“Thor: The Dark World” is the latest Marvel superhero blockbuster. However, while our main character wears a cape and fights evil-doers, and the word ‘Dark’ is in the title, this is essentially a romantic comedy. Let me re-phrase that: a BAD romantic comedy.
After Anthony Hopkins’ long, unnecessary intro about the evil Dark Elves, his Odin sends son Loki (Tom Hiddleston) to solitary confinement, punishment for all the destruction he caused to NYC in “The Avengers”. Then Chris Hemsworth’s mighty Thor (finally) appears. It’s been two years (the end of the original film) since Thor and Natalie Portman’s Jane have been together. She’s currently in London (I guess the film should’ve been called “The Foggy World”), waiting patiently for her #1 god to return, and doing her scientific experiments to see if she can figure-out where Thor is. Through a series of events, Jane becomes possessed by the Dark Elves, and Thor and Loki now have to team-up to stop these weird creatures with a wacky language from sending all nine worlds, including Earth, into permanent darkness. The plot is as basic as it gets.
“Thor: The Dark World” is quite talky, especially in the first half. No wonder Kenneth Branagh, who helmed the 2011 original, wanted nothing
to do with this mess of a sequel. New director Alan Taylor (HBO’s
“Game of Thrones”) packs “Thor: The Dark World” with unsuccessful attempts at humor, both corny one-liners and silly slapstick scenes. In the “Iron Man” movies and “The Avengers”, Robert Downey, Jr.’s funny lines and situations come naturally from his character. Here, we’re treated to Stellan Skarsgaard running around Stonehenge naked. That scene is shown not once, but twice. No times
would’ve been plenty. And for some reason Jane’s intern Darcy (Kat Dennings), who’s simply in the series to make wisecracks, gets an intern of her own, simply to provide more “hilarity”. Some of the scenes play like bad “SNL” sketches.
The action scenes aren’t nearly as impressive as in previous Marvel films. And some of the special effects are flat-out awful. I like to judge the look of these big-budget superhero movies on the “I’ve never seen that before” meter – and this movie gets a zero. And with the credits timed at over 10 minutes because of two Easter Eggs (both of which are kind of dull), “Thor: The Dark World” is a relatively short film. When the end comes it’s impossible not to think: “That’s it?”
The character of Thor is still very one-dimensional, though none of the blame goes to Hemsworth, who does his best with this least charismatic of all the Marvel marvels. Portman has only a few showcase scenes, spending the rest of the time standing in the shadows. Rene Russo also returns as Thor and Loki’s mother. Clearly, she’s picking and choosing her projects lately, since her last film was “Thor”, and the one before that was 2005’s “Yours, Mine, and Ours”. She’s just not picking the right ones. Idris Elba and Chris O’Dowd make brief appearances, which help.
Also on the plus side, there are a few minor plot twists, a well-choreographed sequence midway through and three surprise cameos that will surely fulfill the requirements of the diehards. And Hiddleston’s Loki gets better and better in every film. He remains the best character in this series by far. But even with these positives “Thor: The Dark World” is the weakest chapter of the Marvel Studios saga. It’s rated PG-13 for the fantasy action/violence and some language, and is appropriate for kids 11 and up.
On The Official LCJ Report Card, “Thor: The Dark World” gets a C.
Thankfully, the underrated ‘Star Spangled Man with a Plan’ will be back soon in, “Captain America: The Winter Soldier”, due out in April. This already looks like it could be one of the best action films of 2014.