Movie Review - Thor: The Dark World (2013)

Thor: The Dark World, is a movie. Stuff happens. Things (including people) explode. Natalie Portman uses Stella Skarsgard’s magic rods to save the day. The End.

What, I have to write more? Son. Of. A. Bi...

Be careful...here come the spoilers...

Thor 2 (easier to write) takes place a year after The Avengers. Thor (Chris Hemsworth) and his merry band of LARPers are going through “the Nine Realms” bringing order out of chaos by beating on people. With love...and swords and hammers. Thor breaks giant made out of rock from Galaxy Quest and the last of the marauders give up. They look so dejected; they'd found their niche in life and now they've had that taken from them. Sad, really.

Oh, wait, before all this, we have the opening scene from The Lord of the Rings series. 5000 years ago, Malekith (Christopher Eccleston), an angry elf, tries to unmake the universe with something called the Aether. It looks like glowing Hawaiian Punch; which is appropriate, since Hawaiian Punch is evil. It a scientific fact. And the ambulatory punchbowl man is an avatar of Satan. But, enough of my religious beliefs.

Odin’s (Anthony Hopkins) father Bor (Tony Curran) and his army of Asgardians snatch the Aether before Malekith can return the universe to a state of darkness...or something. It is never really clear what Malekith expects to happen. It looks like all the lights will go off, which will result in significant rise in toe stubbings. Oww!

Malekith sacrifices his entire fleet and army to mask his escape. Why is is that evil guys like killing their own henchmen? How is it that they keep getting henchmen? Wouldn’t a potential henchmen look at the fate of the last batch and say “umm...I’m gonna go do seasonal work at Target. Later Tatter.”

Bor survives and hides the Aether because it cannot be destroyed. Of course, he picks the worst place in the universe to hide it, since a random human physicist can just wander in (well, wander in through a dimensional portal; still, the security for the universe ending faux-fruit punch is really lacking). But, I’m getting a little ahead of the story.

So, backstory, backstory backstory...Thor reduces stone giant to gravel...okay, now we’re on Asgard. Loki (Tom Hiddleston) is imprisoned for his “pro-human enslavement” plans as seen in The Avengers and is tossed into the dungeon. All of the prisoners from Thor’s pacification campaigns also wind up in the dungeons. Don’t the other worlds have court systems? If you rape and pillage on Vanaheim (or wherever) shouldn’t the Asgardians turn over the prisoners to the Vanaheim cops?

Thor and Loki look as lost by the plot as I was.

Anyway, we see the fate of Loki and then head to Earth, where Natalie Portman (as mopey scinetist, Jane Foster) is in London doing science stuff and pining over Thor, two years after he ditched her. This makes Portman's character seem like a complete loser. Yes, Thor is a god...but he hasn't called in two years. Get over it! She does have an amusing "date" with Chris O'Dowd (from The IT Crowd). But, that comes to an abrupt end as we start to get more Kat Dennings (as Darcy the Intern) moments than anyone could possibly have wanted. There’s a lot of gobbledigook about gravity (not Gravity; that's another movie) and other dimensions and weird physics. It all leads to two things: a pretty amusing joke about wormholes and shoes (which has a cute payoff later in the movie) and Natalie Portman somehow traveling through a dimensional rift to whatever world the Aether was buried on. Within 90 seconds of arriving, she is “infected” by it and then deposited back on Earth. Is it really that easy to get your hands on a universe ending super-weapon? I mean, I could use one begin my reign of terror...I mean, no one should be able to get their hands on one to begin a reign of terror.

Natalie has the evil punch in her veins, Loki is in prison and Thor heads to Earth to hook up with Natalie. He deduces that something is wrong with her after she emits a shower of fruit that knocks over a gaggle of cops (gaggle's the right word for a group of cops, right? or is that geese? Hmmm). Thor takes her to Asgard to find out what’s wrong with her. We also find out that Malekth and his surviving elves have spent the last 5000 years in hibernation on their space ship (which does look pretty awesome). Malekith knows that the Aether has been found and is in Asgard.

Acton scenes follow. They are fun action scenes, full of explosions and flying stuff and guys with swords and implosion grenades and all manner of things for the hyper-active five-year-old in each of us. One of Malekith’s henchmen - the only black guy in a race of albinos, apparently - infiltrates the Asgardian prison. Kurse (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje) - Malekith's henchman - is brought in with a group of prisoners. However, little if any time seems to have passed between the moment he is sent out and when he is brought in. Also, the impression is that he is brought in with a group of marauders. But, we are told that the last of the marauders surrendered to Thor at the beginning of the movie. Did Kurse just show up at an Asgardian outpost and say "hey, I'm a marauder. Could you arrest me please? I could break something, if you'd like."

Jamie Alexander showing why she should be the female lead in the next Thor movie. I was going to make a comment about her riding my longboat (because, you know, Vikings) but I have some dignity.

Once in jail, Kurse activates a flaming acorn Malekith buried in his stomach that gives him superpowers and disables the Asgardian defensive shield long enough for an elf assault force (that sounds stupid even writing it) to penetrate (heh heh) the main castle and kill Thor’s mother, Frigga (Rene Russo). Thor toasts the side of Malekith's face with a bolt of lightning and Portman is kept out of his evil elvish hands.

