenes that fleshed out your overall story and more importantly your characters! The deleted scenes made the movie so much more and it's a shame they were cut.
In summary the script, dialogue, story, and just overall execution wasn't great, but it wasn't terrible either. The acting (especially Hiddleston's Loki) is what overall helped sell it for me. However, in all honestly this is not a movie I can watch in its entirety again. Certain scenes certainly, but not the whole movie.