Thor: The Dark World

That is a worthy poster right there.

"There was darkness."

Hello everyone, welcome back! It's a new week, full of NEW MOVIES. Today I'm going to talk about Thor: The Dark world, a movie that I had to see alone because APPARENTLY EVERYONE IS TOO COOL FOR ME. That's not important though, what IS important is that Thor: The Dark World is the sequel to the original Thor, which was released in 2011, and to a lesser extent also The Avengers (Thor and Loki having both been directly involved in the plot of that film), and following Thor (Chris Hemsworth, for hilariously bad films starring him see Red Dawn) as he attempts to win peace throughout the nine realms, while his brother Loki (Tom Hiddleston, you know Loki) sits in a cell for trying to help Thanos conquer the Earth, and generally just being an unlikable dickbag. Despite his incarceration, Loki is waiting for the chance to take the throne of Asgard from Odin (Anthony Hopkins, of Hannibal Lecter fame) who seems to be over the hill, though still more than capable of vaporizing you with his super duper Odin Spear (Gungnir I guess). It seems like this moment is upon him when the Svartalfar, led by Malekith (a basically unrecognizable Christopher Eccleston, also in G.I. Joe, he was Destro). The scoop here is Malekith wanted to use this thing called the Aether to destroy the universe and return it to darkness, because that's how the Svartalfar like things. Malekith got his ass kicked by ODIN's dad though, so he ran away to hide until someone uncovered the Aether again, allowing him to return and do that whole universe destroying thing, during something called the convergence, when the nine realms align. Naturally, right around the time the convergence is approaching, Jane (Natalie Portman) stumbles right into the damned Aether (like literally she runs into it). In order to save her, because Thor wants to do that, he has to get the Aether out of her, then destroy it... somehow.

These are Malekith's S & M soldiers.

So okay, that seems like an unadventurous but pretty solid premise right? Thor is tryin' to save his girl from a deadly force, and at the same time he has to defeat some ancient evil that is threatening to destroy all of existence BUT MOSTLY EARTH BECAUSE WHO REALLY CARES ABOUT ANYWHERE ELSE LET'S GET REAL HERE. It wasn't a really exciting plot, and it felt sort of.. impersonal. Like a person didn't write the plot, someone just generated it using a computer or something. I don't mean to say that the movie wasn't enjoyable, I just felt like the plot was sort of perfunctory. Stuff happens, but mostly the point is to show Thor doing stuff and being buff and beating people up, while Loki is smarmy for all the fangirls and does his sleazy tricky Loki stuff. At the end they say some stuff about infinity stones and then tease another Marvel movie, because by now they have cultivated a rock solid brand around the Avengers and their individual movies, and know that they're sitting on top of guaranteed money no matter what, so long as they keep stringing people along. Even though I am abundantly aware of this fact, I can hardly claim to be immune to its effects, and have to admit that I will keep going to see movies where Thor beats people up with his hammer. Who WOULDN'T want to see that really?

Malekith never leaves home without his camera crew.

The special effects are predictably spectacular, given that they pour money into these movies, and also that Disney now owns Industrial Light & Magic (because they own Lucasfilm and all its subsidiaries and of course the Marvel brand) and the movie, while a little formulaic as mentioned before, is impressive in its scope and general sense of grandeur. There's plenty of lasers and lightning and explosions all over the place. Of course I wasn't thrilled about everything in the movie, so let's talk about the things I thought were NOT quite so great. For starters I didn't care for the portrayal of Odin in this film as compared to the last one. I think that they make him seem kind of belligerent and not especially clever, and that doesn't really seem fitting for the All-Father. He seems to always be a step behind everyone, and is also a total jerk for most of the movie. Also in the vein of characters I could do without, Kat Dennings character Darcy, the ditsy science intern, does absolutely nothing for me (and I mean I actually like Kat Dennings!). I guess in general I don't have a lot of use for comic relief, but I just think she is sort of annoying and useless.

I don't remember Star Wars being like this.

Even though he is a complete bastard, I sort of liked Loki's role in this movie. I don't share the internet's fervor for him or for Tom Hiddleston, but I still thought that this movie made good use of him, as an ambiguous character and also as a whiny emo mama's boy who didn't get enough hugs as a child or something seriously get over it you're like practically immortal what's so great about being king anyway. The villain of this movie is sort of a non character too, and that weakens the movie somewhat, though Thor and Loki being an unlikely team goes a long way for making up for that. Ultimately the point is, if you've liked Thor and The Avengers, you will definitely like The Dark World, and should make every effort to see it in theaters.

That's it for today, join me again as I celebrate Thanksgiving the only way I know how... with murder!