Review: ‘Thor: The Dark World’

Well here we go, now two movies deep into phase 2 of the Great Marvel Movie Plan, in which entire films are used to set up plot elements for future films, with the rest being nothing but filler. The first “Thor” movie set up the villain for “The Avengers,” and now “Thor: The Dark World” is merely a set up for another movie and what could possibly be phase 3 of the GMMP (more on this later). But what about all the other stuff in there, does any of that matter at all?

And the answer is…kinda, I guess? For all of those people who were dying for more of that great dynamic between Norse god Thor (Chris Hemsworth) and human scientist Jane (Natalie Portman), here you go, another two hours or so of these two looking at each other longingly. Meanwhile there’s some bit of business about some dark elves and the dude who leads them and the great magical power that they seek to harness, etc. etc., I mean for crying out loud why do all of these movies have to be the same freaking thing?

Seriously though, here is yet ANOTHER super hero movie in which an evil character, who is evil for no other reason than because the story dictates him or her to be so, who wants to take over the world, or in this case the whole universe, by somehow just destroying everything. And when this movie had a cold open with a voiceover explaining the movies macguffin, in this case a magical substance that can’t be destroyed and which makes it’s host body super powerful, and then cut straight to a huge Lord of the Rings meets Star Trek: Deep Space Nine battle between a bunch of people that literally didn’t matter in the long run, my eyes glazed over faster than the donuts on a conveyor belt at Krispy Kreme at five in the morning, no what I mean?

The irony of a movie starting with SO MUCH ACTION, and simultaneously being SO FUCKING BORING. And by the by, “Man of Steel” had a very similar battle-strewn cold open in which the movie’s villain fights the hero’s parentage, but in that case the villain was General Zod, who everyone knows and loves and we knew we wanted to see more Zod in that movie. In “Thor: The Dark World” our villain is some guy no one has ever heard of Malekith and no one cares about the Dark Elves. They are like that random alien army in “The Avengers,” just a bunch of boring, faceless, bodies to be sacrificed for action scenes in a most decidedly PG-13 manner.

And then when there was a SECOND LOTR-style battle in this movie with the first TEN MINUTES of the movie, I thought we were in for a real steaming hunk of shit for realsies. So the fact that the movie actually turned out semi-interesting says something after that rough start. Once the story gets started it doesn’t get too complicated, which is a decent change for once when it comes to these kinds of big movies, and it has an ending the sets up the villain for future Thor and Marvel-related movies, and I don’t think this is a spoiler because it is obvious from the moment we see the character in this movie that Malekith, again a character that NO ONE cares about, ain’t gonna last beyond this particular movie. But for the most part this whole movie is just mild entertainment, being used only as a building block to lead up to “Guardians of the Galaxy” and “The Avengers 2.”

That’s really the problem I have with these movies, as they really feel like build-ups and commercials for future Marvel movies. And according to some people, it appears that “Thor: The Dark World” is the first major step towards Marvel bringing the epic “Infinity Gauntlet” storyline to the big screen in some way, probably by 2018 or 2020. And while that will probably be pretty cool, do I need to sit through all of this stuff to get to it? Couldn’t I have just sat this one out? Thor is not exactly the most exciting character. And do we really need more Loki? Really? Aren’t we all tired of this character by now? We should be.

Anyway there are some cool moments throughout this movie, and the final battle has some fun with it’s conceit of random portals being open between dimensions and people continuing their fights as they pass through these portals, and the movie is actually REALLY jokey and has a lot of humor, maybe even just a bit too much, but it’s not like this is earth-shattering or anything. It’s just the continuing adventures of Marvel’s most meat-headed super hero. There’s even a part in this movie in which Loki tells Odin that Thor is an oaf and Odin doesn’t deny it. We all know he’s a dummy. So we’ll just watch him swing that hammer and then be done with it because it matters nothing in the long run. At least not until we get to “The Avengers 2.”