The decent origin story of the black sheep of the Avengers

Rating: 7/10 (8 November 2013)

Thor is the oddball in the Pre-Avengers movies simply because it concerns a character that is quite literally out of this world. That would mean that the origin story of this superhero would require more time, a heavier budget, and more emphasis on making him likable. There was a tougher task at hand: mixing in all the fantasy elements with the literal-down-to-earth elements and giving it the proper balance.
For this main reason, Thor becomes very unbalanced as a script and as an overall film. When a movie looks like sci-fi Lord of the Rings on some scenes, and thennormal for the others it can become quite jarring. And for the majority of the movie it took a while for Thor to find its footing. Luckily once we get to the third act the movie does indeed take off.
We do not have the best script in the world telling the story of Thor, but bad scripts can almost always be saved by good acting. And with the help of Tom Hiddleston, Natalie Portman (Who had the worst lines of all), Anthony Hopkins, and our lead star Chris Hemsworth, Thor survives past the clichés, past the slow middle act, and survives the sometimes-crummy dialogue.
The action also paces like the script, plenty at first, minimal in the middle act, and plenty in the final moments. Even though the direction was a bit muddy (Kenneth Branagh's random career still hasn't given him the ability to helm big budget projects) he still delivers when the emotion is ramped up (which happens more than you may assume in a comic book movie).
Thor's saving grace was the final waning moments starting from when Thor really gets to shine right up until the end, which was actually devoid of your usual blockbuster clichés. By the time we get to the end we are treated with a nice final action sequence, a few surprises, the emergence of a now-notorious villain (Now complete with a massive online following), and a great ending that doesn't wrap the production nicely, but sets the tone for things to come.
As an origin story, Thor could have been a lot worse, could have been better, but considering having to follow up to the likes of Iron Man---this movie does just fine.