For someone who really likes movies, I find a surprising number of them really boring. What’s more, I can tell you when I find them boring: after one hour. In over half the movies I watch, I look at my watch at some point because I’m bored and I’m wondering when whatever “entertainment” I’m watching will be over. In almost all cases it is within five minutes of one hour. I take this to mean that most films should only be about an hour because they only have an hour’s worth of creativity (or less—much less).

Sometimes, I will look at my watch earlier—say, after a half-hour. But nothing could prepare me for the experience I had yesterday when I went to see Thor with my brother. After only three minutes (2% of the film!) I looked at my watch. Three minutes and I was already willing to leave the theater.

The film had the problems you would expect, but what really bugged me was the character of Loki. I know nothing of Thor, but I knew immediately that Loki was the bad guy. Why? Because he was the skinny, thoughtful guy. Heroes aren’t thoughtful! Heroes just rush in, knowing that everything will work out because the skinny, thoughtful screenwriters have deemed it so.

Still, there was something weird about this film: the actors. It had some really good actors and I am most definitely not referring to Natalie Portman. It had Anthony Hopkins (okay, he’s been in a lot of dreck) and Stellan Skarsgård. Even relative newcomer Tom Hiddleston was good. I don’t even have anything particularly bad to say about Thor himself, Chris Hemsworth. (I could, however, go on and on about how much I hated Natalie Portman in this film.) How was it, I thought, that this movie that in just about every other way was terrible had good actors and good acting from pretty much all of the cast?

And then I got my answer, right after Thor went to sulk that he would never again see Jane Foster (Portman)—at least until the sequel.

Oh my God! What in the hell is the greatest Shakespearean actor of all time directing this stupid film? Does he owe back taxes? Is someone blackmailing him? I just don’t get it. But don’t let what I’ve said about the actors cause you to give this movie a chance. It is dreck, dreck, dreck. But it does show that Branagh is not just a great actor: he is a great director of actors. (He is not, as far as I can tell however, a great director generally. Maybe I’ll write more about that later—but probably not.)

Regardless, this film should have been titled, Thor: God of Boredom.