Perfectly decent superhero flick

Rating: 8/10 (15 May 2011)

Marvel re-uses its Iron Man strategy by throwing far too much talent at a comic book movie. The results are, much like with Iron Man, actually pretty good, though quite far from great. Chris Hemsworth stars as the Norse god. The story takes place in both Asgard and Midgard (Earth). In Asgard, Thor has led an attack against the Frost Giants. Odin, his father (Anthony Hopkins), banishes Thor to Earth and gives his kingdom over to Thor's scheming brother, Loki (Tom Hiddleston). The other gods (including a black and Asian one, although, who cares, they're played by Idris Elba and Tadanobu Asano!) are suspicious of Loki and plan to get Thor back. On Earth, Thor is now a mortal. A big dude, still, but he finds that little things like getting hit by cars to be quite painful. He's discovered by a team of astrophysicists (Natalie Portman, in her third movie of 2011, Stellan Skarsgard and Kat Dennings). Portman thinks that Thor might know something about the weird atmospheric disturbances she's been documenting lately. It's a fun movie. Although it's mostly just CGI, Asgard is always great to look at. When they do use sets, they're cool. And the costume design, while a tad silly, is wonderful to look at. The Earth sequences would probably be a lot less fun, but the writers have a great sense of humor. The fish-out-of-water stuff is very funny, especially the scene where Thor enters a pet store and demands a horse. The actors mostly do a good job. Hemsworth, a relative newcomer, looks like he might be a mindless hunk or a wrestler-turned-actor, but he does a good job. He has a certain charm which most people who look like underwear models don't. Portman kind of fails, but the script is mostly to blame. There's very little time for a romantic angle, but they've shoved it in anyway, and it's pretty unconvincing. My favorite performances were from Hiddleston, who perhaps has the most complexly written character in the movie, and Elba, whom I didn't recognize at first past his costume and glowing yellow eyes. He's definitely the coolest character in the movie. Kat Dennings is really funny with her scene-stealing role as a political science student who is only working with Portman for the college credits. Dennings is a star in the making (check her out in the excellent Defendor) and probably should already be bigger than she is. One could complain that there's too much setting up of the Avengers movie, due out next year, but I generally don't mind that. I like the connectedness of the Marvel films (this one calls out Iron Man and the Hulk). A couple of the Avengers preview sequences are somewhat confusing, though. Like that guy who looks a little like Jeremy Renner (played by Jeremy Renner) who is ordered to snipe Thor but then picks up a bow and arrow, or the completely baffling post-credits sequence with Samuel L. Jackson (seriously, I couldn't make any sense of what was going on there).