Odin wants to protect Portman on Asgard, even if it means every Asgardian will die. Thor wants to use her as bait, have Malekith suck the evil juice out of her and then kill him and destroy the Aether. Odin has the better argument. Although they took some damage, we did just see the Asgardians destroy most of Malekith's ships and kill a bunch of his men. Although he did penetrate (there's that word again...heh heh) Asgard's defenses, that seemed to have more to do with the element of surprise. Yes, his ship does have a Romulan cloaking device. But it is only one ship. But this is Thor's movie, not Odin's. So, Thor teams up with Loki, who is very angry with Malekith because of Frigga's death. Loki has a "secret way" out of Asgard that doesn't require the use of the Bi-Frost Bridge/workhole generator. What it does require is flying into a cave. That's it? It is anti-climatic, since it seems like a "secret portal" that would be easy to find. On the positive side, we do get to see some of Thor's compatriots beat up on other Asgardians and a good aerial chase scene. Also, I do like the way this sequence is cut, with Thor and his fellow conspirators sitting around a table outlining the plan, intercut with the action sequences. It is a nice way to break up and highlight the action, as well as provide some character moments.

Kat Denning, at the world premier of Thor 2...hmmm... there are somethings about her I really like...not sure what they are...

Thor and Loki, with Portman in tow, track Malekith back to THE DARK WORLD (see, you knew the title is there for a reason), trick him into draining her of the FPMD (Fruit Punch of Mass Destruction...and no, I will not stop comparing the Aether to a cloyingly sweet beverage; my house, my rules) and beat on him and his elves for a while. Malekith escapes and Loki appears to die while killing Kurse and sacrificing himself to save Thor. I say “appears to die” because EXTRA SPECIAL SPOILER ALERT the most popular character in the Thor movies is not going to expire. Ever. At least, not until Tom Hiddleston demands a truckload of cash to sneer winningly on screen.

So, the evil elf has the death punch and heads to Earth, where a convergence of the Nine Realms will weakened the barriers between dimensions allowing him to unmake the current universe, returning it to the darkness that the elves like. Or, to be more correct, that Malekith likes. The other elves might just want to go catch a tan at Cabo. We'll never know...

So, why Earth? If the worlds are aligned, wouldn't any of them do? As we saw in the prologue, the last time Malekith tried to use the Aether, it was on Elfworld. I guess we need an excuse to get back to Earth and give our other actors (Denning, Stellan Skarsgard as the pantless and moderately bonkers Dr. Erik Selvig and John Howard, playing Ian, Denning's intern and straight-man) something to do, since we've wasted time cutting back to them throughout the movie. Yes, there is a b-story involving these three which is meaningless. They don't do anything to rescue Portman or otherwise advance the plot. I guess their scenes are supposed to be humorous; but they really take up screen time that could've been used to tighten up the plot and expand the characters who actually matter. I would rather have seen more time spent with Sif and the Warrior's Three, as well as more time developing Malekith.

Anyway...action scene, action scene, action scene. Malekith fails to destroy the universe...what a surprise!

We then get a big reveal at the end (that Loki has replaced Odin), a lesser reveal in the now obligatory mid-credits scene (that the Aether is an Infinity Stone, which Sif (Jamie Alexander) and Volstagg (Ray Stevenson)- the Warrior Three with weight issues…sorry, he’s big boned - give to Benicio Del Toro as The Collector) and the non-reveal, a horrible end of credits scene with Thor and Portman sucking face and some Asgardian monster playfully chasing birds in London. The end.

I had a big problem with The Collector, by the way. The scene looked cheap and Benicio is acting goofy with a weird vocal inflection and silly hand gestures. However, as an introduction to plot elements that will be featured in Guardians of the Galaxy and Phase 3 Marvel films (the Infinity Gauntlet looks set to be the centerpiece of The Avengers 3) it’s okay and it is only 90 seconds long.

No, Natalie Portman does not make out with Mila Kunis in Thor 2...however, she does in Black Swan, so, ummm, yeah. Hey, just focus on the kissing chicks.

As for the rest of the film, Portman is the single worst thing about it. Yes, even worse than the incoherent plot. She seems bored with the role (and the millions of dollars she made, I guess. Must be nice!) and whenever she is on the screen, the film drags. She has absolutely no chemistry with Helmsworth. There is a brief scene in which Sif and Thor share a moment that creates more of connection between the characters than 90 minutes of screen time that Portman has. The “jokey” elements - many focused on Stellan Skarsgard because he's not wearing pants. It’s funny! See, no pants! - are pretty bad. Denning's character is mildly amusing and she delivers her lines well enough; but she seems to be out of another film; she's the snarky girl who befriends the ugly duckling that the mean, popular girls torment.

Not all of the humor is out of place. Hiddleson does snide well and the moment when he briefly appears as Captain America (in order to taunt Thor) is pretty funny. The problem is that much of the humor seems out of place and makes the film schizophrenic. This is a movie in which the stakes are all of existence; do I really need to have extended scenes of Skarsgard without pants just for a cheap laugh?

These tonal shifts are one of the big problems with the movie. The other is the lack of a sufficiently developed villain. Malekith’s motivation is poorly defined and his character arc a single point (beginning of movie “I want to destroy everything”…end of movie “I want to really destroy everything”). There are many, many plot holes, from little things (how do the Skarsgard's science rods work?) to big ones (why does Portman go to the Aether crypt and how does it pop out and infect her?). Buuuuuut...the movie moves quickly, the action is well done (at no point do you not know what is going on in the action scenes, something that is not a given in modern action films...see every frickin’ Bourne movie for an example of that school of film-making), the chemistry between Helmsford and Hiddelston is engaging and the visuals are impressive, so a lot of the plot problems just get stomped on.

Is this the best Marvel film? No. That honor belongs equally to Iron Manand The Avengers. Is it the worst? No; that title belongs to the first Thor movie, which I find barely watchable (I’m only considering Marvel shared universe films). Is it a fun movie, with some nice dialogue, great action scenes and nice continuation of the themes and plots of the Marvel Universe? Yes, it is. So, go check it out.

The Remans from Star Trek Nemesis and the Dark Elves...hmmm...well, that would explain the cloaking device.