Thor: The Dark World (2013)

Film review #369

Director: Alan Taylor

Thor: The Dark World (2013)

Film review #369

SYNOPSIS: A rare cosmological event is taking place in which the nine worlds will converge, creating disturbances across all of them as the barriers between them weaken. When Malekith, the ruler of the Dark Elves awakens, he sets about attempting to retrieve the Aether, a weapon of mass destruction he can use to return all of the world into darkness. Thor once again must protect Asgard and all other worlds as the Aether is absorbed into Dr. Jane Foster, a scientist and Thor’s love interest as Malekith attempts to retrieve the Aether by any means necessary…

THOUGHTS/ANALYSIS: Thor: The Dark World is a 2013 superhero film and the sequel to 2011′s Thor. It is part of the marvel cinematic universe. The film starts off telling the story of the dark elves and their leader Malekith, who many years ago tried to plunge the nine worlds into eternal darkness using a weapon known as the Aether. They were defeated by the Asgardians and forced into a state of suspended animation. In the present day, Thor is busy bringing peace to the nine worlds while a cosmological alignment of the worlds is beginning to take place, which is creating anomalies among them. Dr. Jane Foster on Earth is investigating some gravity distortions when she enters another dimension and absorbs the Aether into her body. her love interest, Thor, shows up and takes her to Asgard to treat the illness brought about by the Aether and to investigate it’s true purpose. Meanwhile, Malekith and his army have revived and plan an all out attack on Asgard in order to seize the Aether and again attempt to plunge the worlds into darkness. The plot of the film is varied, with a decent amount of action, drama and humour, but the main problem is that it just doesn’t fit together very well: the individual scenes themselves are decent, but the whole “cosmic alignment” and “plunging the world into darkness” elements are tropes that have been done to death, and offer very little surprise or interest to tie everything together. This is furthered by the moving around between Earth and Asgard that constantly shifts the focus of the film, and makes the different scenes have little relevance from one to the next. There is some effort made to give the characters a stake in the story, but again it seems to get diluted in the myriad of things that are going on, and the non-descript villain plot that is fairly standard.

The film’s strongest points are in it’s character interactions, particularly in the relationship between Thor and Loki. Following the events of The Avengers, Loki is imprisoned for life on Asgard for trying to take over Earth, with only his Mother coming to occasionally visit him. When Thor and Loki’s mother is killed By Malekith, The two brothers forge an uneasy alliance in order to get their revenge. Loki’s constant trickery and Thor’s righteousness really work well together, both as drama, and also from a humour perspective, giving them an ample amount of bickering that is fun to watch. Unfortunately, there isn’t enough of it. The whole romance between Dr. Foster and Thor doesn’t really develop from where it starts, and again is overshadowed by the Thor/Loki dynamic. Other characters play their part, but contribute very little, again because the scenes are so disparate they often fail to make an impact on the whole. An example would be the death of Thor/Loki’s mother, which isn’t mentioned at all after the funeral, and just gets forgotten.

For all these shortcomings, there are some positive points. Asgard looks great, and the action is fairly solid with a few surprises. The humour again serves as some light relief from the drama, and there’s a decent mix of all these elements. Unfortunately the plot as a w hole is fairly weak, and manages to make all the events in the film – even if they are about the end of the world – seem pretty inconsequential. Add to that the plot relying on a serious amount of coincidences that make less sense the more you think about them, and it is easy to see why people consider this film the weakest in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It’s not completely terrible, but at this point in the cinematic series, the viewer is no doubt expecting a more complex contribution with a more expansive story, which Thor: The Dark World does not fully deliver.