Overall, I really enjoyed the experience seeing Thor: The
Dark World. It is a lot more “Star Wars-y” than I would ever expect
from a Thor film, though. There are a couple sequences on an alien (dark elf) spaceship
that felt like they came straight out of the rebooted Star Trek franchise. And
the battle for Asgard involves elf fighters and spaceship versions of Viking
longboats. I had to laugh in the theater, the sound effects and feel of the
whole sequence was like Empire Strikes Back or Chronicles of Riddick.
Chris Hemsworth clearly enjoys the role, and watching him
strut confidently around the screen is a joy. The ladies want to be with him,
the men want to be him. As a big fan of female heroes, I wish Jaimie
Alexander’s Lady Sif did more than give sidelong glances in between
butt-kickings. She has so much potential. Natalie Portman’s Jane Foster is a
walking plot device. She does what she can, but she spends so much time being
moved around the board as a living MacGuffin that when she finally has an
impact on the story, it felt like too little too late. I am also fully
convinced that Marvel Comics needs to find a way to get Idris Elba’s Heimdall
into the comics. He goes from an afterthought to a supporting character with
potential with nothing but Elba’s gravitas.
Stealing the show, once again, is Tom Hiddleston as Loki.
Honestly, how is it not a problem that the “villain” of the Marvel U has the
most charisma out of any of the leads? Whenever Loki is on screen, the sense of
humor involved goes up, but the dramatic weight of the scene doesn’t suffer for
it. Thinking back on the film, almost every highlight involves the trickster
son of Asgard.
As for the villains, they don’t hold up as well as the other
Marvel movies. I think Christopher Eccleston tried his best, but he can’t act
his way out of that much makeup. Malekith the Dark Elf is never more than a
generic big bad with vague motivations. He has a few lines of dialogue that
briefly raise the stakes, but not as many as Tom Hardy’s Bane from the Bat
franchise. It takes a lot of good lines to raise a villain’s personality
through masks and prosthetics. I have no problem with the inclusion of Kurse.
There were enough nods to the comic to make the villain feel familiar, and
Kurse is also the source of the most “comic-booky” moments of the film. Tell me
you didn’t smile when he picked up that enormous boulder and tossed it at Thor.
Physics be damned!
Perhaps I sound too down on this; it is a fun movie, filled
with whimsy and action. Alan Taylor clearly has affection for the comic source
material, and the feeling of adventure and excitement that permeate the film
are hard to resist. It is a tad long,
and a tad too space opera, but if you want to see super-heroes banging ancient weapons
off each other, this movie hits the spot.
Thor is GOOD!
(And other than the previews, pretty kid-appropriate too. My
8-year-old loved it.)
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