★★½
There’s no denying Marvel is king right now. The gamble this
studio made several years ago to solely finance and release their movies seems
to have paid off. They’re now on track to release at least two or three movies every
year through 2018. “Thor: The Dark World” is the second film from Marvel to
come out this year (yes, I know “The Wolverine” is Marvel property, but that’s
not released under the Disney/Marvel banner and does not factor in with the
story arcs involving The Avengers). The first release this year – “Iron Man 3” –
is already the year’s top grossing film and nothing will dethrone that. It’s
also the second film of four planned films that will all culminate with the
release of “The Avengers: Age of Ultron” in 2015. Yes, Marvel seems to have
everything all planned out the way they want it. Now if only they could hire
some better writers.
“Thor: The Dark World” takes place after the events in “The
Avengers”, though I’m not sure how much later. Loki (Tom Hiddleston) is being
sentenced to a life in the Asgard dungeons by his father Oden (Anthony Hopkins)
for his role in the New York City alien invasion from “The Avengers”.
Meanwhile, Thor (Chris Hemsworth) is fighting to keep peace on all the
different realms in the universe. He still misses Jane Foster (Natalie
Portman), his romantic interest in the first film. With the help of the
gatekeeper Heimdall (Idris Elba), Thor has kept his eye on her from a distance.
Jane is living in London, continuing her research with Dr.
Eric Selvig (Stellan Skarsgård) and her intern Darcy (Kat Dennings). Jane and
Darcy aren’t able to locate Selvig as the movie opens; unbeknownst to them,
he’s been arrested for running around Stonehenge butt naked babbling about the
end of the world. But Jane and Darcy have bigger things to worry about right
now. Their research shows readings that are similar to what they saw in the
first film right before Thor appeared. Jane is excited since she thinks Thor is
coming back for her. What she’s actually stumbled upon is a mysterious weapon
hidden by the Asgardians called the Aether. Once she finds the Aether, it
attaches itself to her.
The Aether’s sudden reappearance awakens Malekith
(Christopher Eccleston), leader of the Dark Elves who wish to use the Aether to
turn all the realms into dark worlds. Knowing that Jane is in danger, Thor
returns to earth and takes her back to Asgard where he can protect her. The
plan is futile, however, since Malekith’s first plan of attack is to hit
Asgard. In order to keep Jane safe from Malekith, Thor must turn to his
completely untrustworthy and deceitful brother Loki for help.
The original film “Thor” came to us in 2011 and served more
as a set-up piece for “The Avengers”.
This was a necessary move for Marvel since the only people aware of the
Thor character and the world around him were comic book fans. The film that
director Kenneth Branagh gave us was about as good is it could have been given
that its only purpose was to be a two-hour introduction piece for Thor and
Loki. Now that the characters are established, it’s time for Marvel to really
show us all the potential in these characters’ stories.
But “Thor: The Dark World” doesn’t capitalize on this as
much as it probably could have. Now that everything has already established,
Marvel seems to have dropped additional development of these characters to a
secondary status. This film just seems to begin with no solid first act,
forgetting the fact that it’s a standalone film. That’s always a major gripe I
have with sequels: writers seem to forget the rules of screenwriting when
drafting a sequel. Instead of building a completely separate story, they just
write as if they were given free rein to extend the first film by another two
hours. This is what makes Alvin Sargent’s screenplay for “Spider-Man 2” so
good; not only is it a continuation of the character from the previous film two
years early, but it’s also a completely different movie with a different set of
conflicts and emotions. It stands alone by itself. For my money, that’s still
the best superhero movie.
A lack of focus in the story is really what limits “Thor:
The Dark World”. There are five credited writers on this film. Don Payne - who
was the first writer to work on this film – and Robert Rodat (who wrote “Saving
Private Ryan”) receive story credits, while Christopher Yost along with
Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely provided the script. Yost has worked
with Marvel for quite some time, and Markus and McFeeley are a collaborative
team responsible for writing “Captain America: The First Avenger” and its
forthcoming sequel. It’s even been said that Joss Whedon had to come in for
rewrites and reshoots. With so many people working on the same thing, it’s easy
to understand why the film lacks vision.
Problems with the script could have doomed this film for
failure, but “Thor: The Dark World” is rescued from certain disaster by two
people: Alan Taylor and Tom Hiddleston. Taylor is the film’s director who took
a disconnected script and found enough drama, humor, action and emotion to make
this a tolerable and fun film to watch. This could have easily gone the other
way, but Taylor made sure that his film would not be an utter bore. His work
composing shots, especially ones filmed entirely against green screens, is the
work of a seasoned professional. Taylor is known for his work on the HBO
television series “Game of Thrones” which shares similarities to the
mythological subject matter of “Thor”, but he’s not really known for his film
work. He’s come through here, adding his own touch to the fantasy worlds
already established in the earlier film. The visuals are striking despite an
overload of CGI to make it possible. Action scenes are limited to only a
handful, but they are very well executed and choreographed making them a lot of
fun to experience.
Hiddleston is the saving grace on the acting side. While
Hemsworth is excellent as Thor, he brings nothing new to this film that we
haven’t already seen. Portman’s role is reduced to that of damsel in persistent
distress, which is such a poor use of a talented Oscar winning actress such as
herself. Hiddleston, however, continues to surprise us as Loki. This is also
the third time we’ve seen him in this role, but he gets better at it every
time. He has a great grasp on this character, much more than any of his
costars. Yet they do work very well as an ensemble which also helps cover up
the story flaws.
I’m not saying “Thor: The Dark World” is a bad film. It has
is disappointing downfalls, but it is enormously enjoyable from start to
finish. It’s a fun and exciting fantasy
adventure. But I can’t ignore the problems with the writing. That’s the most basic
and most important component to every film regardless of the target demographic.
A good story isn’t something that’s reserved for low budget indie features;
every film needs to excel at this. I did enjoy the film and I’m sure most
everyone who watches it will too, but I have to call out what is a glaring flaw
affecting far too many movies today. Marvel is on top of the world right now
and they’re not going to be unseated anytime soon. But if they continue to
release films with mediocre stories and scripts, the box office receipts will
drop off, especially from the diehard fan base of these comics.
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