Thor: The Dark World: Big Marvel Movie Re-Watch

I'm attempting a great big Marvel movie re-watch ahead of the release of Captain America Civil War on 29th April. A summary and brief review of each of the 12 instalments in the Marvel Cinematic Universe will be posted each Thursday and Tuesday.


Sequel time continues in the 8th Marvel movie.

Thor: The Dark World (2013)

Summary

We start with a little exposition about the history of the Dark Elves owning the universe before the light came. Young Odin and his father took out the majority the Dark Elves, during an attempt to destroy the 9 realms using a powerful artefact, and their leader Malekith destroyed his entire army and went into hiding within one of his ships. Odin and his father hide the powerful Aether.
Flash forward to the post Avengers world. Loki is getting sympathy from his mother whilst his father puts him on trial and locks him up in the dungeons for what he did to Earth.

With the Bifrost and Rainbow bridge now working again, Thor, Sif and the warriors three have been trying to put the nine realms back in order after the chaos of being cut off and left to run riot.
Jane and Thor long to reunite. Jane is still researching scientific fluctuations in space/ time and with the help of Darcy, her intern, and Ian, her interns intern, the follow the fluctuations right to an abandoned property in London. Jane wonders through a portal by accident and is possessed by the power of the Aether. Thor is notified that Jane is no longer on Earth and finally makes the jump back there to make contact with her again. He finds that she has been possessed by some strange force and takes her to Asgard to be studied.

The Dark Elves and Malekith have been awakened by the presence of the Aether in the Universe again. They start an attack on Asgard. Jane is taken with Thors mother for protection. This massive half fantasy half sci-fi Asgard proves for a spectacular action set piece as the Elf ships crash into the throne room and proceed to let prisoners out of the dungeon. All except Loki who even they don't trust. Thor's mother sacrifices herself to save Jane. In response Odin keeps Jane prisoner until they know what to do with her. 


Sad Loki has sex appeal. "I could totally fix him right?" *mimes stroking his hair*

Thor, Sif and the Warriors Three break Loki out and proceed to escape with Jane to get her back to trick the elves away from Asgard. Thor and Loki make a great team against Malekith and trick him into getting the Aether from Jane. After a failed attempt from Thor to destroy it, it reforms into a stone and Malekith sets off for Earth to start the alignment and destruction of the 9 realms, in another attempt to plug everything into darkness. Loki appears to die during a really kick ass redemption scene. 

Darcy and Ian have reunited with Dr. Selvig and got him out of a mental institution. He is thrilled to realise he isn't insane after all and that the borders between the realms/ worlds are genuinely getting weaker because of the alignment. Selvig has made some electronic pillars to warp space time back how it should go, and plans to use them to stop Malekith. Jane and Thor reunite with them and discover the whole allignment will take place in Greenwich,  London.

Malekith crashes his ship on the banks of the River and his Elves start to clear the area and the Aether starts to power through the portals to the 9 realms in the skies above Earth. Thor and the gang start using the pillars back to stabilise the area resulting in an epic battle as Thor and Malekith teleport violently through the 9 realms until he eventually sinks a pillar right through Malakith's chest, sucking him into oblivion. 

Thor is congratulated by Odin who surprise surprise is actually Loki using his magic. It appears he faked his own death and disposed of Odin somehow. 

End Credits Scenes

Two again this time around. The first Sif and Volstagg take the Aether to The Collector, stating it is too dangerous to keep two in the same place. The Collector says 1 down 5 to go to his assistant. This being a prelude to guardians of the Galaxy. The clues and foundation for the upcoming Infinity Stones plot that will tangle through the next several movies culminating in the Avengers Infinity War 2 parter still some ways off. 

The second scene is Thor returning to Jane and them getting to kiss. Also there's still an ice giant beast roaming around in London that they seem to have forgotten about. This plot thread carries over into Agents of SHIELD TV series.

Review

I can't understand how people generally think this is worse than the first Thor. In my opinion it's a helluva lot better in most ways.

