Monday, November 11, 2013

Thor: The Dark World (2013) review


One could say that Marvel took a very huge risk in developing a Cinematic Universe, something that we have really never seen before in the world of film. But in the end, they did succeed at their goal, creating a massive universe for their superheroes to live in. How did they do it? They made a whole bunch of solo films focusing on the characters that would later come together to form ‘The Avengers’. However, of these heroes, one’s first solo outing was perhaps the biggest risk Marvel had faced up to that point. The idea of a ‘Thor’ movie was tricky. Not only did Marvel had to work around the fact that the Asgardian God of Thunder did not come from Earth but from the mystical realm of Asgard, but they also had to worry about making it work without it being too campy. Thankfully, 2011’s ‘Thor’ was far better than expected thanks to the Shakespearian influence from director Kenneth Branagh and the charisma of star Chris Hemsworth in the title role. Sure, it had some flaws, namely the fact that the film really didn’t explore the universe of the Nine Realms that much, but nevertheless it was an extremely entertaining film.

Thor and his brother Loki would return again for ‘The Avengers’, with the latter establishing himself as one of the premier villains of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, a huge improvement from his rather underdeveloped role in ‘Thor’. In fact, if Tom Hiddleston’s surprise appearance at this year’s Comic-Con proves anything, it is that Loki has become perhaps the most popular character in the MCU. Now, everyone’s favorite gods return for the next MCU film, ‘Thor: The Dark World’. This time, Branagh is not directing; instead, it is Alan Taylor. He has been mostly known for his work on television, but when one of those shows is ‘Game of Thrones’, it’s clear that this man was qualified for the job. Overall, Taylor manages to improve on Branagh’s film in regards to the action, visuals, and for doing a better job at immersing us in this universe. It’s still not entirely perfect, mostly because of some pretty weak villains, but as a whole, ‘Thor: The Dark World’ is another great entry in the MCU, thanks in part due to the performances from its two leads.

After helping the Avengers save Earth from an alien invasion led by his brother Loki (Hiddleston), Thor (Hemsworth) returns home to Asgard where he continues to bring peace to the Nine Realms while Loki is imprisoned in the Asgardian dungeons. However, things start to change when, back on Earth, Thor’s love interest and astrophysicist Jane Foster (Natalie Portman) becomes infected by a substance known as Aether. This draws the attention of the race known as the Dark Elves, led by Malekith the Accursed (Christopher Eccleston), who attempted to use the Aether to take over the world many eons ago before he was stopped by Thor’s grandfather Bor. Sensing that she is in danger, Thor brings her to Asgard in order to find a way to get the Aether out of her. However, when the Dark Elves begin to attack, Thor is forced to team up with Loki in order to stop this new threat.

In a lot of ways, ‘The Dark World’ improves on some of its predecessor’s biggest problems. Most of ‘Thor’ was spent on Earth instead of on Asgard. Now, that’s necessarily a bad thing because the stuff on Earth was well-handled in terms of helping Thor grow as a character, but we never really got a chance to immerse ourselves in the universe that is the Nine Realms, or Thor and Loki’s home world of Asgard for that matter. That’s not a problem here. More time is spent off-planet and we get a better sense of the universe. Also, from a visual perspective, it does actually look nicer than it did in ‘Thor’. Taylor also works better in regard to action scenes while still maintaining the light-hearted atmosphere and humor that worked so well in Branagh’s film.

However, this film suffers from one major problem. The villains in this film are really weak. In fact, dare I say it they’re the weakest villains to date in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and considering what we’ve seen from these movies, that is saying a lot. The great Christopher Eccleston is wasted in the role of Malekith, who spends most of his time brooding and speaking in Elvish. There could have been some really good character development in terms of the relationship between him and Thor, seeing how he was thwarted by the latter’s grandfather but sadly we don’t get that. His second in command Algrim (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje) is a more threatening villain. Even then, and I’m not spoiling anything, they don’t do much with him either, even when he transforms into a stronger character known as Kurse in the comics.

But on the bright side, the film is well-acted. As Thor, Hemsworth is once again excellent as he continues to maintain Thor’s charming and likable personality. We also see that Thor has grown as a character since the last film (‘Thor’ that is, not ‘The Avengers’) because he isn’t as brash as he was in the first film. Equally great here is Tom Hiddleston as Loki. Hiddleston just owns the role and even steals the spotlight from Hemsworth at times. In fact, the best scenes in the entire movie are when the two of them are on screen together. Natalie Portman unfortunately gets reduced to a ‘damsel in distress’ role for this film, but her chemistry with Hemsworth improved quite a bit. As for the rest of the cast, some do get more substantial roles than what they had in the previous film (like Rene Russo as Thor and Loki’s mother Frigga and Idris Elba as Heimdall) but some are still stuck in minor parts, like Sif and the Warriors Three. There could’ve been some good romantic tension between Jane and Sif for Thor’s affections, but it kind of seems like that stuff ended up on the cutting room floor.

I can’t really call ‘Thor: The Dark World’ the best film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Sure, Alan Taylor manages to improve on some of the flaws of the previous film but this film really suffers from having perhaps the weakest villains in the MCU, underusing Christopher Eccleston in a role that could have had so much more to it. Thankfully, the film is still very entertaining, mainly thanks to the charismatic performances from Chris Hemsworth and Tom Hiddleston as Thor and Loki, respectively. It seems likely that another ‘Thor’ film will happen, probably after ‘Avengers: Age of Ultron’. Hopefully for the next one the villains are far better. Considering how this film ends (again, not giving anything away), how about they make Loki the main villain again? Perhaps we can get a Loki spin-off as well?

Rating: 4/5

(P.S. Don’t forget to stay through the credits for there are two post-credits scenes in this one, the first giving us a glimpse as to what’s down the road in the MCU (‘Avengers 3’, I’m guessing considering what route Joss Whedon is apparently taking with ‘Age of Ultron’.))

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