Thor

Outrageously made in ludicrous colors, villains, battle scenes, and dialogue, THOR represents the best of the Marvel movies that have graced the past three or four years of AVENGERS-prep films. Beginning with an admittedly stunted Natalie Portman as a researcher in New Mexico who runs over the hero with her car in a running joke that the movie embraces, we can see some fun being had with the whole story. After he's run over, we get an extremely long flashback of what landed the Nordic warrior in such a place, seeing that he's been banished for basically acting a brawny fool, and disobeying the King, his father, Odin. Odin has banished Thor, but at the same time, his sneaky brother begins to leer up the ladder. This brother relationship is the entire strength of the film, depicting a semi-complex relationship between Thor and Loki. Loki is destined to never be in a position like Thor's, but desires it greatly, and his plotting is the whole kink in Odin's plan to make Thor learn humility. During his banishment, Thor is stripped of all powers, and spends a lot of time making a fool of himself but not knowing that around the Natalie Portman headed researchers. It turns out, Portman's researcher is searching for a bond between worlds that Thor can easily summon with his hammer, and so, of course, the two become involved. What's surprising about THOR though is that it's as good as it is. It has fun, instead of pounding you over the head with how important it is, or how dire the situation is. There's maybe a 30 second blip of that, but the rest is dedicated to having fun, which is what superhero movies should have been about all along. Thor is a boor at first, without a doubt, but he's a likable one, due to a performance from a hunky Chis Hemsworth that's a million times better than any of his hunky actor counterparts.

★★★ out of Five