I can see casting Chris Hemsworth as Thor. After all, he’s 6 foot 3, and Hollywood’s physique trainers have bulked him up to Marvel superhero quality. And he was acceptable as Formula 1 racer James Hunt in "Rush." His male-model looks explained Hunt’s legion of lady fans.

But casting him as a computer hacker? That’s one of the biggest slip-ups in the laughable cyber-espionage thriller "Blackhat." I mean, just Google "computer hackers." They look like nerds who got painful high school wedgies, not smoldering owners of the world’s best bone structure who’ve just finished walking down a Gucci runway.

And screenwriter Morgan Foehl’s malware-infected mix of exposition chatter and exaggerated gunfights doesn’t help.

The film opens with a program-twisting computer network raid on a Chinese nuclear power plant that makes it go full Fukushima. A parallel incursion against the Chicago Board of Trade’s futures traders siphons off a large amount of coin.

Chinese cyber-defense forces and the FBI join forces to capture the anonymous mastermind behind the attacks.

Hemsworth stars as Hathaway, an MIT graduate turned cyber-criminal who is doing a lengthy term in federal prison. He’s recruited to break into the bad guy’s hacking network. He joins forces with MIT classmate Chen (Leehom Wang), now a chief of Chinese state security.

Also on the team is Chen’s comely sister Lien (Wei Tang), another ninja-deft computer hacker. Hathaway and Lien fall into a romantic hookup despite no compelling reason for the couple to be together.

Director Michael Mann is no doubt trying his best here. After all, he’s guided top character performances from Daniel Day-Lewis, Russell Crowe, Al Pacino and others. Hemsworth’s best scenes involve hand-to-hand fighting and expert marksmanship, not realistic skills for a computer geek.

Sure, the cinematic scenery is breathtaking, but it’s the human side of the story that’s missing in action.

For Hemsworth, and even the revered Mann, this is a big misfire, a career steppingstone in the wrong direction.