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Stars Chris Hemsworth, Natalie Portman, Tom Hiddleston and Anthony Hopkins

BY JOE TYRRELL

NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM

MOVIE REVIEW

The Norse god of thunder has his own day of the week, but for the movie incarnation of "Thor," Marvel and Paramount aim squarely at Saturday, specifically the matinee.

Here's the good news about gods: this new manifestation is down to earth, thanks to an amiable performance by Australian hunk Chris Hemsworth. Like most Marvel characters, this Thor has issues, but he's not much for brooding and neither is his movie.

One could write a modern Norse saga about misadventures that have befallen "Thor" since Sam Raimi and Stan Lee pitched the movie to 20th Century Fox two decades ago, but we lack sufficient pixels here.

Suffice to say that under the sprightly direction of Kenneth Branagh — you read that right — a fairly high-priced cast does justice to the vision charmingly explained by original scriptwriter Mark Protosevich.

"Thor," he said years ago, is about "a god realizing his true potential." (None of this piddling around with water into wine?) But Thor does get to save humans, and frost giants, for that matter, while only nearly sacrificing himself.

So this is a divine saga with a split personality. On one level, there are family quarrels in Asgard, the computer-graphical home of the gods. On the other, there are strange occurrences in New Mexico, which has excellent tax incentives for in-state productions.

When we meet Thor in Asgard, he's the frat-boy star of the divine line-up, about to be promoted by his dad, Odin, the big deity. Much of the Asgard is digitized — by Maxfield Parrish on 'shrooms and Karl Lagerfeld on acid — so Anthony Hopkins cannot eat much scenery as Odin.

As mother Frigga, Rene Russo has almost nothing to do, but looks well. And as Thor's jealous brother Loki, British actor Tom Hiddleston does get to brood and skulk, but also to put nefarious plans into action.

Hiddleston worked with Branagh on the detective series "Wallander," and wouldn't be anyone else's first choice as a Norse god, but he puts flesh on the sketchily written family skeletons. Also, he has a cool helmet.

Fans will also find Thor's posse, led by Jaimie Alexander as Sif, although their relationship is downgraded from the comic books, not to mention Norse mythology, where she is the goddess of war and a blonde. His other pals are the Warriors Three, Volstagg (Ray Stevenson), Fandral (Joshua Dallas) and Hogun (Tadanobu Asano), representing the Nordic-Asian community.

But they must share screen time with Thor's earthly friends. When those family problems lead to his sudden and unwanted relocation, Thor encounters Jane Foster in meet-cute, extreme-edition fashion.

Played by Natalie Portman, Jane has been upgraded to astrophysicist from the comics (except for the arc where she was a goddess), and given make-up skills far beyond those of the average field scientist at 3 a.m. After the high camp of "Black