Thor is an outlier in these interlocking Avengers franchises. He’s not a
character who invents, like Iron Man, or is given, like Captain America, or is
accidentally imbued, like the Hulk, with his powers. He may be supernaturally
strong, wields a mighty hammer, and can fly, but that doesn’t make him just your
average superhero. He was born that way. The first Thor movie was a funny little thing, part fish-out-of-water comedy
with the title character stuck on Earth, part swooshing pseudo-Shakespearean
drama back at his home where Norse Gods are stomping around their extraterrestrial
kingdom of Asgard. It’s a film of bleeping sci-fi gewgaws and a glowing intergalactic
rainbow bridge, a strange mix to be sure, but it’s precisely what I found so
endearing about it. After all, it’s not everyday you see a superhero movie
that’s modestly scaled, yet still ends with a robot terrorizing a one-stoplight
New Mexico town and two God-like brothers punching each other atop a multicolor
interdimensional portal.
Now the sequel, Thor:
The Dark World, picking up the characters from the first film after the
events of the crossover event that was The
Avengers, is an across the board improvement, doubling down on the arch
genre-bending of its predecessor and finding a winning groove by amplifying its
every disparate aspect. It’s a fast-paced action adventure spectacle bubbling
with unexpected wit and finding great pleasure in smashing its shiny toys
together into one exciting jumble. Quipping sci-fi scientists like straight out
of a Jack Kirby comic get swept up into an outer space conflict that has a
visual style of Frank Frazetta fantasy and Ralph McQuarrie space opera. It’s
all rippling muscles, flowing capes, gleaming weapons, and shiny mechanical detail.
On Earth, love-struck scientist Natalie Portman is investigating, with her
comic relief colleagues Kat Dennings, Stellan Skarsgård, and Jonathan Howard,
strange gravitational disturbances when her boyfriend Thor (Chris Hemsworth) at
long last reappears. With his glowing blonde locks and strapping physique, he
spirits her to his homeworld, having sensed that she’s become infected with the
film’s MacGuffin. It exists simply to propel all the characters into action
either defending or upending the known universes.
The villains want the glop that’s wormed its way into her
veins. They’re Dark Elves, who look like they’ve wandered in out of a Guillermo
del Toro notebook or a well-financed Lord
of the Rings cosplay club. Thought long extinct, they’ve been hibernating
in an H.R. Giger-style spaceship for 5,000 years awaiting the convergence of
the Nine Realms. That’s when their leader (Christopher Eccleston) knows it is the
best time to unleash spindly clouds of evil red dust upon the denizens of the
universes. Meanwhile, Anthony Hopkin’s Odin, king of Asgard and father of Thor,
glowers ominously as he consults ancient manuscripts. He gravely informs his
allies that he knows of no way to stop the Elves. Thor suspects his disgraced
brother Loki (Tom Hiddleston) might be able to help, despite all warnings that
he’s been the villain in two of these movies already and thus locked up
in the castle’s dungeon. How can he possibly be trusted? The film manages to
add contentious buddy action comedy to its long list of genre influences as
Thor and Loki bristle and snipe at each other, reluctantly helping or betraying
the other as the film moves along.
Rich visual splendor makes the film stand out, its aesthetic
influences synthesized into something that manages to largely skirt camp on its
way to gloriously serious silliness. I love the way the fanciful designs make
it look like a cast of pseudo-futuristic Ancient Romans with swords, shields,
spears, and ray guns is holding court in a space castle. Taking the director’s
chair is Alan Taylor, a longtime TV director who has recently done great work
on HBO’s fantasy series Game of Thrones.
He fills the screen with the best special effects and production design Marvel
Studios has to offer. With them and within it he stages spectacular action
setpieces, some of the best this whole Avengers
behemoth has managed in any of the various films and franchises. Because
they’re done up in fantastically gripping and wonderfully silly ways, with
characters who sparkle with delightful up-tempo chemistry the whole way
through, it manages to avoid collapsing into yet another superhero-whaling-on-a-giant-alien-contraption
climax. It’s fun and funny, playing with its fantasy rules and sci-fi conceits
in exuberant and at times unexpected ways.
The screenplay credited to Christopher Yost, Christopher
Markus, and Stephen McFeely (with additional story credit to Don Payne and Robert
Rodat) bristles with slam-bang setpieces: epic battles, one-on-one slugfests,
shootouts, dogfights, and swooshing disruptions of time and space. Helpfully,
the chirpy chemistry between the characters and the gleefully complicated
mythology is threaded throughout. We’re not pausing for action and character.
It’s intertwined in the best big bustling overstuffed blockbuster way. It’s
beyond endearing. It ups the ante. Supporting characters who mostly stood on
the sidelines in the first Thor here
get to leap into the action, from Idris Elba and Rene Russo to Jaimie Alexander
and Ray Stevenson. And the core characters retain their initial novelty while
gaining a sense of fine actors settling even more comfortably into their roles.
It’s a film full of big action and broad character moments that add up to a
satisfying red-blooded adventure every step of the way.
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