Thor

For fans of comic books, and of Marvel comics in particular, there's a bit more riding on the film's success.  After the stuttering performance of Iron Man 2, and in particular the annoying way that film's second half played like an extended trailer for Scarlett Johansson's forthcoming role in The Avengers, it's down to Thor and Marvel's next film,  Captain America, to convince the movie-going public that there is mileage in the "shared universe" concept: a broad grouping of Marvel films that share the same overlapping world, without exactly playing as sequels. Fortunately, although not as exhilaratingly brilliant as Tony Stark's Iron Man debut, Thor does much to get things back on track.

It's odd, though, that it should be the next link in the superhero movie chain, purely because - for the most part - it's not really a superhero movie at all. In fact, it's two distinct films spliced together - a fantasy-cum-sci-fi epic with Shakespearean family dynamics on the one hand, and a "fish out of water" supernatural rom-com on the other. Both have much that entertains, but neither is 100 per cent satisfying in its own right.

The scenes set in the gods' realm of Asgard, for example, are frequently stunning-looking, and should be commended for successfully transitioning the potentially troublesome "mythical" aspect of the original comics over to the more realistic world set out by the other Marvel films. Here, the "gods" are a race of other-dimensional, hyper-technologically-advanced beings - with the trappings of mythology simply being down to the way they're perceived by us humans. Although played with conviction by a good cast (Anthony Hopkins brings the necessary wise-old-man gravitas, while Tom Hiddleston's conflicted and ambiguous Loki is just about the best thing about the film), there's nevertheless little in the familial melodrama that hasn't been done before.

In contrast, the banished Thor's adventures on Earth mine decent laughs from the hero coming to terms with his distinctly mortal surroundings (including one laugh-out-loud scene in a pet shop), and after coming off as irritatingly arrogant in his home surroundings, Chris Hemsworth makes for a charming lead when humbled by his new circumstances.  Natalie Portman's love interest character is underdeveloped to the point of indifference, and the actress never really stretched, but thankfully she's boosted by good backup from Kat Dennings (perky, funny, sarcastic) and Stellan Skarsgard (kindly, wise, exasperated).

Plot and scale remain frustratingly slight throughout - events don't move outside the same small area of New Mexico, and it never feels like there's very much at stake. Perhaps where the film really fails, though, is in satisfyingly weaving these two threads together. Even when Thor's compatriots join him on Earth, there's never a strong enough sense of a link between the two narratives - at times it really does feel like channel-hopping between a pair of films that happen to have a few of the same actors in.

Still, Thor succeeds as an entertaining summer movie - the lead actor has a winning charm and likeability, and on occasion the action and visuals are spectacular. Although it ends on a relatively self-contained note, it should be no chore to sit through more of these characters' adventures come the follow-up films.