Thor: The Dark World review

Hey all my buddies, as ever with a movie review (or really any sort of review but particularly with movie ones) there are TONS of SPOILERS below. Read at your own risk.

Thor: The Dark World was released in America (who always gets these movies nearly last, much to the chagrin of comic book reviewers all over readmarvel.blogspot.com) on Friday, November 8th. Thanks to the magic of certain movies being allowed to release early, I got to see it on the 7th at 8 PM, which was reminiscent to me of when Amazon accidentally delivered Thor on blu-ray to my house the day before it was released. That is not where the similarities between the two movies end and, frankly, it's not really where they begin because that is a truly absurd and specific association to make. Probably where the similarities begin is right at the beginning of Thor: The Dark World. Like its predecessor, this movie opens with Odin (Anthony Hopkins) recounting for the audience a tale from Asgard's past. It's a little further back than the tale he opens the first movie with (which had to do with the war between Asgard and Jotunheim and the Frost Giants), giving us a look at Odin's father, King Bor (an apparently uncredited Tony Curran), and his Asgardian army taking down the Dark Elves of Svartalfheim and their leader Malekith (Christopher Eccleston), who had created a weapon called the Aether which, when bonded to it, would make him nearly invincible and would give him the power to destroy the nine realms during the convergence, the event every few thousand years when the nine realms align. If that sounds like an absolute whirlwind of exposition, it's because it is. Within five minutes of the movie starting, we know a movie's worth of plot. It's a bold move, though not a foreign one. It's essentially "A long, long time ago in a galaxy far away..." What makes it a bolder move, then, is that it's the second movie in this series to open this way. In most cases, you'd expect the first movie to have told the story you needed to tell to continue the series. Here we're telling a very different story with the same characters and so there's a different backstory. I've seen the movie twice and I remember the difference in feeling the two different times. The first time I was a little taken aback that they'd start the movie with another history of Asgard. The second time I was grateful. It gives the movie and this world a sense of the epic, a sense that this world has existed for so long that this story that's coming up, as good as it may be and as current as it may be, just brushes the surface of things Asgard has done. And that's how you kick your movie off. Bold choice, I think it pays off.

I did not intend to spend that long on the first five minutes but here we are. Malekith was defeated by Bor and the Aether was taken and hidden away, too powerful to be destroyed or allowed out in the open. Now, millennia later, the convergence is upon us again, aligning the nine realms. Suddenly, in the points where the convergence happens (where the branches of Yggdrasil, the World Tree, meet) small portals are opening and gravitational fluctuations are occurring. Dr. Jane Foster (Natalie Portman), Thor's love interest from the first movie, is investigating one such portal with the not-so-much help of intern Darcy Lewis (Kat Dennings) and, inexplicably, Lewis' intern Ian (Jonathan Howard), when she finds herself face-to-face with the Aether. It latches on to her and suddenly several interested parties are aware of its existence again, most notably an awakened Malekith. Malekith, along with top lieutenant-turned secret weapon Kurse (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje), attack Asgard, killing Odin's wife and Loki's only supporter Frigga (Rene Russo), but fleeing before they can obtain the Aether. After the funeral for Frigga, Thor comes up with a plan to lure Malekith out by bringing Jane to Svartalfheim where Thor can sneak-attack Malekith and the Aether while both are weakened. Odin refuses the plan, preferring the Asgardians fight Malekith on their home turf, no matter the casualties. This sets Thor off on a clandestine quest wherein he breaks out Loki and the two, along with Jane, and with the help of Lady Sif (Jaimie Alexander), Volstagg (Ray Stevenson), and Fandral (Zachary Levi), escape Asgard and enact Thor's plan. It fails and Malekith obtains the Aether while Loki sacrifices himself to save Thor and destroy Kurse. Left with little time to mourn, Jane and Thor return to Earth and enlist the help of Dr. Erik Selvig (Stellan Skarsgård) and soft science Malekith away. They trace the root of the convergence to Greenwich and realize that's where Malekith will come through, setting up shop to doom the universe. After an impressive, portal-hopping fight scene, Thor and the science gang win the day, splitting Malekith between the realms and eventually landing his own ship on him. Thor returns to Asgard where Odin plans to name him king but Thor refuses, wishing instead to protect the realms from the front lines, not with the pressures being king puts on someone. As Thor leaves, given Odin's reluctant blessing, Odin reveals himself to the audience to, in fact, be Loki in disguise.

