Thor

Starring: Chris Hemsworth, Anthony Hopkins, Natalie Portman, Kat Dennings, Stellan Skarsgard, Rene Russo

Rated PG-13

On the cusp of becoming king of Asgard, the powerful yet arrogant Thor is cast out, stripped of his powers and forced to live as a human on earth.

Thor has all the makings of a disaster, an Australian (Chris Hemsworth) portraying the Norse god of thunder son. An Englishman (Anthony Hopkins) playing Odin his Father and a Director (Keneth Branagh) who is best known as a Shakespearian Actor/Director. This is not the typical Hollywood combination one would expect for a superhero popcorn movie. This international team has bested the odds and delivered a film that far exceeded my expectations. Granted my expectations were not that high for this but Branagh and company deliver a really good movie and an excellent super hero movie.

From the onsite we see how Thor and the people of Asgard were not Gods at all that our puny primitive human brains just assumed they were given how they came down from the heavens and possessed fantastic powers. This was a great explanation for fitting Thor and Norse mythology into the Marvel Universe.

When Thor is cast to the earth is when the film is at its best, becoming a fish out of water story, interacting with earthlings brings some great moments. Thor is very reminiscent of Superman 2 with the whole loss of powers angle, you know he will get them back and you can’t wait to see how it happens. Natalie Portman is solid as the love interest Jane Foster with Kat Dennings as Darcy Lewis provides the required comic relief. There is an extremely strong cast especially for a superhero film.

The biggest issues I had with the film came primarily from Loki (Tom Hiddleston) as Thor’s brother/nemesis every time he weasels his way onto screen you think Thor is going to throw down with Lt. Commander Data from Star Trek, hardly a worthy adversary for the God of Thunder. The castle in Asgard looks like a giant pipe organ, I don’t even know what that is about. The bifrost (the intergalactic rainbow of transportation) gets destroyed and everyone acts like it’s a big deal, How is Thor going to get back to earth? I was thinking, maybe they could try rebuilding it, it’s not some stone monument they found it’s a giant device that they made. The most insanely irritating aspect of the film though has to be Thor riding a horse; the guy can fly with his magic hammer but instead chooses a horse as his mode of transportation, The God of Thunder should not like to ride his pony on a magical rainbow, although this would explain why Commander Data thought he had a chance against Thor.

Grade -87