With Iron Man, Marvel Studios proved they could make a hit movie with a lesser know star character that was faithful to the comics and promised a wealth of cinematic continuity to come. With The Avengers they proved themselves right by coalescing four existing film franchises into one team up film that was both entertaining on it’s own and as part of what has come to be known as Marvel Cinematic Universe. Here, with Thor: The Dark World, we see Marvel Studios’ first real masterpiece. And it’s truly something to be seen.
Obviously, due to Thor: The Dark World being released in the UK before America (thank you, international box office), this is a semi-advance review and will not contain spoilers. With that out of the road, let’s get down to business.
Looking back on it, Thor seems almost like a proof of concept film. While it certainly has it’s fair share of flaws, it’s whole point was more to familiarise audiences with the character before the release of The Avengers. However, with Thor: The Dark World not only has pretty much every problem plaguing the thunder god’s first outing been addressed and fixed, but the film as a whole might be Marvel Studio’s best offering so far. Let’s break this down.
One of the major problems that plagued Thor was a seeming lack of weight in the storytelling. For a film that constantly promised the threat of war upon Asgard, no one ever really felt like they were in danger and were just waiting for Thor to show up again. Not only is this addressed in the new movie, but one of the focuses of the story is show Asgard attacked and broken. The stakes are raised higher and higher with every MCU film and here we see Marvel’s grandest story yet. Yes, even grander than The Avengers. For what is billed a solo outing for Thor, we see that not just Earth or Asgard is threatened, but the entirety of existence itself. That’s a hell of a way to start of, but the film manages it wonderfully by having a packed script that breezes along and never feels bogged down by it’s own mythology. This is important for a Thor film especially which is juggling Nine Realms all at once and focusing on a whole host of characters. That’s probably the biggest step up from film to film is the grander scale in scope while maintaining a very character focused feel. This is largely down to the all encompasing talent of director Alan Taylor.
There are many stars in this film, but perhaps the one that shines brightest is Alan Taylor. While Kenneth Branagh was the one to introduce the world of film to Thor and Asgard, it’s Taylor who takes the reigns and brings everything into the realm of believability. This is thanks to a visual aesthetic that is unlike anything seen in a Marvel film or rarely outside of Game Of Thrones. Taylor takes the grandeur of Brannagh’s Kirby-infused Asgard and injects a level of detail and believability to the world, fleshing it out to give more weight to the idea that a whole population of people live there. Not only does it give more weight to the story as we see a lot more of Thor in Asgard, connecting the audience to where he came from, but when it all comes tumbling down, we see a realm destroyed. Yet even when the universe is in peril, Taylor never loses sight of what really brings this film home: the characters.
We all already knew that Chris Hemsworth could elevate lesser material with his performance as Thor, but here he has no worry of that. The writing of Thor as a character here, shattered and direction-less in the wake of the events of The Avengers, is a mighty as Hemsworth’s performance who pulls out all the stops. This man could carry the entire film on his shoulders if he had to, that’s how much weight he throws at the performance. This man was born to play Thor and here he finally gets the material that allows himself to lose himself in the character. No other actor could pull off the cape and hammer combo as well as Hemsworth and he just owns it here. That’s not to say the rest of the cast isn’t up to snuff, though. Tom Hiddleston returns, once again, as Loki and while he gave a shatteringly menacing performance in The Avengers, his performance here is as raw and vulnerable as the character is. Not only do both these actors bring their a-game to the film, but the screenplay also brings a lot of weight to the exploration of the brotherly bond between Thor and Loki in the aftermath of The Avengers (are you seeing a pattern here?). If you thought they’d said all they had to say about Thor and Loki in Thor and The Avengers, you thought wrong.
Continued belowIt’s not just Thor and Loki that get the spotlight, though, as most of the cast of Thor returns and actually gets to do stuff this time around. Along with a lack of weight, the first film suffered from a vastly underutilised supporting cast. This isn’t a problem this time around as both the Asgardian and the Earth crew, including the return of Jane Foster, Erik Selvig and Darcy, gets their fair share of screen time. This leads to much more well-rounded film than the last which sacrificed supporting character importance for more screen-time with Thor and Jane. While the Earth crew does get marginally more time on screen than the Asgardians, it’s not something that breaks the film and allows for the best of both worlds. And they finally let Kat Dennings be actually, honest-to-god funny in this film. As well as giving Jane Foster importance outside of her role in the first film to humble Thor and explain the intricacies of the science of Asgard to the audience. It’s like a Christmas miracle.
Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, the film does one very important thing right in that it very deftly mixes emotions throughout the story. There are definite ups and downs in this movie, from uproarious humour to devastating emotional blows, but it all flows naturally through the story without feeling too choppy or too one-note. It’s a nice mixture of emotions that shows the importance of not straying too close to one side of the other on the grimdark/silly scale. It’s perhaps the best balance a superhero film has reached thanks to it not being approached as just a superhero film, but as a grand war epic mixed with very human stories throughout that ends in a typical superheroic bout.
Yet, oddly, there’s nothing typical about this movie’s villain. Malekith, played by Christopher Eccleston, gladly subverts a lot of the tropes superhero film villains have fallen into since The Dark Knight‘s Joker. There’s no convolution to his scheme, actually it’s quite simple. Not only that, but he’s not a very chatty villain either. There’s no grand monologuing, no sarcastic quips to the hero. Everything is played cool and calm and collected. And he is terrifyingly powerful on screen. Even stripped of the tropes that have classically been used to flesh out villains, Eccleston manages to capture a presence on-screen that no other Marvel villain has thus far. There’s no point where he falls into ridiculous theatrics or has his character brought down by an overly convoluted plan. This is just a real bad guy played by a tremendous actor with writing that doesn’t fall into the traps of other superhero films and still brings it home as a formidable opponent for Thor.
Overall, there is a lot more talk about with this film that I want to include here, but it’s about time to wrap things up. It’s not often that a sequel comes along and is not only good, but improves on almost every aspect of the first film. It’s even rarer when this happens in superhero films. Yet here we are, with Thor: The Dark World, which takes elements of not only the first film and the entire back-catalogue of the MCU to create Marvel Studio’s first real masterpiece. This is film is grander, funnier, more action-packed and more emotional than all of the prior Marvel films and it really is the Thor film we needed for him to be taken seriously as a character on his own. This is definitely one to see.
