Thor stars Captain Kirk 2.0 in the lead role. It also co-stars a completely out of the blue, what is going on here Hannibal Lecter as Thor’s dad, Queen Amidala as the not too-wet-blankety female love interest, the math professor from Good Will Hunting as a scientist and slew of “who-dats?” in various roles. I would be remiss to not mention Rene Russo as Thor’s Mom (Dude! You broke your rule.  You said her name.  I know, but what are you going to say? The psychiatrist from Tin Cup? The horror film actress from Get Shorty? The completely ill-conceived never believable foil to Thomas Crown?  I said her name, because where does it even come from that she’s in this? She was barely in it and it was so “wha???”  She must have had some bills needing to get paid).

Expectations: I really had mixed emotions going into this.  It was going to be in 3-D, so that’s always great.  It’s a superhero movie so that raises expectations.  On the other hand, the previews seemed weird and I was really wondering how they were going to make his backstory even remotely believable. “Believable? Since when do you care about believable? We demand that you get Cloften back here immediately to finish this review.”  Even my implausibility or “that’s ridiculous” radar goes off every now and then.

Reality:  Well, my expectations were soundly met.  “Wait? You said you had mixed expectations.”  Exactly.  The coolness of the 3-D was undeniable, and superhero movies are in general pretty cool.  That said, the back and forth between the 2 (I guess 3) worlds conflict was a bit convoluted and pretty much a big who cares.  “So what you’re saying is that the plot was bad, but you still thought the movie was OK.  What is your problem?”  I have many problems.  One of them is that cool effects and hype can overcome a plot that I don’t care about, at least to a degree.  Sometimes it can’t.  I’m looking at you Clash of the Titans 3-D!

Appropriateness: There were a few curse words in there, not enough to make you think, “That was a lot of bad language,” but enough for, “I wish I hadn’t brought my 10 year old.”  There is, of course, violence.  More stuff blowing up than seeing people get maimed and killed.  Nothing real sexual, a budding romance that peaks with an appropriate kiss.  The scientist dude gets drunk.  Compared to either of the Iron Man movies, this is much more appropriate.  It is about on par with a typical X-Men movie.  I know–I’m a dork.

Rating: (Here is the system)

See it in the theater and will definitely own

See it in the theater and might own

See it in the theater and will likely rent it

See it in the theater and be done

See it at the dollar theater

Rent it

Avoid it.

I rate it a see it in the dollar theater (if you have one) or just rent it it. (One caveat, 3D effects are always great, so it is unlikely that either your dollar theater or TV has that, so might be worth it)