The original film was criticized as too small in scale, being set mainly in a tiny isolated town in the Southwestern U.S., while Thor: The Dark World suffered from a pre-production director change and was widely marked down for a forgettable villain, a dreary tone and a poor usage of Natalie Portman’s Jane Foster.
The individual Thor films themselves, however, have been met with a mixed response despite their reliably hefty box office takes.
Thor himself, Chris Hemsworth, remains one of the most popular recurring Avengers and one of the most widely-merchandised actors appearing across the whole of the MCU’s vast cross-promotional empire.
The Thor franchise has been one of the most narratively important parts of the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s overarching connective storyline, introducing everything from the idea of a cosmic/alien side to the proceedings to Avengers kick-off villain Loki, The Tesseract and 3 out of 6 Infinity Stones.