Thor, the fantastic God of Thunder

On Mother's Day, I went with my husband to see Thor, the new superhero movie. Now I'm not a big superhero fan-that's more my hubby's shtick-but the play on Norse mythology looked like fun. (Plus the actor looked fantastic in the previews. But we won't go there.)

After reading some reviews, we chose to see it in normal 2D mode, because they said the 3D did nothing for the movie. After seeing it, I'm glad for the decision. The fight sequences were not choreographed suitably for 3D. Too much stuff moving on the screen at high speeds combined with the camera motions meant I'd have have been sick to my stomach from vertigo.  In 2D, the scenes were fine, though still a bit on the dizzying side in a couple places.

The story: Thor is a good guy, but he's too brash and arrogant for his father's comfort. What king wants to pass his power to a young man who is overly eager to pick a fight now matter how skilled he is at fighting? Even though that son possesses all other worthy traits. Thor's ego gets him into trouble and he is banished to Earth without his powers. But a father's hope for change sends Mjolnir, Thor's hammer, to Earth as well.

The movie was lots of fun. I had no preconceived notions about the story other than the preview and what I could remember of Norse mythology, which wasn't much. I haven't been able to get into the Iron Man movies, because Stark's character just rubs me the wrong way. But Thor, despite his arrogance, still comes across as worthy of respect. Someone I could root for. (It didn't hurt that some of his mannerisms remind me of one of my friends.) All he needed was the right situation to make him realize the additional qualities his father was trying to teach him. By itself, being sent to Earth wasn't enough to trigger the change of perspective, but his interaction with scientist Jane Foster, plus a personal setback that I won't spoil for you, does the job.

I'm not sure I agree completely with the story structure of the first half. It opens with a brief bit where a trio of scientists are following this storm and find Thor the hard way (smacking him with the van), then a jump to all the stuff that led to Thor being there, before finally going back to that scene. It took much longer than I expected to return to the opening teaser, making me question why they'd even started with it or why there was so much backstory. Not a movie killer issue, just a mild concern. It might only bug me because of studying story structure for my own writing. But I will say the teaser did help with waiting for all the post-banishment tidbits shown in the preview. And Thor was fun to root for even from the beginning.

Over all, I highly recommend that you go see this movie. Even if you don't care about any of the teasers for the linked movies, it works just as well as a stand alone. I'd give this one 4.75 stars. I'll probably also go see the next movie in the Marvel-verse.