Thor

*** stars

If you actually look at the character Thor without the Avengers franchise, the mythology is quite fascinating. He is a grand hero in a mystical world that is cast out due to his reckless temptation of war which is against his father's wishes. Thus, he ends up on earth.

Now, if you look at the character Thor with the Avengers franchise, it's quite silly. He's from another world and uses a big hammer to smash an enemy's face in. However, due to Shakespearean expert Kenneth Branagh and his excellent skill at directing, he manages to turn a potential disaster into an exciting summer blockbuster movie with (not surprisingly) numerous Shakespearean themes. Hence Branagh's attraction to this project.

Thor (Chris Hemsworth) longs to take over his father's thrown as the king of his homeland, Asgard. But when he gets in over his head and takes on an old enemy which consequently opens the doors to a deadly evil, his father (an absolutely appropriate Anthony Hopkins) has been protecting for centuries, he takes away Thor's power and casts him out onto planet earth. The film never explains why his father sends him to earth, but in the mind of we the humans, where else he is going to go?

So how does Thor get to Earth? By creating a riff in science consisting of opening a magical gate that connects the two worlds. He crash lands in the middle of a New Mexico desert and is discovered by three very interested scientists. At first, they think he is a guy who was at the wrong place at the wrong time. But when they find out about his abilities, they soon realize he is much more than meets the eye. Especially Jane Foster (Natalie Portman) who immediately believes that he is the answer to her entire life's work.

Thor has one thing in mind, to get his hammer back. To bad S.H.I.E.L.D found it first (in case you forgot, S.H.I.E.L.D is the group of agents that were introduced in the original Iron Man, and at the end of Iron Man 2 we see the lead agent finding Thor's hammer). Now, Thor has to get to his hammer back without being stopped by forces of earth.

Exactly, S.H.I.E.L.D doesn't stand a chance.

To my surprise, Thor finds a way to connect all the pieces. It continues the story of the Avengers franchise, it makes us believe that Asgard could be a real place, and it finds the fish-out-of-water humor that many moviegoers yearn for in these kinds of movies. It's what made the original Iron Man so refreshing.

Having a director like Kenneth Branagh doesn't hurt either. Shakespeare is seen all over this story. For example, Thor struggles with dishonoring his father, while his evil brother wishes to erase Thor's memory from his father's head so he would be his favorite son instead. The final battle between the two siblings is appropriately personal and heartbreaking. Visually stunning and in many cases quite the epic, Thor may not be the best film in the Marvel universe, but it certainly is a warm welcome to a new superhero.