As further proof that comic movies are on top of a perilously
expanding bubble, here comes Thor: The
Dark World, a movie that has more charm than the first movie, but still all
the hammering headaches.
Unlike the first Thor,
though, the plot is a little easier to follow and the characters are more
endearing, even the mighty Thor, whose actor, Chris Hemsworth, has grown more
comfortable in the man-god’s galactic boots. I like how Hemsworth treats this
insipid comic blah like highbrow Shakespearean literature. He definitely
elevates the material.
Ignoring all the Marvel minutiae and comic mythology, Thor is an
electrifying superhero. He comes from another planet, which means on Earth,
he’s a socially awkward tourist. The movie knows this and accepts it, which is
why The Dark World punctuates the
action with comedy bits: Thor sitting in a tiny station wagon, Thor riding the
subway, Thor asking for directions from dumbstruck Londoners, Thor hanging his
enchanted hammer on a coat rack.
We pick up with Thor back on Asgard, his home planet, not a piece
of armor for his rump. He’s still at odds with his father, Odin (Anthony
Hopkins) and not speaking to brother Loki (Tom Hiddleston), who’s now
imprisoned in Asgard’s dungeons after the events of The Avengers. Neither Odin nor Thor can sense it yet, but somewhere
out there in the nine realms of the galaxy lurks a dangerous ooze called Aether.
If you’ve seen even one comic movie, then you’ll know what comes next: the
Aether is an all-powerful weapon that is so great the entire universe could be
destroyed if it falls into the wrong hands.
Along comes the dark elf Malekith, asleep for thousands of years
and waiting for the Aether to turn up so he can literally destroy everything.
But how does Malekith know when the Aether is unlocked? His wi-fi signal
apparently passes through dimensions — whatever. I am immediately suspicious of
plots in which villains are willing to destroy all life. What purpose does that
serve? Nihilism perhaps, but even a true nihilist — one who assigns no meaning
or purpose to life — wouldn’t have enough commitment to climb out of bed, let
alone undertake a vast quest to crush their foes, attain a weapon and obliterate
the cosmos. But here’s Malekith, following the villain playbook step by step.
The movie takes place mostly on Asgard, where Thor and his Nordic
buddies battle dark elves on electric hover-canoes and inside electric-mesh
prisons. Of course, Loki gets out, which causes some brotherly frustration as
Odin’s sons continuously plot against each other. Loki, again, is rather
magnanimous. Remember when people loved Alan Rickman’s Snape in the Harry Potter movies even though he was a
lecherous imp of a villain? That’s Loki. His cheering section is often larger than
Thor’s; with his drab self-righteous personality, Loki earns it. So off Loki
and Thor go, clobbering baddies with Thor’s hammer, which has a name only
pronounceable by Vikings and Norse gods.
The best scenes, though, are on Earth, where Thor reunites with
Jane Foster (Natalie Portman), who felt spurned and forgotten after Thor made
an appearance in Marvel’s last movie. “I saw you on TV in New York ,” she says in a sentence that
contains the entire Avengers movie. She’s
quick to forgive, though, especially after the Aether is sucked into her
bloodstream. As his earthly princess succumbs to the Aether’s grasp, Thor has
to slug it out with dark elves, spinach-fed rage-monsters, knife-shaped space
speeders, a mother ship that looks like a railroad spike and Loki, the scene
stealer.
Like the original Thor,
much of the action is shot too tight and edited too fast, producing a jarring
succession of shots made only worse by the film’s shoddy 3D. I mentioned
headaches above, and this is the root cause. Most of the cranial trauma comes
from the 3D conversion, all done in post-production as opposed to being
photographed with three dimensions in mind. I’m not a fan of 3D movies, but this
one is especially awful. The movie looked blurry and out of focus; in some
cases, the 3D effects weren’t even noticeable. Overall, just yuck yuck yuck. This is not the way to
see movies.
What a shame, too, because this Thor showed some promise. It’s still a Marvel cash grab that only
further sets up The Avengers 2. But
Thor, that big dumb tourist, is growing on me.
