While most of the super-heroes in the Marvel Comics universe are ordinary humans who gained their powers from scientific accidents like Spider-Man and the Fantastic Four, or humans who were born with their powers like the mutants of the X-Men, Thor is different--he's an actual god from the Norse pantheon.
That premise alone makes him rather difficult to imagine as a super-hero, particularly when you realize he's supposed to exist along with heroes who are more grounded in reality like Spider-Man. Which is why no one has yet attempted to bring him to the big screen until now, mainly because he's one-third of Marvel's main trinity of heroes that make up the Avengers--Iron Man has already been in 2 films, with Captain America waiting in the wings.
So Thor needs to be introduced, and the
Thor movie partially succeeds, due in part to director Kenneth Branagh and some very good performances by its actors. Thor's source material alone had the potential to come out as cheesy in lesser hands, but Branagh seems to have done the impossible and made Thor actually believable as a god that walks among mere mortals.
However, the film had to compress most of the major events in the comics to fit into a 2-hour movie, and as a result the entire thing looks rushed. For one thing, Thor's exile in the comics lasted for years, with him gaining a mortal identity in the process. In the movie, this exile doesn't even appear to last a week, and his alter-ego of Dr. Donald Blake is nowhere to be found except mentioned in passing as the ex of Jane Foster.
Foster herself, played by Natalie Portman, also underwent a makeover in the translation from comics to screen; she's a nurse in the comics, in the film she's now an astrophysicist--wow, talk about a drastic career change, LOL. As for the other supporting characters,
Thor brings other Asgardians into the mix, including Odin the All-Father, Loki, Frigga, Heimdall, Sif, and the Warriors Three, and the actors who portray them were all spot-on.
As Thor, Chris Hemsworth does justice to the character and manages to bring out his boorish, headstrong nature quite well. Same goes for the actors who play the Warriors Three, particularly Joshua Dallas as Fandral, who looks exactly like his comics counterpart, and Ray Stevenson as Volstagg, who has the best line in the film:
"Do not mistake my appetite for apathy!" LOL.
Tom Hiddleston as Loki was a stand-out, and nearly steals the entire movie with his excellent performance--cunning and manipulative, and is the very example of appearances being deceiving. As for Odin, Anthony Hopkins was rather underwhelming; somehow I expected Odin to be more authoritative, and I think Kenneth Branagh himself would've made a good Odin instead.
The film's plot was somewhat disappointing; if you think about it, it's just about Thor trying to get his hammer back, so the entire subplot with the Destroyer was just a big waste of time. Also, the town where Jane Foster lives looked like a movie set, and there's an unnecessary cameo by Hawkeye in his civilian identity. Also, too much screentime was spent on the Rainbow Bridge, which looked like a track from
Mario Kart, LOL.
Despite its flaws,
Thor is worth watching, and did its job well in establishing the lead character, paving the way for more sequels and the upcoming
Avengers movie.
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