Movie Review- Thor:The Dark World

Over the last five years, Marvel Studios has done the impossible: create four consistently successful comic book movie franchises that culminate into a gigantic team-up movie with “The Avengers”(2012). Considering the last blockbuster clash of separate franchises into a single event occurred in 1962 (“King Kong vs. Godzilla”), all odds were against this plan being a success. Director Joss Whedon managed to pay off all of the buildup to such a risky movie with a surprisingly clever action extravaganza that ingeniously merged the tones of all five previous movies. With the third-highest-grossing film in history now under their belt, can Marvel do no wrong as they continue to broaden their wide-reaching cinematic universe to an even wider scope? Unfortunately, “Thor: The Dark World” shows that the self-proclaimed “House of Ideas” may be running out of ingenuity when it comes to their God of Thunder, a stumbling block on the road to a perfectly-realized comic book universe on screen.

Thousands of years ago, the dark elf Malekith (Christopher Eccleston) attempted to engulf the world in total darkness with the help of a powerful (and mostly unexplained) substance called the Aether. Malekith was defeated and banished into unknown space, while the Aether was buried where, supposedly, it could never be found. Fast forward to present day, where Thor (Chris Hemsworth) is busy bringing peace back to the Nine Realms (the 9 universes where everything exists), while Thor’s true human love, Jane Foster (Natalie Portman), stumbles across the Aether and becomes an unwilling human host to the alien substance. Sensing that the Aether has been found, Malekith awakens to finish the job he started thousands of years ago. Thor must recruit the help of his treacherous brother Loki (Tom Hiddleston) to save Jane, and Earth, from the deadly Aether and Malekith’s wrath.

Just look at the synopsis above and tell me if anything up there sounds fresh and new. I dare you. Unfortunately, “Thor: The Dark World” is very predictable and cut-and-paste from every typical CGI-infested superhero blockbuster in the last near-15 years. It’s your typical “bad guy wants to take over the world with the help of an ‘ultimate weapon’ before the hero defeats him and gets the girl” set of tropes and that’s truly unfortunate, considering how many of the Marvel films have managed to put unique spins on that formula. You know exactly what is going to happen, and worse, that none of the characters will really feel that effected by the events that take place.

It must be said that the humor and action, like any Marvel superhero movie, works fairly well. Every character gets at least one fun moment (even another Avenger gets a fan-pleasing cameo), whether they are for swinging a punch or stitching the sides of audiences. It tries its hardest to evoke the fun atmosphere of Joss Whedon’s epic, and while it does not succeed in doing so, it manages its own brand of laugh-and-explosion-a-minute that’s expected of superhero films today.

While I said the humor was enjoyable, it’s also very forced the whole way through. It’s become the norm, almost a demand from studio execs and audiences alike, that humor must be included in a superhero movie if it’s to see any amount of success. Some of these movies, like the “Iron Man” trilogy or “The Avengers,” make the humor organic and well-integrated in the dialogue or situations, where timing and subtly are key. Here in ‘The Dark World,’ the humor feels obligatory, like it has to set up for a joke or pratfall every minute, and it’s like they think the entire movie will go into cardiac arrest if a single set piece does not make the audience at least chuckle once.

Unfortunately, the acting does not hold up well either. There is little asked of Hemsworth in the role. It mostly consisting of cheesy poses for the camera, with deeper emoting coming off as unconvincing. It gets worse when Portman shares the screen with Hemsworth to play the love interest, as there is no chemistry between the two whatsoever. Christopher Eccleston is totally lost behind overwhelming makeup and prosthetics as a dark elf, making him the most generically forgettable villain in Marvel’s entire lineup of bad guys since 2008.

On the flip side is Tom Hiddleston as Loki. Like in the previous movies in the series,Hiddleston shows the same level of charisma and morbid charm that made him so despicable. He’s still very fun to watch, while his character receives the best personal arc (out of the very few that have arcs) in the movie.

Despite what I’ve said above, I cannot say I did not enjoy “Thor: The Dark World.” If you are like me, you enjoy any comic book superheroes movie that comes your way, whether it’s actually a good analysis of the genre or just a cliché retread of what’s been seen before. It’s a blast of a movie: I cheered and laughed along with the rest of the audience and walked out with a smile on my face. Many scenes were genuinely funny, the action set pieces were at times wonders to behold. It’s when you start thinking about it later that the film begins to fall apart: how the humor is fairly disjointed from the actual story, how the acting is mediocre on average, how many contrivances you have to accept to swallow some of the more outlandish concepts, and just how typical the overall story is. There’s plenty wrong with this film, making it one of the weakest installments in Marvel’s lineup to date, but I actually would not discourage anyone from checking this one out. I had a genuine blast watching it, and most everyone will, but for those of us who take filmmaking a little more seriously than your average moviegoer, this is certainly the most hollow comic book movie of 2013, sacrificing substance for meaningless (but very fun) entertainment.

I give “Thor: The Dark World” 2.5 stars out of 5.