The break out star of the first Thor film, Loki is used to great effect here. He appears almost apologetic and wounded by the events in the first film and proves to the audience he can have a good side, as he shares quite the bond with his mother and not just their joint use of magic. The relationship between Thor and Loki and their dialogue together during the escape is spot on too. It appears that Loki is here for good. 

The setting of Asgard and the 9 Realms is greater explored and elaborated on. A set piece early on, set on another world starts things off. The action set in this greater expanded fantasy/ sci-fi Asgard version, as the Elves attack. And during the finale the battle that flies throughout the 9 realms as they teleport mid battle, almost reminiscent to the finale of Jumper. I prefer this larger Asgard. This is a much better setting than a small American desert town, like the first movie. The setting of London is also a welcome change too. It was beginning to look like USA was getting all the fun.

Asgard looks more lived in and epic. There's a sense of grandeur that this is a huge technologically advanced world that our ancestors confused for Gods. I like Odin and Loki's explanation that they are not immortal that they just live a damn site longer than humans do, and that most of what the do is just confused for being Gods that were worshipped by humans. It's a cleverly scripted scene. I hope when Wakanda and the Black Panther are featured in Civil War that they get the advanced yet appropriately themed science right too. 

Like I stated at the start of my Green Lantern review, I hate exposition that is literally just narrated and spelled out to me. When you do this with sci-fi or fantasy concepts it can come of sounding really dumb, confusing or at worst laughable. I'm still not sure of the Thor/ Jane relationship. They don't sell it very well. It still feels like they spent a day together then were just besotted for very little reason. 


I'd happily watch more of these guys. Why can't these guys get hired by SHIELD?

The humour was amped up in this film too. Darcy, Selvig and Ian providing much of the comic relief. This film has several of my most favourite cinematic universe moments in. 1. when Loki turns into Captain America and starts saying how he feels all patriotic. 2. when Thor goes into Janes apartment and hangs his hammer up on the coat rack. It was the latter scene that probably led to the who can lift the hammer moment in the Avengers sequel. 3. another interesting scene that I thought is so true to the real world that it was scary. In the finale when Jane and Selving are trying to evacuate the library people refused to leave because there was a superhero outside and they were filming it on their phones. 4. Thor catching the underground because he'd lost his hammer and needed to get back to the fight.

Odin comes off very unlikable again. He acts like a dick to his children and Jane. He shows literally no compassion towards his wife's death and also seems to want to entice war to Asgard by keeping Jane locked up there. On the other hand Loki completely redeems himself and the cliffhanger of Loki on the throne feels almost welcomed. How many times are we going to fall for Loki's magic let alone the characters in the story itself?!


Ecclestone is wasted here. 

The actual enemy of the film Malekith is possibly the most one note and quick to disappear yet. He's so one dimensional and I'm longing for another character with the longevity and fun of Loki to get introduced. 

I found it interesting how well the cast is juggled. All of the human characters as well as Asgardians make a great ensemble and are each given moments to shine. This was juggled almost as expertly as Avengers Assemble which is very high praise indeed. They completely outshine the villain and work so well as a team that you have literally nothing at stake here. It is worth taking not that Thor's brawn is nothing against the Dark Elves yet human brains are what stop him.

I can't believe they killed their mother for the sake of motivating Thor and Loki to drive the plot along. She was so badass and I'm honestly shocked they women in fridged her. Unforgivable.

Thor: The Dark World Rating 7/10

I so very nearly gave this an 8/10 but I gave that score to Captain America, which I believe was a lot more simple and fun. The first Thor movie I gave a 6/10 and this film is leaps and bounds better than that. 

A great team dynamic, and the return of Loki completely overshadow the real villain of the film. The macguffin feels meaningless and overshadowed by a better villain and theres no real sense of peril. Easily the weakest villains of the franchise. Much better use of the source material but an awful plot, filled with a welcomingly large amount of humour. Possibly the most Marmite film by Marvel Studios so far.
Thor: The Dark World: Big Marvel Movie Re-Watch Thor: The Dark World: Big Marvel Movie Re-Watch Reviewed by Matt on 00:00:00 Rating: 5

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