That's a pretty long plot summary but you should have seen the first draft at this. Anyway, the movie is certainly an impressive one; the fight scenes are well done, Thor and Loki have an unquestionable chemistry and Loki continues to be handled extremely well. The plot itself is interesting and echoes, most recently, a 2010 or 2011 episode of Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes, written by...what's this, CHRISTOPHER YOST, CO-WRITER OF THOR: THE DARK WORLD. Don't act so surprised, you guys, I've been hinting at this for months. More than that, one of the things I found pretty interesting about Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes, on top of how great it was, was that Marvel seemed to use it as a way to test out some ideas on young audiences, including the popularity of the Guardians of the Galaxy and the Skrull invasion. In that episode, "The Fall of Asgard," the Avengers get separated between the nine realms and have to find their way to Asgard to defeat Loki, who had previously worked alongside Malekith to try to conquer Earth. Anyway, that doesn't make the story any less intriguing. What I would say makes it a little less intriguing is the insistence, as in the first movie, to draw parallels between the world of magic and the world of science, meaning that there's a ton of soft science in here that, when you start to really think it through isn't particularly well-explained. Still, the writing largely covers for it and the action and characterization of Thor, Loki, and the other Asgardians (particularly Frigga and Idris Elba's Heimdall) certainly make for an enjoyable film overall.

Eagle-eyed readers might notice that I'm not saying too much in my positive section about the characterization of Jane Foster or Erik Selvig or Darcy Lewis. There's, uh, there's a reason for that, eagle-eyed readers. As with the first movie, it feels a little like the screenwriters aren't totally sure what to do with Jane Foster. I listened to a podcast recently with one of the screenwriters for Thor who said that Natalie Portman wanted to bring more of a poet/scientist feel to the role of Jane Foster. I'm not totally sure what that entails but I assume it has to do with her clinginess to Thor. Not to say she's necessarily all over him but there are certainly lines here that imply that she's done very little in the way of science since he left (we're told the events of the first movie happened two years prior, with The Avengers happening somewhere in-between though probably closer to this movie than to Thor). She's instead spent time at her mother's and, if Darcy is to be believed (big "if"), hasn't looked at least at the equipment she was using prior to Thor's arrival on Earth in the last two years or so. This is a scientist who we're supposed to believe is incredibly smart and inquisitive who has given up because her boyfriend (who she knew for like, three days, mind you) disappeared two years ago. I have some real issues with that characterization.

Fortunately for Jane, it's far overlooked by my sheer annoyance at Darcy Lewis who is inexplicably still hanging around with Jane. The first movie posited that she was an intern for Jane and Erik, though not particularly into whatever they were doing (she was a political science major but she was the only one who applied for the job so neither party necessarily wants to be with the other). Somehow now we find out she's been at this for an additional TWO YEARS, still as an intern and still knowing very little (and seeming to care very little) about the science Jane does. Perhaps more inexplicably, she has found some dumb British kid to be her intern. Darcy talks non-stop and is given plenty of obvious laugh lines but they mostly come off as annoying and mood-breaking. I was encouraged to hear, in the second viewing particularly, that people by and large were not laughing at her lines which told me it wasn't just me being snooty about it. Her character is a waste and unquestionably hurts the movie. It would be a smaller complaint but her role is larger even than the first film, which had the good sense to pretty much knock her out of the second half. Selvig too sees a bit of a character decline from the first film, going a little over-the-top crazy after the events of The Avengers. All of this, I think, hurts the film and particularly hurts the final fight scene which shows all of them hard at work to try to evade the Dark Elves and to help Thor stop Malekith's attack. The problem is that, with the possible exception of Jane, none of them have shown themselves to be remotely capable of this and still they get an absurd amount of screen time.

Overall, despite these complaints, the film holds up on the strength of the plot and effects and on the characterization of Thor and Loki. Thor is different than the Thor we saw in the first movie, the brash and arrogant would-be king of Asgard. Here he's learned his lessons in worthiness and wields Mjolnir deservedly. He's still somewhat arrogant on the battlefield but, while it's certainly earned, it feels a little like a show for troop morale. Back in Asgard, he's somewhat removed, even covering himself in plain clothes and presenting a bit of a more brooding hero. He's more distant with the Warriors Three and with Sif (who has far too little of a role in this, in my opinion) and he's removed himself from many of their celebrations. Presumably a big part of this is Jane but it also seems to have to do with his newfound love of Earth as a whole, lending itself to the Thor we see in comics, a Thor who spends the majority of his downtime on Earth because he just prefers it. It also gives weight to the final scene, where he tells "Odin" that he wants to patrol the nine realms and that it wouldn't matter if Odin said he could rule Asgard with Jane by his side, he still would prefer to be roaming. It's a nice decision to make Thor someone who's matured as much as this Thor has but who still clearly aches for Earth. His character is far less complicated than someone like Loki; Thor is good, Thor is right, in the same sort of way that Captain America is goodness and rightness (that's not the last time I'll mention him). That means his moral decisions aren't ever really going to be huge draws for a crowd. Instead, it's Loki who draws us to questions of "what will he do here?" Thor, then, has appeal here as someone who knows what's expected of him vs. what he wants to do and as someone who believes firmly in the way he wants things done.

