My bad feelings about this film that grew over that few weeks with the release of what seemed like way too much marketing; may have proved to help make this film more palatable than perhaps it normally would have been.
However, the film is not to bad at all. In fact, it was pretty entertaining for me.
Chris Hemsworth who had bulked up so much that there is virtually no resemblance to his portrayal of George Kirk in Star Trek, but his work in this film was far better than what we got to see in the various trailers. Thor's transformation from arrogant god to humble good guy was a little weak, but all in all it worked just fine.
Natalie Portman who seems to be looking better and acting better than she did from her Star Wars days, plays Thor's love interest and that's about all she gets to do, but at least she does not come across as a love sick Barbie doll.
Anthony Hopkins is wonderful as the ruler of Asgard Odin, he comes across as the perfect old, wise warrior who has much to teach his sons. There are a couple of spolierish items that I won't talk about, but there are some unexplained things that happen to Odin that do weaken the film a bit, but it doesn't really spoil the overall experience.
There are more references to other Avenger characters in this film and of course the seemingly obligatory Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) cameo at the end of the credits.
Here is a list:
All in all, these continuing references to Avenger characters and knowing that it's all building towards an Avengers film makes me pretty excited about it. I really like how they are trying the whole Marvel universe together like this.
The film look great, Asgard was very cool and done well and thankfully they scaled back the "Ye Olde English" that has been a part of Asgardians in the past.
This is a nice start for the summer movie season for me, I was pretty pleased with it over all. I will give a 3.5 out of a possible 5 cosmic bridges...very good, but does not achieve greatness like the original Ironman film did.
A must see for Marvel, Thor and Avenger fans.
