GRANT:
2013 is the year that Marvel’s vision for their films has finally come full circle. Despite a couple of misfires along the way, Marvel has successfully taken some its less popular characters and turned them into legitimate franchises. With Marvel movies now being rolled out in ‘phases’ (we’re currently in Phase 2 in case you were wondering) you can almost guarantee that Marvel will be putting out at least one blockbuster a year for an indefinite time to come.
When it comes to characters like Thor, it’s impressive to see how they’ve taken someone who I consider to be a rather plain and mostly uninteresting character, and have developed him enough to almost be able to carry his own movies (I’ll touch more on the ‘almost’ shortly) while expanding upon the franchise.
With Thor 2, I didn’t see what I’d consider to be true expansion of the franchise but instead a setting of tone for things to come from future Thor films. While the original Thor film was good, we all know that origin films can quickly take a turn for worse with the film’s follow up sequels. This was the film that needed to prove that Thor could draw his own audience, especially post Avengers, and it mostly succeeds in doing so. There are a couple of weak plot conveniences that reunite the main cast, and overall the plot isn’t especially strong, but I loved how direct and to the point the film is, it doesn’t waste time with unnecessary back story and weak subplots, everything is direct and has a purpose.
As far as Thor himself, we can all agree that Chris Hemsworth does a great job portraying the character, my only gripe, which doesn’t rest entirely on him, being the lingering lack of chemistry between him and Natalie Portman. Where Thor stumbles, is him just not being a very interesting character and Loki once again having to take the reins. Tom Hiddleston has stepped into the “born to play the character” role for the Loki character since Avengers, and you can’t help but focus all your attention on him whenever he’s onscreen.
The movie is light on drama despite everything that’s at stake, and while this helps the comedic moments, you don’t really feel the full impact of the darker, somber moments in the film. The special effects are top-notch, the fight scenes are rich and detailed (elves have never been so deadly) and you can’t help but wonder where the Thor franchise will go from here. I wouldn’t call it a standout sequel, but it’s a worthwhile entry in the Marvel lineup.
GONZALEZ:
The Marvel Film franchise officially entered Phase 2 with the release of “Iron Man 3” this summer. That film had the challenges of being the first post-Avengers movie and had to live up to that films’ success while also being able to stand alone as a piece of entertainment. It did these things with aplomb. I wasn’t expecting the same level of success from “Thor: The Dark World” simply because the character of Thor isn’t as interesting or entertaining as Tony Stark/Iron Man. Also the director behind it, Alan Taylor, isn’t an out-of-the-box choice like Joss Whedon (“Avengers”) or Shane Black (“Iron Man 3”) were. What “Thor: The Dark World” needed to do in my eyes was entertain me and put the titular character in a solid position for his inevitable return in “The Avengers: Age of Ultron”. And for the most part it succeeds, with a few glaring caveats.
The biggest area of success in “Thor: The Dark World” is the level of fun it’s having. Like I mentioned, the Marvel movies aren’t the Nolan Batman/Superman films; they’re lighter and don’t feature the brooding, tortured heroes. These characters don’t brood, they love the world they live in. When Thor, played wonderfully once again by Chris Hemsworth, enters an apartment room, he looks for a place to hang his beloved hammer Mjolnir and casually hangs it on a coat rack. It’s touches like these and a similar one where Thor has to ride the subway that add up to a fun movie-going experience.
I recently had the chance to re-watch the first “Thor” movie in preparation for the new one and came to the realization that I’m not a big fan of director Kenneth Branagh’s work on that one. To be fair, he was absolutely the right choice to direct the actors given his background with Shakespeare adaptations. However his shot selection and editing leave much to be desired at times. The number of unnecessary dutch angles (where the screen is tilted) really annoyed me. With “Thor: The Dark World”, Marvel hired “Game of Thrones” director Alan Taylor and if his overall direction is workman-like, at least it’s not distractingly so and more than sufficient to get the job done. Also, I don’t know if the director is responsible for this but I found the character of Darcy (Kat Dennings) far less annoying here than she was in “Thor”.
My colleague pointed out that the stakes seemed rather low in this one and I’m certain I know why that’s the case. Despite the fact that the plot verges on a scheme to end the world (both a generic device and built on a thinly-drawn MacGuffin), the weight of this threat is lessened significantly because the villain Malekith is nowhere near as threatening as he should be. Saddled with a vague and rushed back story in the prologue, Malekith lacks the amount of screen time needed to be a worthy foil to our heroes. In fact, he even spends a portion of the film ASLEEP! The performance by 9th Doctor Who Christopher Eccleston is good and committed (he speaks large chunks of dialogue in a made-up Elf language) but in the end he’s nowhere near being memorable. It doesn’t help that our eyes are ever-fixed on Loki’s scheming ways. Before the film came out, rumor was that Taylor’s initial cut was significantly longer than what made it to theaters. My money’s on the majority of that footage being Malekith-related.
I’d also like to point out that I loved the ending (Did he kill him or just lock him up?), was intrigued by the mid-credits scene, and thought the very last scene was a fine way to send an audience out the doors. Overall, I’d give Thor: The Dark World a 7 out of 10. With the possibility of being downgraded to a 6.5 on a second viewing.
GRANT:
A 7 out of 10 is generous but I agree and can see why you’d give it that rating. It’s a movie that has enough high points to ignore its lows, and it’s better than “here’s some filler between “Avengers” and Avengers 2 ”
For Anyone that has seen the movie, what are some of your thoughts? Let us know in the comment section below.
