Cast: Chris Hemsworth, Natalie Portman, Tom Hiddleston, Christopher Eccleston, Anthony Hopkins, Rene Russo
Director: Alan Taylor
The Dark World is a franchise-killer. Let’s get that straight. If this was the first Thor film, we probably wouldn’t have him in the Avengers movie. Widely derided and at the bottom of most people’s lists, The Dark World is not very easy to sit through.
To begin with, this is an unfortunate example of the title describing the movie. The background colours are dark and it is worse in 3D. it is set mostly on dark planets and in England. Kind of the same thing. Though you do willingly suspend disbelief to accept a god as your hero, the remainder of the plot forces you to continue doing that for every scene where they cannot think up a half-reasonable explanation.
Jane Foster (Portman) gets infected by the Aether, a powerful virus/weapon that has the ability to change any battle in its host’s favour. Thor (Hemsworth), who had been missing in action since the incident in New Mexico, suddenly appears and takes her to Asgard. There they have an encounter with the Dark Elf Malekith (Eccleston). That doesn’t go well. But Thor decides to take the battle to Malekith and recruits half-brother/war criminal Loki (Hiddleston). The location of the big battle is present-day London.
The above should be quite confusing, right? It requires elaborate plot points to make it palatable to the common viewer. Instead, here we are told the story in a series of narrations by different people and we stop caring. The computer graphics are an assault on our senses and lucky is the viewer who doesn’t get a headache at some point.
The actors are just going through the motions. Natalie Portman does have a bigger role than in the first movie, but her character actually narrows down instead of growing. The meet-the-in-laws setup turns out quite tedious. Thor gets to take off his shirt again. Christopher Eccleston, an actor I admire a lot, is hidden beneath acres of make-up and has his voice act for him. But when the lines are downright stupid, there is only so much he can do.
Mindless entertainment gets a bad rep. It maybe stupid, but it ensures the viewer doesn’t have a bad time. Entertainment can take itself seriously. But when it fails to deliver on that serious note, then it makes for journey best not taken. The Dark World goes for broke in all the wrong ways and comes out with an empty hand. It exists plainly for being the bottom of this list.
Stan Lee cameo: Stan wants his shoe back. We want our money back
Post-credits scene: The scene introducing the Collector is cool. We know it ties up in the big picture. The next two are dumb. We already saw the lead pair kiss. And why do we need to know if there is a giant frost monster running around London?
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