Thor 2011 Kenneth Branagh

Look out!  Here comes Thor with his big hammer to knock everybody upside their heads and take your money!  You should let him, too, because this movie isn't half bad.  This Australian TV star is Thor and Natalie Portman is his human love interest.  Well, sure.  It's like this - Up in Asgard a long time ago, Odin (Anthony Hopkins) and the Asgardians went to war against King Laufey (Colm Feore) and the Ice People.  Asgard won, Odin lost an eye, and little Thor and his brother Loki grew up hearing tales of the horrible Ice People, and their horrible icey ways.  So, naturally, when the Ice People break into Asgard and try to take back the source of their power, a now grown Thor and Loki and all their friends want revenge.

Because preemptive strikes are a bad idea everywhere, Thor is banished to Earth for his misdeeds.  There he has to learn to be a better person.  Awwwww.  It all works because the guy they cast as Thor, Chris Hemsworth, is an Australian, and therefore is born with the genes that allow you to be a charming asshole.  Basically, Thor is a frat guy who has to learn that just because he's a member of the best fraternity on campus, he can't always be a douche.  And Natalie Portman's on hand as the cute smart girl who secretly likes big, muscley douches.  Stellan Skarsgaard's there too, because he is Swedish, which is close to Norway, so he can explain Norse mythology to the audience.

If you know anything about Norse mytholgy, or at least the Marvel Comics version of it, you'll know that Loki is also known as the Trickster, because he lies a lot.  A lot.  All the time.  So he's a bad guy.  As such, he is played by a skinny British guy (Tom Hiddleston) with just the right amount of snivel and sneer.   Anthony Hopkins is perfect as Odin, but Rene Russo as Thor's mom, and Tadanobu Asano (Ichi the Killer, and tons of other great Japanese movies) as one of his friends, are completely wasted.  Asano only gets 7 lines of dialogue in the entire movie!  6, if you don't count the pivotal "We should go!", he utters at the beginning of the movie.  It's a shame.

There's also a couple of Marvel nods in there as well, since they're trying to build a Marvel Movie World.  Clark Gregg returns as Agent Coulson of SHIELD, Stan Lee (of course) has an imaginative cameo, and one of the future Avengers shows up as well.

But enough about the cast....is it an interesting story?  Pretty much.  The action scenes are kind of jumbled sometimes, and there might be a few too many longing looks between the leads, but otherwise, it's pretty great.  I was surprised that I was actually more interested in what was going on at Asgard sometimes, but if it's between that and watching Thor cook eggs, I'll take palace intrigue anytime.

I would say that this movie isn't as much fun as the first Iron Man, but it's miles ahead of X-Men Origins:Wolverine.  I just hope that after all this buildup, Joss Whedon and his singular brand of semi-clever smarm doesn't screw it all up with The Avengers.  So go see and enjoy Thor now, before your memory of it is forever ruined by a TV hack with delusions of grandeur.