A few entertaining moments with an incomplete story

Rating: Null/10 (24 August 2011)

Oh boy, another Marvel movie! In case you forgot, Marvel has brought us Hulk, Incredible Hulk, Spider-Man 3, Fantastic 4, Special Hulk, Silly Hulk, Elektra, some Punisher movies, and and some iffy X-Men movies. And also Blade, Iron Man, and Men in Black. They have gone from being cheesy comic books and low-budget looking Spider-Man and Hulk TV shows to being very. very. very. serious business. Dark, moody art with special-effects laden films to match.
Thor to me isn't that interesting of a superhero concept. He has the same problem as Superman: invincibility. Krypton can at least mess with Superman, but Thor has nothing – other than good ol' dad stripping him of his power. Nevertheless, my wife and I saw a Monday night screening IN THREE DIMENSIONS with about 4 other folks. Helpful hint for you movie-goers: don't recycle your Real-D glasses. Pocket them, come back to buy the 2D version, and sneak in to the 3D version. You've already paid for those bad boys once with your first movie ticket, so no harm done in my theft book.
The original Thor story begins with mild-mannered cripple Donald Blake discovering he is actually Thor, God of Thunder. He leaves his cripply self behind when he picks up that sweet hammer. New Thor may have lost his powers, but his good looks did not get stripped away. I guess it would be harder to be humble if you were still a beefcake blond. While some folks spent the movie drooling over Chris Hemsworth's pecs and tittering at Kat Denning's quirky antics, I actually paid attention to the story – what little I could find.
Thor felt like a ridiculously long intro to Thor 2. Like it should have been an extra on the DVD, except it ran for over 2 freakin' hours. It also played heavily towards Marvel fans and not towards us unedjumukated masses – references to S.H.I.E.L.D, Nick Fury, Iron Man, and who knows what else I missed. Keeping each superhero in his own little world and movie has worked well up to this point. I believe The Avengers will be the final "this is crap" moment for most non-comic movie goers. So I'm supposed to believe that Thor, immortal god, teams up with the Hulk, Iron Man, Ant-Man, Wasp, and Captain America? And this is the same universe that has Spider-Man, who was infected by an alien being (what realm was he from?) and all of the mutant X-Men (Wikipedia tells me Wolverine even joins the Avengers at some point!)? I know we have to suspend a LOT of disbelief to watch the movies, but they all have their own rules and ideas. Mash them together, rules start to break down, and it becomes arbitrary after a while.
I realize have not said much about the movie. There isn't much to say. It took 45 minutes to get to Earth and another 45 minutes to leave. In the meantime we got a few lame jokes and some decent CGI action. This wasn't a cheap movie to make, I'm sure. Why shoehorn in a Thor movie before The Avengers just so the characters are all accounted for by little last-minute Nick Fury scenes?
While the Ultimate Aryan had a few entertaining moments and a surprisingly good cast, it failed to do more than throw as much information on the screen as possible while leaving an obviously incomplete story behind. Marvel, please.