In a desert just outside New Mexico, a team of scientists are about to stumble across a stranded warrior of incredible strength and mythology, and all they seem to care about is chasing auroras. Don’t they realise they’re in a superhero movie?

Anthony Hopkins is Odin, a Norse God who relays the story of how the mighty Thor came to be lying in that desolate place. Commonly, Odin is said to have been a father to many, yet here just two: Loki and Thor. Their world is one of splendour and exuberance, for Asgard is a majestic garden filled with strange, golden avatars that defy the serious actors inhabiting them. Iron Man remains the rarest of Marvel creations, founded in reality and cast not for strength, but charisma. Thor is afforded no such concession, and for half an hour we wait out the Shakespearean tragedy of a caped, blonde Viking. The Frost Giants of Asgard; you could only make it up.

Resplendent in his livery, the eldest son grows impatient. Thor’s will to depose his faltering father leads him and his merry band to the tundra of Jotunheim, a land across the sea. There, they groan and grunt their way into a brawl against icey creatures with fire in their eyes, whose might over of our heroic troop recalls the battle-weary cries of 300. Events do not turn as they did for the Spartans, and defeat is averted by the arrival of the whitebeard Odin, to say nothing of his fire-breathing stallion. If you suppose Thor would be grateful for his father’s intervention, then you can’t have studied your Greek mythology, abridged here into an angry son belittling his father as an old man and a fool.

Once Thor is banished to Earth, our story can finally begin. A long-overdue sense of humour is found in those more familiar surroundings, which is pretty important when your concern is finding a magic hammer. Thor needn’t look far, for it is embedded in a hunk of rock, close to the desert crater he landed in. The locals make a pilgrimage to that Mjolnir, enjoying a celebratory cookout for the drunken, joyful rednecks who came to try and release it for themselves. Despite being an Asgardian abroad, Thor is strangely at home amongst the townsfolk, stopping for photos and topless pleasantries on his way to reclaim the hammer and herald the legend. I’d tell you what happens there, amongst the construction vehicles and Government redshirts, except that when it ends with a shot of Thor on his knees, shaking his fist towards the heavens, I don’t suppose I really need to.

Thereafter, he’s joined by Sif and the Warriors Three, of whom Jamie Alexander will remind you often of Michelle Monaghan. A bright young astrophysicist named Jane (Natalie Portman) tags along, both to further her studies and paw endlessly at her dashing elixir. In comics as in life, matters of the heart are preferred over golden tunics in the stars, and only plentiful and loud action scenes shall tear them apart. When Loki plots to take his father’s place and unite the warring powers, he dispatches a charmless automaton to kill the pesky Thor, and with him the film’s gathering head of steam. As empty a pyrotechnics display as they come, I’ll say this in its defence: that lumbering Iron Giant at least gives rise to the charming confusion of men standing before incalculable power. “Is that one of Starks?” one agent asks another. Number 2 sighs. “I have no idea, he never tells me anything”.

The cinematography is a thing. The colours, rich and vibrant, lend the breathtaking sights of Asgard a fantastical edge. What scale, as these gods of war fight with fire and brimstone at the edge of the Bitfrost; the burning rainbow that separates Asgard from Jotunheim. What sights, we gasp, only to lament every other frame being captured with the camera 20 degrees askew. Chalk it up as another casualty of our times, a directorial trend distracting and nauseating in equal measure.

As summer blockbusters go, Thor is markedly better than it has any right to be. Certainly, the events on Earth are brisk and colourful, made brighter still by a strong, credible Chris Hemsworth performance. With biceps to spare and that honey-coated mane, his Thor clearly looks the part, but the filmmakers have also humanised what might otherwise have been a Greek Hulk. Key to that is Natalie Portman, who – like Gwyneth Paltrow’s character before her – is allowed to be more than just another weak-at-the-knees damsel. If anything, their safety is better served by themselves than their warrior protectors.

It still gets pretty silly, though. Anthony Hopkins has a naturally grandiose tone to his voice which, when peppered with the inflections of director Kenneth Branagh, results in him communicating solely in booming prophecies. We return to the war in Asgard, witness to Thor flying through the air as Superman, hammer held aloft. Odin can only look on, helpless, at his beloved sons and their eternal rivalry, condemned to fight at a perpetual angle.