In "Thor," the Kenneth Branagh film based on the Marvel Comics stories about the Norse God of Thunder, Chris Hemsworth is properly tall, rugged, blond, and handsome in the title role. Natalie Portman is kind of cute as a spunky climate scientist.
Anthony Hopkins, who plays Odin, banishes his son Thor to the Earth of the 21st century without his powers and without his iconic hammer, which he tosses down to Earth as well, buried in the rock like Excalibur, waiting for the first worthy being to pick it up. Thor is hot headed, arrogant, but down underneath good natured, an appropriate Viking god. He has to learn humility and self sacrifice to become worthy of being one of the Asgard deities.
Thor follows the conventions of the fish out of water story, being helped along by Natalie Portman's character, Jane Foster, and her group of scientists, and hindered by a group of "men in black" secret agents of an organization called "S.H.E.I.L.D." and by his evil brother Loki, played by Tom Hiddleston. Ray Stevenson (from the Rome miniseries), Stellan Skarsgard, and Renee Russo also appear.
As one might expect from a Marvel Comics movie, the story is heavy on special effects and action and somewhat light on character development and plot. Asgard looks like one of those megalopolis style cities from the Star Wars series, all dark and shiny and without much of the Norse d©cor. At one point Loki sends down to Earth a giant laser shooting robot to deal with Thor and his friends. When one of the S.H.E.I.L.D. agents sees it, he asks "You one of Stark's?" in a reference to Iron Man.
Hemsworth is a little inconsistent in his depiction of Thor, smashing coffee cups on the floor, wolfing down breakfast, and yelling one moment, being all good natured and even courtly the next. He also has a Norse accent that fades in and out. But he looks good swinging that hammer and doing other Norse god things.
Natalie Portman, best known for being in three of the Star Wars movies, has little to do but be cute and spunky and also quite short next to Hemsworth. Anthony Hopkins, who spends most of the movie literally in a coma, is magnificent and filled with gravitas as he always is with this kind of role. Tom Hiddleston is sly and devious, as befits Loki, the trickster god.
"Thor" brings in the scifi convention of ancient gods as super aliens misunderstood by the Earth humans. The idea of the bifrost bridge between Asgard and Earth being an wormhole is a nice touch.
If one approaches "Thor" for what it is, an excuse to see explosions and action, one will enjoy it immensely. It is not the worst of the Marvel Comics franchise, but it is also, sadly, not the best either.
Source, Thor, Yahoo.Movies
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