Movie Reviews - Thor: The Dark World

I was one of the few moviegoers who not only really enjoyed the first Thor movie, but thought it was right up there with the rest or its Marvel movie counterparts, including Iron Man. Sure it was simple and predictable, but so was Iron Man in many ways. Did anyone watching that movie not know who the villain was after ten minutes, really? In terms of predictable movies, yeah Thor was moreso, and Thor: The Dark World followed in the footsteps of its predecessor in that regard. There was literally nothing in this movie which surprised me. Nothing. This doesn't mean, however, that I didn't really love seeing these very predictable things happening on screen (bar one or two, but we aren't supposed to like those).

The story of this movie was pretty simple. Rather than starting on Asgard and then spending most of the rest of the movie on Earth, facing one big enemy and then Thor's own brother, who is clearly not his physical equal, this movie gives us a much better, more in-depth look at Asgard as a place, and gives Thor a villain to fight who is not just his equal, but in many ways his superior. We also get a decent look at some of the other realms which have only so far been mentioned. This was a great idea. It really helps the audience understand Thor better, seeing more of the world from which he originates. Seeing more of how he interacts with his own people. It also presents a great contrast between the Thor pre-banishment and the Thor of now, seeing his friends partake in celebration as Thor himself would have once as well, and seeing that Thor, now an observer of the big picture, can't bring himself to partake any longer. He is torn between his responsibility to his people, and the responsibility he feels towards his adoptive people of Earth, particularly Jane Foster, who he really loves. This is all present in the movie, always aparent, but it is cleverly interspersed with some really clever humor and some really good one-liners. A friend of mine said that the Thor movies are definitely taking the humor route, and he's very right. Of course this doesn't mean that the humor undermines the story in the slightest, but actually enhances it in a way that humor could have benefitted another recent movie about a super-powered flying caped guy that I could mention (*cough* Man of Steel *cough*). This movie managed to create a simultaniously fun and thought-provoking atmosphere. Oh, yeah, and Loki.

Do I even need to go into detail about why this guy is awesome at this point? Loki has always been a fun villain in the comics and such, but Tom Hiddleston brings new life and charm to the character. There has never been an appearance of this guy as this character that I haven't loved, so much so that movie Loki is quickly overtaking Under the Red Hood Joker as my favorite movie rendition of a comic book villain. Also, it's worth pointing out that even as a seudo-heroic character, Loki is still the Loki that we all know and love from his previous appearances. His best scene is easily, well, to avoid spoilers, let's just say that you can't trust anything that this guy does. Anything. Also, while we're talking non-spoilers, there is a cameo in this movie, made through Loki, that just made the second act of this movie as far as I'm concerned.

There was so much to like in this movie. Performances were great all across the board, from minor to major characters, and the villains, while relatively generic, were well-acted and interesting, especially the main villain played by Doctor Who himself, specifically his ninth incarnation. Even though the villains were pretty basic, their motivations were actually pretty understandable. They just wanted to put the universe back to the way it used to be. It was the fact that their plans would have killed pretty much everyone everywhere that makes them the bad guys at all. The mythology of the movie was well done, too. The comic book mythology, the stuff that we needed to know, was concise and to the point, and any additional mythology, like old norse burial customs for one example, were worked into the story for those of us nerdy enough to appreciate them.

This is the kind of movie that I love. It was smart and fun, with a good story to boot. It was the kind of movie that feels much shorter than it is, because you become so engrossed that the entire thing seems to fly right by. If I had to fault the movie for anything, it would be the fact that it didn't do everything that it promised as well as it could have. Originally, when this movie was announced, it claimed that it would give us more about Asgard and the other realms, and while it did focus on these places more, it still didn't really tell us much more than we already knew. In addition to being a super hero story, Thor is a fantasy story, and in any fantasy story, world-building is essential, and I just don't feel that Thor as a movie franchise has done enough of this as of yet. Either way, though, Thor: The Dark World was fun, funny, interesting, told a great story, and, like the other Marvel movies, set up a lot of stuff really well. For anyone who knows Marvel lore, the after-credits scene will blow you away. I look forward to when this movie comes out on DVD so I can buy it and watch it again. I give Thor: The Dark World a rating of 7.5 out of 10, well above average.