Movie Review: Thor: The Dark World

The Dark World, Swartalfheim, is one of the nine realms of the world tree, Yggdrasil. Thousands of years ago, it was the home of the Dark Elves (Or Swart Alfs). The Dark Elves came to be in a time before light came to the universe. They prefer the dark and want the entire universe to be devoid of light (which the other races, obviously, don’t want). So, the Asgardians took up swords and kicked their asses. But the weapon they tried to use to accomplish their goals, the Aether, was not able to be destroyed and the Asgardians hid it in an underground cavern.

This is the story that opens the movie Thor: The Dark World. It’s a flashback very like the opening of The Fellowship of the Ring. And like that flashback, it is entirely unnecessary. About a half-hour into the movie, Odin actually tells the same story to Jane Foster when explaining the events that bring her to Asgard.

This is the singular flaw in Thor: The Dark World. If the editor had cut this opening flashback, the Aether would have been a mysterious force unknown to the viewer. When Jane Foster is exposed to it, the suspense of what is happening to her would have been that much more impactful. But someone at the studio thought the audience for this film would be stupid. Or, they were trying to stick to the formula from the first movie, which also opened with a flashback.

Other than this flashback, the Thor 2 is a fun, action-packed superhero flick. It doesn’t quite rise to the heights of some of the other Marvel movies like Captain America (the best of the bunch in my opinion), but I thought it was more interesting than the first Thor. It’s still a family drama, as Thor in comics form has always been. We have dispensed with the father-son tension and now we have sibling rivalry. Loki is disgraced and imprisoned – wrongfully in his opinion – and Thor is just a short step away from a throne that Odin seems eager to let him have (I’m guessing both Odin and an obviously bloated Anthony Hopkins want to retire in peace).

When the Dark Elves return and threaten Yggdrasil (the universe) again, Thor is forced to team up with Loki to save the life of Jane Foster, who has stumbled upon the Aether and been possessed by it.

This movie is heavily centered on Asgard. Where 80% of Thor was set on Earth, Asgard takes up 50-60% of Thor 2. 

Earth is the place this movie goes for its comic relief. The laughs come hard and fast when we are around Jane Foster’s crew. The comedy duo of Kat Dennings and Stellan Skarsgaard rip up the screen. Skarsgaard especially did some very brave work here as Erik Selvig, who is suffering from the aftermath of his possession by the Tesseract from The Avengers. Dude is cracked! Kat Dennings is the one-liner machine we know and love from Thor and 2 Broke Girls. I still love it when she can’t pronounce Mjolnir (Meow-meow). This time, she has a foil in the intern’s intern, Ian. Though Ian is merely just another face that could have been left out of the film, Kat turns the comedic tables on him a few times for laughs.

On Asgard, it’s the action that comes hard and fast. The seriousness is turned up a notch and we get the bad-ass royal family unloading on demonic monsters and Dark Elves. Though Odin only gets to wave his staff around (Hopkins has just gotten too fat to do anything else), Frigga (Renee Russo) gets a full blown fight scene. I was shocked when Frigga unloaded a flurry of sword attacks on an unsuspecting Dark Elf. Renee Russo has such a calm, regal demeanor, you just don't see it coming. It’s so much fun to see the denizens of Asgard fight for Asgard on Asgard. We didn’t see that in Thor, where the Asgardians only fought a war against the frost giants on Niffelheim and then got their butts kicked during the frost giant attack. Here, it’s a battle royale when the Dark Elves attack Asgard directly.

So we got laughs, we got action, do we got story?

Sort of.

Thor 2 is obviously Act 2 of a trilogy. It picks up where Thor (and Avengers) left off and sets up Thor 3. However, if you try to figure out exactly how that happens, you might have a little trouble. The overall story of the Dark Elves and the Aether is more of a plot point in the overall Marvel universe (which I will explain in a bit). But the real story here for the Thor universe is how Loki, ever the god of mischief, manipulates his family to get what he wants. This little plot is embedded so deep in the Dark Elf story that it is hard to see until the big reveal at the end of the film. Then, you go “OHHH!!!” and that light clicks on in your head. I didn’t see what was really happening until my second viewing of the film, when I knew how it was going to end and I could pay attention to the details.

For the Marvel universe, we are getting one step closer to the final confrontation with Thanos. The Aether has a relationship with the Tesseract (that energy cube from Captain America/Avengers) which is only revealed in the first cut scene during the credits. We can only guess that there will be more powerful artifacts revealed in future movies (like Guardians of the Galaxy) that will move the series toward Thanos and the Infinity Gauntlet.

The performances were all pretty much as they were in Thor. Tom Hiddleston is a great Loki, Chris Hemsworth is a bad-ass Thor, etc. No one really underperformed here. I was a bit underwhelmed by the Dark Elves in general. They didn’t seem as big of a threat as they were made out to be. As villains go, they were boring, even the leader Malekith. One interesting point is that the Dark Elves spoke all their lines in their own language when speaking with each other. But even that language was obviously cobbled together. It wasn’t as richly portrayed as some other fantasy languages out there. I’m pretty sure the words didn’t mean anything, as they didn’t quite jibe with the translation captioned on the screen. Also, Malekith (Christopher Eccleston) didn’t come off as the powerful evil he was supposed to be (on par with Odin). The Aether itself was the bigger threat.

Overall score: 8.5 out 10

Better than Thor, but still suffers from poor editing (the prologue) and a weak villain. It had a healthy dose of humor (which I am now expecting Thor 3 to top) and some really exciting and creative fight scenes (especially Thor/Malekith’s world-jumping battle at the end). The Thor franchise is becoming the “fun” Marvel franchise that Iron Man originally was.