Thor: The Dark World (***)
Directed
by: Alan Taylor
Starring:
Chris Hemsworth, Natalie Portman, Tom Hiddleston, Anthony Hopkins, Stellan
Skarsgard, Idris Elba, Christopher Eccleston, Adewale Akinnouye-Agbaje, Kat
Dennings, Ray Stevenson, Zachari Levi, Jaimie Alexander, Rene Russo
Seen:
November 12th 2013
***
Out of ****
Thor:
The Dark World takes off where The Avengers left off and a while after the events
of Thor that left the Bifröst, or Rainbow Bridge, in Asgard destroyed. Where
the Iron Man movies are tethered firmly on earth, as is, to some degree, the
first Thor movie, Thor 2 is more a fantasy movie, with large focus placed on
Asgard and the realms. Thor, to me, was ridiculously small-scaled as only around
15 people (!) were endangered in a small New Mexico town. Thor 2 doesn’t only
up the ante, it breaks through it and keeps going, with not one small town, not
a city, not a country or even earth being in danger, but all 9 realms – yes,
the entire universe is now in peril. Thor 2 is bigger on threat than The
Avengers, but on nothing else, apart from Loki (Hiddleston), who once again,
and true to form, steals the show.
A long time ago Odin’s (Hopkins) father Bor
faught the Dark Elf Malekith (Eccleston), who wanted to destroy the universe
using the Aether (think of it as a red super-version of the blue Tesseract from
Thor/The Avengers). Bor managed to hide the Aether and defeat Malekith, but he
did not kill Malekith. Thousands of years later, with the advent of the
Convergance, an alignment of the Nine Realms, things start going haywire, with
portals opening randomly everywhere, and the return of Malekith looms. The
portals open even on earth, and Dr. Jane Foster (Portman) investigates such
anomalies. She’s transported to another world, in which, quite coincidentally, she
ends up right next to the Aether’s prison – and she’s infected. Thor
(Hemsworth) is alerted by the watcher Heimdall (Elba) who can no longer see
Jane, and when he finds her, the Aether is released as they head for Asgard
where Odin warns of a catastrophic prophecy. Malekith returns and causes havoc
in Asgard to obtain the Aether, and Thor is forced to get Loki out of prison in
order to help him. They need to capture Malekith to stop him however, and they
devise a ruse to do exactly that, but the ruse fails and Malekith heads for the
centre of the Convergence of the Nine Realms, which happens to be in Greenwich,
England. He has the Aether, and he intends to use it.
Thor
2 is better than Thor, but it doesn’t compete with the Iron Man movies and
neither does it compete at all with The Avengers. Hemsworth and Hiddleston’s
brotherly relationship is a highlight, as Thor with his saviour complex and Loki
with his lust for power have a great brotherly relationship, even through deception
and betrayal. Hiddleston is again extremely entertaining as the dastardly Loki,
while Natalie Portman disappears as Jane, even when her character is conscious.
Thor 2 is adequate Marvel entertainment without being brilliant or terrible.
The movie feels a bit sillier than other Marvel movies, but still has its
particular humour and visual thumb-print. The final battle might be for the
Nine Realms, but it feels like only a small bit of human endangerment before
the villain and the hero confront each other. Thor 2 is cool but not all that
great, it sure looks impressive and does some cool things, but so far the Thor
series has not really grabbed my attention.
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