So Loki. Loki, thanks to Hiddleston's portrayal of the character in both Thor and The Avengers has become a huge star in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Here's the thing: it's completely well-deserved. I found his interpretation of Loki in Thor to be dead on, right down to every minute facial expression and movement. There's something utterly charming and utterly slimy, all at once, in this Loki. Here we see him in a sort of different light. He's still angry about the secret of his parentage and he sees nothing wrong with what he attempted to do on Earth during The Avengers. He lashes out at everyone but he has a tender scene with Frigga, giving us the appearance that he isn't just some evil villain. It also plays to Loki as he and Thor put on a bit of a show for Malekith later to try to convince Malekith that Loki is on his side. The audience can speculate that this is all part of a plan for Loki but no one in the crowd can be totally sure because, well, because it's Loki. Loki delivers some of the best lines in the movie and the writers throw in the funniest part based around Loki, wherein he and Thor walk down a hallway in the palace and (SPOILERS YOU GUYS, I KNOW I SAID IT BUT THIS PART WAS SUPER GREAT AND I DON'T WANT IT SPOILED FOR YOU) Loki alters their appearances a couple times, eventually landing on Thor walking with one of his "new companions," Captain America. Chris Evans has a near-perfect cameo as Cap here with Loki-Cap spouting lines about truth and freedom and the American way. It's hilarious, it's well-timed, it's a great surprise, and it's probably the highlight of what was already a good movie.

Final thing to talk about, then, is the post credits scene (there are two to this movie, one in the middle of the credits and one at the very end; the one in the middle is the one that's important to talk about for the Marvel movie-verse). Sif and Volstagg take a journey to a very odd showroom of sorts and are led to none other than future Guardians of the Galaxy villain the Collector (Benicio del Toro). Sif and Volstagg have been sent to deliver the Aether, captured again, to the Collector, hoping that he'll keep it safe there. The Collector asks why Asgard wouldn't keep it themselves and Volstagg reveals that they already have the Tesseract in their possession and it's not wise to keep two Infinity stones too near one another. The Collector lauds this as wise and agrees to protect the Aether. Sif and Volstagg leave a little warily and the Collector murmurs "one down, five to go." YOU GUYS. The Tesseract and the Aether are Infinity Gems! Thanos, key villain for Guardians (though there promises to be a slew of them), is always after those pesky gems and here we've already seen two of them and it rather fits. What is a cosmic cube? Oh, an Infinity Gem! What is this crazy weapon Malekith seems to have created? Not too much, just AN INFINITY GEM. AND NOW THE COLLECTOR HAS ONE AND KNOWS WHERE ANOTHER IS. Geez, that's exciting. Marvel laying some more in-roads here and there to get people talking about their riskiest movie in phase two, Guardians of the Galaxy. Overall, definitely a good movie, lots of fun and well worth seeing.

Tiny "Thor: The Dark World" review

I don't want to review too much just yet because technically the movie isn't out yet and I don't want to let any spoilers out of the bag (that said, SORRY IF THIS SPOILS ANYTHING FOR YOU) so I plan to go super-basic with just first impressions and give a more full review on maybe Monday.

Really fun movie, definitely another win in Marvel's book. There were certainly bits that felt a little coincidental and really existed to bring our plot and characters together but they're easy enough to overlook. I'd say the movie's biggest flaw, by about tenfold, was Kat Denning's character Darcy, who appears far too much in this movie, a complaint I had with the first Thor although she was in that one less. A couple of forced laugh bits here and there but some truly wonderful humor at points and really solid characterization and acting pretty much all around. Like I said, I plan to go more into this and more spoiler heavy when more of the world has gotten a chance to see it (okay, Monday, not that much more of a chance but you're lucky I'm waiting now) but for now, the takeaway is that I really liked it and I'm looking forward to seeing it again.

OH, also, if they make a SANDMAN movie at any point (preferably soon for this plan), they REALLY need to cast Tom Hiddleston. He'd be amazing.

