Thor: The Dark World

I remember finding 2011's Thor to be a pleasant enough movie that paled in comparison to some of the better attempts to bring Marvel superheroes to the screen, namely Iron Man and the early Spider-Man films.  And yet, as I look back on that film, I find that I have a hard time drumming up much excitement for it.  Perhaps its charms have faded on me over time.  Whatever the case, Thor: The Dark World does little to make me remember those charms.  It's the kind of movie where things are constantly happening, and while it's never boring, it leaves absolutely no impact on you whatsoever.  And the more you think back on it, the more you realize how little it all adds up to.

And yet, I had some high expectations walking in, given the fact the filmmakers promised that this sequel would show us more of Thor's mythical land of Asgard.  The original movie took place largely on Earth, and so I saw this sequel as a chance for the filmmakers' imaginations to run wild.  And while we do indeed get to see a lot more of Asgard, what we do see is completely underwhelming.  Oh, it's been realized well enough all right with special effects.  But, there's no sense that we are being transported to another world.  We're simply watching actors walking around in flowing robes and gold armor, as they stand in front of expensive looking, but oddly nondescript, sets.  Asgard, and the other realms that Thor (Chris Hemsworth) visits during the course of the film, never feel completely real.  Maybe I wouldn't have minded so much if the people who inhabited these worlds were interesting or held personalities, but I must admit, of the Marvel film superheroes, Thor comes across as a bit of a dullard.  Sure, he's got those cascading golden locks of hair, and he wields that mean hammer, but when you get right down to it, Thor is not the kind of superhero you'd want to be stuck sitting next to on a long bus ride, as he seems to have little to say.  At least if you were sitting next to Tony Stark (aka Iron Man), he'd have some jokes to tell.

Conventional wisdom states that your superhero is only as good as the supervillains that they fight.  In this regard, Thor: The Dark World, comes up short, and gives us the Dark Elves - a group of non-entity villains who scheme to bring darkness to the land.  Their leader is Malekith (Christopher Eccleston), who lacks any sort of personality, and is driven solely by revenge.  He flies around in a spaceship, looking for an ancient weapon called the Aether that can help him with that whole "plunge the world into total darkness" thing he has going.  As villains go, Malekith is so stock, he could have come from a 1980s Saturday morning cartoon.  Oh, and Thor's old nemesis and brother, Loki (Tom Hiddleston) is back to cause more mischief, only this time, he's an antihero instead of a villain, as he is forced to fight alongside Thor.  This brings about some comedic banter that can be funny at times, but for the most part, it feels like he was shoehorned into the plot because he's developed his own fanbase after the first movie and last year's The Avengers.  There are reports that say the movie went under major reshoots in order to strengthen Loki's role in the film.  It shows, as he often winds up making a more lasting impression than the hero.

When the action does eventually switch to Earth, we are reunited with Thor's human friends from the first film.  His main lady, Jane Foster (Natalie Portman) apparently has spent a good part of the past two years wondering why Thor hasn't visited her since then.  Jane's sharp-tongued intern, Darcy (Kat Dennings) dispenses more sarcasm, and has an intern of her own to insult and eventually grow romantically attached to.  Meanwhile, Erik Selvig (Stellan Skarsgard) has basically been reduced to a running gag here, having taken up nude streaking, and having recently discovered that he does his best scientific research without pants on.  Jane gets to kick off the plot when she comes across the Aether that the Dark Elves are seeking, and somehow gets its essence trapped inside her body.  There's some talk of how her body won't be able to handle the power of the weapon within her, and that she will eventually die, but it never seems as grave of an issue as it should, and the screenplay even seems to forget about it for long periods of time.

That's another problem with Thor: The Dark World, the lack of urgency.  Things keep on happening, battles are raged, and special effects throw themselves across the screen, but there's never a true sense of impending doom for a good part of the film.  When the Dark Elves attack Asgard to try to get the Aether, this should be a dramatic moment, but it really just amounts to an impressively mounted action sequence with nothing behind it.  We're watching the battles and the effects, but it all goes in one ear and out the other.  There's no dramatic weight to anything here.  It's not until the film's final moments that things finally start to get interesting, thanks to an interesting battle scene where Thor and Malekith are constantly warping to different worlds in the middle of their battle.  Naturally, by the time this happens, the movie is essentially wrapping itself up.

As soulless an enterprise that this movie comes across, there are fleeting moments of humor that seem to hint at a brighter and funnier film.  Moments like Thor hanging his hammer up on a coat rack as he enters an apartment, or asking directions while riding a subway train seem to suggest that there is fun to be had with this character.  So, why don't the filmmakers take more advantage of this?  Instead, the screenplay plays this material deadly serious for the most part, with some comic relief characters on the side making the occasional snarky comment, or taking their clothes off for laughs.  This is a movie that could have benefited from a more tongue in cheek approach, or maybe more of a hint that the actors are having fun with this stuff.  It comes across now and then, but not enough.

Thor: The Dark World isn't as hollow or as empty a spectacle as last weekend's Ender's Game, but it still feels smaller and less fun than it should.  Perhaps there's only so much you can do with the guy in a movie, or he works better in a group, as in The Avengers.  All I can say with certainty is that I had more fun with the last two Marvel films from earlier this year, Iron Man 3 and The Wolverine.

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