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thor reviews It will help if you understand that "Thor" had already grossed more than $100 million in international box office before a single ticket was sold nationally. Put them all together and visual grandeur, sonic booms and special FX make up a universal language.
I was hoping right off the bat that those Norse gods would mind their own quarrelsome business, because the doings on Asgard all the way through "Thor" are more than a little tedious. I'll say this for Asgard, though -- as envisioned by the veteran film designer Bo Welch ("Men in Black," "Edward Scissorhands," "The Wild, Wild West"), it's as cockamamie-looking a home of the gods as you've ever seen. Much jollier by miles are the doings down here on sweet little planet Earth, where Odin (Hopkins) has banished muscle-bound, hammer-wielding Thor for being too impetuous, bloodthirsty and warlike -- even for a Norse god. (Many try, including mortal men and Thor himself.)
Unfortunately, Odin is in Odin-sleep (a quasi-death coma), so Thor's on his own down here. And that's where the movie finally finds its rhythm -- at the moment when scientists Natalie Portman, Stellan Skarsgard and Kat Dennings literally run into him with their SUV.
The sight of Dennings tasering an angry Thor into submission in the New Mexico desert is enough to cheer anyone up. What happens after that, of course, is Thor's effort to get back to Asgard where, if he plays his cards (and godly genetics) right, he's got a shot at king. Thor and the lead scientist Jane (Portman) fall into "heavy like" the way gods and mortals always do in the best mythologies (where intermarriage -- or at least divine dalliance -- seems to be expected). But Thor, as played by muscle-bound Chris Hemsworth, is busily engaged trying to get his hammer back and trying to deal with all Branagh's special effects, which, I must say, are splendid.
Just like the movie itself, which is a big, loud, dumb, cheerful, periodically sluggish light show -- a lot of sound and fury signifying you-know-what, as Branagh's favorite bard might have put it.

It will help if you understand that "Thor" had already grossed more than $100 million in international box office before a single ticket was sold nationally. Put them all together and visual grandeur, sonic booms and special FX make up a universal language.
I was hoping right off the bat that those Norse gods would mind their own quarrelsome business, because the doings on Asgard all the way through "Thor" are more than a little tedious. I'll say this for Asgard, though -- as envisioned by the veteran film designer Bo Welch ("Men in Black," "Edward Scissorhands," "The Wild, Wild West"), it's as cockamamie-looking a home of the gods as you've ever seen. Much jollier by miles are the doings down here on sweet little planet Earth, where Odin (Hopkins) has banished muscle-bound, hammer-wielding Thor for being too impetuous, bloodthirsty and warlike -- even for a Norse god. (Many try, including mortal men and Thor himself.)
Unfortunately, Odin is in Odin-sleep (a quasi-death coma), so Thor's on his own down here. And that's where the movie finally finds its rhythm -- at the moment when scientists Natalie Portman, Stellan Skarsgard and Kat Dennings literally run into him with their SUV.
The sight of Dennings tasering an angry Thor into submission in the New Mexico desert is enough to cheer anyone up. What happens after that, of course, is Thor's effort to get back to Asgard where, if he plays his cards (and godly genetics) right, he's got a shot at king. Thor and the lead scientist Jane (Portman) fall into "heavy like" the way gods and mortals always do in the best mythologies (where intermarriage -- or at least divine dalliance -- seems to be expected). But Thor, as played by muscle-bound Chris Hemsworth, is busily engaged trying to get his hammer back and trying to deal with all Branagh's special effects, which, I must say, are splendid.
Just like the movie itself, which is a big, loud, dumb, cheerful, periodically sluggish light show -- a lot of sound and fury signifying you-know-what, as Branagh's favorite bard might have put it.