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Subscribe to weekly newsletter » related articles in theaters Chris Hemsworth as Thor. Comparing "Thor" in Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides three screen formats Thor more current releases » (mail) » one-minute movie reviews BY ROGER EBERT / May 10, 2011 times & tickets I didn't attend the critics' still playing screening for "Thor" cast & credits Fandango because it was at the same The Adjustment Bureau Search movie time Ebertfest was showing Arthur showtimes and buy "A Small Act," about an 88- Thor Chris Hemsworth Atlas Shrugged tickets. year-old woman named Jane Foster Natalie Portman The Bang Bang Club Hilde Back. She'd flown Loki Tom Hiddleston Battle: Los Angeles from Sweden, and I wanted Odin Anthony Hopkins The Beaver about us be onstage to present her Erik Selvig Stellan Skarsgård Bridesmaids Cave of Forgotten Dreams with the Golden Thumb. Darcy Lewis Kat Dennings Missing "Thor 3D" was not Certified Copy About the site » Agent Coulson Clark Gregg Cold Weather an inconsolable loss, Heimdall Idris Elba because I was able to see it The Conspirator Site FAQs » King Laufey Colm Feore Desert Flower in Chicago in nice, bright Volstagg Ray Stevenson Drive Angry 3D Contact us » 2D. The house was Hogun Tadanobu Asano Even the Rain surprisingly well-populated Everything Must Go Email the Movie for a 8:50 p.m. screening Fast Five Paramount presents a film directed Answer Man » on a Monday, suggesting Forget Me Not that some people, at least, by Kenneth Branagh. Screenplay Forks Over Knives will make an effort to avoid by The Greatest Movie Ever Sold on sale now 3D. Ashley Miller and Zack Stentz. Hall Pass Running time: 114 minutes. MPAA Hanna "Thor" is failure as a movie, rating: PG-13 (for sequences of Henry's Crime Hesher but a success as marketing, intense sci-fi action and violence). an illustration of the ancient Hidden Love I Am carnival tactic of telling the Printer-friendly » I Will Follow rubes anything to get them E-mail this to a friend » into the tent. "You won't In a Better World Incendies believe what these girls Insidious take off!" a carny barker Ip Man 2 promised me and my horny Buy now » Jane Eyre pals one steamy night at Jumping the Broom the Champaign County Fair. He was close. We didn't believe what Limitless they left on. The Lincoln Lawyer Louder Than a Bomb The failure of "Thor" begins at the story level, with a screenplay that Make Believe essentially links special effects. Some of the dialog is mock heroic Meek's Cutoff ("You are unworthy of your title, and I'll take from you your power!") Nuremberg: Its Lesson for Today and some of it winks ironically ("You know, for a crazy homeless Of Gods and Men person he's pretty cut.") It adapts the original Stan Lee strategy for Outside the Law Paul Buy now » Marvel, where characters sometimes spoke out of character. Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides Poetry The story might perhaps be adequate for an animated film for Potiche children, with Thor, Odin and the others played by piglets. In the The Princess of Montpensier arena of movies about comic book superheroes, it is a desolate Putty Hill vastation. Nothing exciting happens, nothing of interest is said, and Queen of the Sun the special effects evoke not a place or a time but simply special Queen to Play effects. Rango Red Riding Hood Thor to begin with is not an interesting character. The gods of Greek, Scre4m Buy now » Roman and Norse mythology share the same problem, which is that Something Borrowed what you see is what you get. They're defined by their attributes, not Soul Surfer their personalities. Odin is Odin and acts as Odin and cannot act as Source Code other than Odin, and so on. Thor is a particularly limited case. What Stake Land Strongman does he do? He wields a hammer. That is what he does. You don't Super have to be especially intelligent to wield a hammer, which is just as Take Me Home Tonight well, because in the film Thor (Chris Hemsworth) doesn't seem to be Thor the brightest bulb in Asgard. Trust Twelve Thirty Buy now » The land (sphere? state of mind? heaven?) known as Asgard is Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives described in Norse mythology as being near Troy, or perhaps in Asia Vidal Sassoon: The Movie Minor. In the movie, as nearly as I can gather, it is not of this earth Water for Elephants and must be elsewhere in the universe. It consists of towering spires Win Win and skyscrapers linked by bridges and buttresses and betraying no Your Highness sign of a population, except when untold thousands of Asgardians more current releases » are required to line up at attention like robotic Nazis to receive dictates from the throne of Odin (Anthony Hopkins). on dvd Asgard's ancient enemies are the Frost Giants, whose home is Buy now » Jotunheim. I believe, but cannot promise you, that Jotunheim and new on dvd Asgard are linked by a bridge, although this bridge also seems to be the way Thor reaches Earth, so perhaps it's more of a gateway Ip Man 2 (5/3) through time and space, which would explain why Asgardians hurtle Blow Out (4/26) across intergalactic light-years and land in New Mexico without a Somewhere (4/19) hair out of place. White Material (4/12) Ricky (4/12) Thor is the first to arrive, and encounters three human scientists. The Human Stain (4/12) Whether he is human himself is a question the film sidesteps. We Dead Man (4/12) Buy now » know from mythology that gods sometimes mated with humans, Tron: Legacy (4/5) which is a hopeful sign. The humans are astrophysicist Jane Foster Tron (4/5) (Natalie Portman), her friend Darcy (Kat Dennings) and the Jersey Girl (4/5) distinguished Dr. Erik Sevig (Stellan Skarsgard). I mention she's an more new on dvd » astrophysicist because behaves more like a Storm Chaser, cruising the desert in a van and peering into the skies, which won't get you coming on dvd far in astrophysics. Their van hits Thor after he unluckily lands in front of it. This is not a Meet Cute for the gods. Later there's a True Grit (6/7) meteoric event in which Thor's hammer hurtles to earth and becomes embedded so firmly that it can't be pulled lose by a pickup more coming on dvd » Buy now» truck or even the federal government. great movies on dvd So now Thor is on Earth, his hammer is stuck, and I am underwhelmed. Thor luckily speaks English and Jane and her Santa Sangre (1/25) friends take him to the local diner, where he eats lots of Pop Tarts Senso (2/22) and, when he finishes his coffee, smashes the empty cup to the Heart of Glass (3/23) ground. "We don't do that," Jane explains as if to a child, and more great movies on dvd » advises him to simply order another cup, after which he apparently absorbs human behavior and the movie drops the Taming of the Buy now» Thor angle.

