Save your popcorn

Rating: 5/10 (4 August 2013)

This movie is less a saga than a facile riddle scrawled by a child's crayon across the dignity of ancient cultures. Its most redeeming feature is that it raises the credibility and watch-worthiness of such gods-and-humans flicks a "Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief." The humans, including Natalie Portman, who is capable of SO much better work, were meek and unconvincing even when shrieking, or proclaiming their commitment to saving each other (or the planet). There was more real emotion in Anthony Hopkins' single tear than in the remaining 99.8% of the movie.
That said, this film is eye candy of the most obvious sort and it gets its points for prettiness. The Rainbow Bridge mechanism verges on Steampunk, a plus in my book. Good gods live in golden halls (and have blond hair), while bad monsters live in bleak, dark worlds and have gray/black skin (or dark hair). It's symbolism with a sledgehammer here, folks, and surprisingly lacking in subtlety for a director like Kenneth Branagh.
Branagh's credit helps explain the mishmash of Shakespearean and Greek tropes imperfectly overlaid on the Norse mythology, like melted milk chocolate drizzled on a grilled trout.
Yeah - not worth watching unless you really, truly, have nothing better to do.