Thor (2011)

Here's the thing about Thor: it shouldn't be as awkward as it is. You've got Kenneth Branagh, a man who has spent his career wrestling Shakespeare onto the screen with genuine flair, handed a story that is essentially a Norse mythological tragedy about pride and brotherhood. On paper, that's a perfect match. In practice, it feels like someone bolted a sitcom onto an opera and hoped nobody would notice the join.

The Asgard stuff, when it's firing, genuinely hints at something epic. Golden halls, clashing gods, thunderous declarations, a father and sons dynamic with real weight behind it. Branagh knows how to frame power and grandeur, and those early scenes have a scale that gets the pulse going. I was on board. And then Thor lands in New Mexico, nearly gets run over by a pickup truck, and we're suddenly in a completely different film.

The fish-out-of-water comedy that takes over the Earth-bound middle section isn't without its charms, but it wears thin fast. The jokes ("Does he need a helmet?") feel dated even by the standards of the early MCU, and the human characters are mostly there to gawk and react rather than to actually matter. Natalie Portman's Jane Foster is the worst casualty of this. She's a scientist in the script, but a plot device in practice, and the romance between her and Thor has all the spark of a damp firework. You're told they're falling for each other, but you never really feel it.

What saves the film from being a write-off is the two leads. Chris Hemsworth has the physical presence and the easy charm to carry both the arrogance and the humility of Thor, and it's easy to see why Marvel stuck with him for so long. But the real revelation, even here, is Tom Hiddleston as Loki. Sly, wounded, genuinely layered, he's doing more with the character than the script sometimes deserves. There's a scene or two where you catch something genuinely sad behind the scheming, and those moments remind you what this film could have been if it had leaned harder into the family tragedy rather than the comedy of errors.

The CGI has not aged kindly either, which doesn't help. Asgard looks impressive in the wide shots, but the climactic showdown with the robot villain (and I'm being vague because frankly it barely registers as a proper threat) looks weightless and cartoonish. There's no sense of real danger, no real weight to the punches. Compare that to where Hemsworth ended up in Avengers: Infinity War, where the action carries genuine consequence, and you realise how far things had to travel from here.

The themes are all present: worthiness, pride, the complicated love between brothers. But the film tells you about them rather than showing them. Thor's transformation from arrogant prince to humbled hero happens because the plot requires it, not because you've watched him earn it through anything particularly convincing. It's a redemption arc assembled from the required parts rather than lived in.

There's no question this laid groundwork. Loki became one of the MCU's most enduring characters off the back of this, and Hemsworth's grin was always going to carry the franchise somewhere. And honestly, if you want to see what Branagh's vision for this world eventually became in the hands of someone willing to tear up the rulebook, my review of Thor: Ragnarok covers what happens when you stop taking the mythology seriously in the best possible way.

But as a standalone film, this is uneven, tonally confused, and dragged down by its weakest stretch. Watch it for Loki and Hemsworth's charisma. Don't go in expecting coherence or depth.

Two and a half stars.

Rating: ★★½  | Year: 2011  | Watched: 2026-04-15

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Where to watch

Watch in the UK
Stream: Disney Plus
Rent: Apple TV Store · Rakuten TV · Amazon Video · Sky Store
Buy: Apple TV Store · Rakuten TV · Amazon Video · Google Play Movies
Physical: Amazon UK · Zavvi

Watch in the US
Stream: Hulu · Disney Plus
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Buy: Amazon Video · Apple TV Store · Google Play Movies · YouTube
Physical: Amazon US

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