Thor, a comic book adventure, is kid-friendly? You speak madness! Just how 'dark and gritty' do we want our fantasy pictures, anyway?

There was talk last week of Paramount moving its all-media press screenings for Thor in several cities to a this Saturday at 10am. The reason was pretty simple: in research and arguably in practice (the film has been open in Australia for nearly two weeks), the big-budget comic book adventure film was playing pretty well to surprisingly young audiences. I don't know if this came to pass anywhere (I'm seeing the film on Tuesday the 3rd), but it brings to mind an interesting observation. There was a certain amount of surprise when it was revealed in one review or another just how kid-friendly the larger-than-life action picture turned out to be. I confess that I've been hard on the film based on the footage we had thus far seen, and it frankly never occurred to me that maybe, just maybe, this 31-year old father of one (with another on the way) might not be the intended audience for Kenneth Branagh's Thor.