Thor has one of the most interesting bits of lore of the MCU, it's a world I wanted to get to know more of. Thor's relationship with Loki is one of the most interesting dynamics in superhero films. The heritage, everything is grand stuff...but how come a lot of people weren't too hot on Thor back in the day? I know what kinda held this back when Thor was introduced: The earth characters and plotlines just aren't that great. You have this amazing world in Asgard and you spend half the film with your typical fish out of water story with Thor...and we don't know Thor that well yet. It's not a bad story, in fact, it more than adds up by the end, but it's not the story people were expecting with this, they were expecting big godlike battles. Instead, you kinda get a forgettable love interest and forgettable comedy peanut gallery. Which is a shame, because I could watch Thor, Loki, Thor's gang of friends (one of which includes what would have been a better love interest, tbh), his father, his mother, all of them having their own isolated drama...but some early 2000s Spider-Man like drama gets in the way of the grand storytelling, because this actually could have been the best movie of Phase One. This movie gets bumped up in bonus points for building towards Avengers and setting up one of the great Marvel villains.