The three scientists are thin soup. Jane flirts demurely with Thor, Kay stands next to her and does nothing very important, and Dr. Sevig regards them gravely and looms slightly above a low-angle camera while looking on with wise concern. There is also a government agent (Clark Gregg), whose every action is the remedy to an immediate requirement of the plot.

Superhero movies live and die on the quality of their villains. "Thor" Buy now» has a shabby crew. The Frost Giants spend most of their time being frosty in their subzero sphere of Jotunheim and occasionally freezing their enemies. Thor's brother Loki (Tom Hiddleston) is dark-haired, skinny, shifty-eyed and sadly lacking in charisma. He might as well be wearing a name tag: "Hi! I can't be trusted!" These villains lack adequate interest to supply a climactic battle, so the movie fabricates a Metal Giant, sends him to the New Mexico town, and has him blast fiery rays that blow up gas stations real good but always miss his targets. He is apparently killed by a sword through his spine, but why does he need a spine since when his mask lifts we can see his head is an empty cavern?

And what about that town? It seems to be partly a set with two interiors (the diner and Jane's office) and partly CGI. It seems to go for a few blocks and then end abruptly in barren desert. Not even any suburbs or strip malls. I know aliens from other worlds are required to arrive in New Mexico, but why stay there? Why can't the Metal Giant attack the Golden Gate Bridge or scale a Trump Tower somewhere? Who cares he if turns a 7-Eleven into a fireball?

Here is a film that is scoring 79% on Rotten Tomatoes. For what? The standards for comic book superhero movies have been established by "Superman," "The Dark Knight," "Spider-Man 2" and "Iron Man." In that company "Thor" is pitiful. Consider even the comparable villains (Lex Luthor, the Joker, Doc Ock and Obadiah Stane). Memories of all four come instantly to mind. Will you be thinking of Loki six minutes after this movie is over?

The director given this project, Kenneth Branagh, once obtained funding for a magnificent 70mm version of "Hamlet." Now he makes "Thor." I wonder with a dread fear if someone in Hollywood, stuck with a movie about a Norse god, said "Get Branagh. He deals with that Shakespeare crap."

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