Uncanny Avengers 13, Young Avengers 11

Uncanny Avengers 13
Remender (w) and Acuña (a and c)

Captain America, Havok, and Wasp are fighting Banshee, which is only finished when Jan, realizing that his armor is too strong, flies into his mouth and shoots out his vocal cords. Still, it deafened Cap for the time being, leaving their group a little worse for wear. Jan flies ahead to scout out the twins' base and runs into Sentry while Cap and Havok fight off other defenses and realize that Immortus may have hinted to the twins' powers being drawn from one another. Meanwhile, Thor begins plotting his return home and Wolverine is tortured by Daken, told that Red Skull has footage of Daken's death at Wolverine's hand and that he plans to showcase that footage, giving more reasons to hate and fear mutants. After Daken leaves again with the twins, Sunfire and Rogue show up and learn from Wolverine about the twins' plan for Wanda, vowing to stop it. However, that plan might not be quite as it seems as Wanda reveals to Simon that she intends to bring forth the mutants but she'll do it as an army to help take down the twins.

Plenty going on here as all of our storylines start circling their way back to one. There's a lot of really good plot happening but Remender has taken great care to make sure that the book is still, first and foremost, driven by its characters and its ideas. Despite the inherent darkness of this story and its numerous villains, Remender throws in some nice romance bits, including Havok and Wasp's budding relationship (with some more really fun lines from a shouting Cap) and Wanda and Simon's rekindled romance hot on the heels of his immense trust in her, something Wanda could not really expect from anyone else at this point. Remender writes a solid Wolverine here too, one who is perhaps more broken than we've ever seen. He's being tortured by the son he killed, who is both breaking him physically and emotionally as he tells him that it's his fault the mutants are going to be pushed away despite all of his attempts to follow Xavier's dream. Wolverine is kind of the ultimate tough guy in the Marvel Universe so when a writer is really able to capture this kind of broken piece of him, it shines through in a rather big way. It's obviously a well you can't go to too many times for fear that it loses that meaning but it certainly pays off here. There are a lot of directions this book can go and all of them are interesting and seem like they'll improve what's already a good story. Great work out of this book.

Young Avengers 11
Gillen (w) and McKelvie, Anka, and Norton (a) and Wilson (c)

The still-assembled Young Avengers are in the course of their usual journeys when Loki gets a notification from an alarm system he has in place telling him that something is going wrong back home. In this case, he immediately realizes that it's Teddy ending up back in New York. He tries to call Teddy but reaches Leah instead, who reveals that Mother has Teddy and is planning to ruin reality by sending all of the evil-universe versions of the Young Avengers into the 616 before coming in herself. Loki informs the rest of the team of Mother's plan and comes up with a couple of solutions. The first and most possible, he thinks, is getting Billy to use his magic to transform Loki into a conduit that can physically produce more magic. Billy hesitantly agrees and the plan actually works surprisingly well, transforming Loki's body into one that is more adult (more in the ranges of 20-30, in the very least, and with what can only be described as a Tom Hiddleston kind of bent). However, it doesn't work out as planned in the sense that, though he's strengthened a bit by it, he doesn't have full magic back yet. Now, marred once again by distrust from the YA who all believe this was Loki's true plan, he has to convince them to help get Billy to the Demiurge state, the kind of ruler of all state we saw of him in one universe. With that kind of power, even if he only holds it for a moment, he can wrest back the power Mother stole from him and is currently using in her home dimension, giving them a shot at stealing back Teddy and closing her link to this universe. But can they bring Billy back from such a show of power?

Very, very complicated plot. There are elements of magic within magic here and, frankly, magic by itself is hard enough to get a grasp on. Still rather interesting and full of nice twists and turns. Like Remender's Uncanny Avengers above, the story, no matter how big and dire, gives way to character as it's needed. Young Avengers, I would say, presents it differently in that it's a story about characters with some plot getting in there occasionally where Uncanny Avengers is a story first with the characters adding a necessary element. It's hard to describe really well because there is such a strong focus on characters with both books but it seems they take a greater role here, even with the size of the story expanding. Everyone has at least one big moment here, with Loki and Billy obviously getting the lion's share. America gets her moments more sparingly, mostly in the way that she talks and the role she's established for herself in this team. David calls in (most impressively) a rather formidable battalion in the form of his X-Men connections and their own various connections to help the team with their problems. Kate has a nice moment with Noh-Varr and a kind of self-doubting but somewhat heroic moment as she reveals that she's afraid to take part in the mission in case, like Mother intimated, she's compromised in some way (it's waved away when Noh-Varr reveals he, too, is 21 and having no problems). Noh-Varr checks some old messages from ex-girlfriends and admits to himself that his beard isn't fooling anyone. Even Teddy, in a very limited role, appears as a chair at one point, which is interestingly something I didn't know he could do, even if it's very much forced on him. Interesting moments for everyone. Looking forward to where this goes, as ever I am. Amazing art, of course, is a staple here.