A surprising superhero movie, but could have been better

Rating: 7/10 (7 May 2011)

I had often wondered how they would introduce Thor at the movies, because unlike most of the other Marvel superheroes thus far, Thor in his comic origins has a basis in mythology rather than science fiction (or science fantasy, if you take my meaning) and originates off- world. Like Superman, he comes from a fantastic planet whose science and physics are so beyond ours that from our viewpoint it is magic. (This does not explain why they all look human, but let's not go there.)
What I imagined from the movie was that they would feature Asgard at the beginning, for an origin sequence, and the rest would take place on Earth. Turns out, Kenneth Branagh and the writers plotted the movie on Asgard for at least 50% of the screen time. This, I think, saved the movie. The otherworldly sequences were the most interesting and important elements of the story, and looked fantastic. This not a movie about Thor on Earth, it's a movie about Thor's conflicts with his father Odin and his sneaky step-brother Loki, wherein his banishment to Earth was just a part of the story arc.
Part of the problem with the Earth-side story is that it's boring. It's set in a very small New Mexico town in the desert. Thor befriends an ambitious astronomical researcher Jane Foster, played by Natalie Portman, whose character seems to have no real depth because we never get to know her personally. In fact somehow he falls in love with her, but I'm not sure how or why this happened. At any rate, the major battle scene on Earth takes place between Thor (with his entourage, who comes to fetch him) and a powerful golem from Asgard that seems remotely controlled by Loki (somehow). The golem (the Destroyer from the comics) was great, but he trashes nothing more than a tiny desert town. Or more specifically, main street in the tiny town (although I don't think there are many other streets to trash). Thor defeats him, end of the Destroyer. That's it? To me this missed a huge opportunity for a more epic battle. It should have taken place in a huge metropolis. Perhaps a Northern European city (because why does it always happen in America?) closer to where apparently the wormholes interacted with the Norse (resulting in the mythology). In fact if Thor crashed in New Mexico, fine, but I would have had his hammer land in Scandinavia or thereabouts, which would have made for a much nicer backdrop, and thus drawing our characters and the conflict to that region. I would have had the Destroyer toppling skyscrapers and smashing castles before Thor could stop him, leaving a path of destruction several hundred miles long through Europe. Not little old Western stores and a café. And the Destroyer should have made a much bigger mess of his friends.
So had the movie spent all its time in a little New Mexico town and its surrounding desert and not returned to Asgard or Jotunheim (the world of the Frost Giants, enemies of the Asgardians) for action, the movie would have fallen flat on its face.
I suppose there could have been a budgetary reason why they didn't "go urban" on the Earth- side, because special effects of this rendering scale are not cheap, and they did front-load quite a bit on Asgard.
Chris Hemsworth was okay as Thor, but the character seemed a little too winky and toothy at times. I would have had him cocky and snobby, but not so chipper. His friends seemed a little too much like a bunch of "hang-out dudes" (plus childhood gal-pal) than a band of adventurers. I would have made them a little more serious. Chris Hemsworth in particular does look like Thor -- well chiseled and sufficiently Scandinavian looking -- but his acting doesn't have a lot of believable range. He'll need to work on that.
All in all it was a good, but not great, movie. It will not come close to the success of Iron Man or Iron Man 2. But it wasn't a flawed mess like the first Hulk movie was.
BTW: the 3d is worth it for the space sequences and Asgard. And as with all the Avengers-era movies, need I mention, wait for the Easter Egg at the tail of the end credits.