First of All: I'm not sure if I mentioned this earlier, but I'm a huge superhero fan. The past few years have been rather enjoyable as we've been treated to all sorts of goodies like the Iron Man movies, Man of Steel, The Amazing Spider-Man, and so forth. I'm extremely pleased that Hollywood has finally gotten around to making good superhero movies. Now for those more nerd-inclined among you, I don't claim to be an exclusive fan of either of the two massive comic book supergiants, Marvel or DC Comics. I love them both. I grew up watching Batman: The Animated Series (Kevin Conroy will always be my Batman) right alongside Spider-Man: The Animated Series. The love of both sides of the comic industry titans runs deep in me, so don't expect me to pick a side. If you would like to know who would win in a fight between heroes from either side, I am more than willing to provide an unbiased, objective estimation based on strengths and weaknesses.
That being said, I was very excited to watch Thor: The Dark World, as it starred not only the actors who earned my respect (Chris Hemsworth and Tom Hiddleston), but also featured Christopher Eccleston, who is one of my favorite actors from the British TV show Doctor Who. Sitting down in the movie theater was like Candy Land.
Second of All: The Movie!
Thor: The Dark World picks up where The Avengers left off, with Thor and Loki back in Asgard, where the latter is tried for treason and attempted world domination, and then promptly thrown in jail for...well a really long time. Thor, on the other hand, has been kept busy running around the 9 worlds, keeping the peace and restoring balance lost two years previously when (spoilers, if you haven't seen the first Thor) he smashed the Rainbow Bridge.
Back on Earth, Jane Foster is trying to cope with real life now that Thor has been gone for 2 years. The only time he's visited earth was to find Loki and regain the Tesseract during The Avengers, where he did absolutely no checking up on his lady-love. When a series of strange gravimetric disturbances draw her attention, she accidentally falls into a rift between worlds, where she stumbles upon an ancient weapon named the Aether, which has been buried since an ancient war between the Asgardians and an ancient race named the Dark Elves.
Triggering the weapon draws the attention of both the remaining Dark Elves and Asgard, spurring Thor to finally rush to the rescue and become embroiled in a conflict which will threaten not just his home, but all of existence.
Third of All: The review!
I found Thor: The Dark World incredibly enjoyable, both because of the story and the action scenes. Its characters were dynamic, fleshed out, and did a great job of following the canon established in the comics. Obviously, there had to be some tweaks to transform stories that take months or years to play out in the comics into a couple-hour-long movie, but I felt a real connection between the characters of the movie and their comic book counterparts. Not only that, but even the less-important characters, such as Sif, Darcy, the intern, Malakith, and--to some extent--the common soldiers that act as cannon-fodder, had a depth to their characters that gave the movie a nice feel.
The movie did a great job of showing just how vulnerable even the "gods" of Asgard can be if pitted against those of equal mettle. Asgardians perish left and right in open battle with the equally-technologically-advanced Dark Elves, and even big shots like Frigga, Loki, and even Thor himself get tossed around in a fight. Also, it was an interesting thing to see how the Mighty Thor was just as vulnerable to grief as anyone else.
The story was relatively complex, so anyone who missed the first ten minutes of the show--or who is ignorant to the canon established in the comics--would be pretty lost as to what is happening. Also, the movie does have a few quirks here and there, such as lacking explanation about several of the big plot twists near the end, as well as a few plot holes that could use mending.
Other than that, I thoroughly enjoyed the movie, as well as the exciting after-credits reveal, which references one of the biggest events ever to rock Marvel's comic book universe in a sneaky way. Fun things are sure to come. I give this movie a Five out of Six Nerd Stars.
I loved the first Thor movie but haven't seen this one. Hopefully will soon.
ReplyDeleteThis show was fantastic as was your review! I liked this second Thor even better than the first and how even Loki made you emotionally involved in the plot.
ReplyDeleteI have to admit...of the two movies, this one wasn't my favorite. I wasn't head over heels crazy about it. But I did enjoy it and would definitely buy it for my collection. Tom Hiddleston was brilliant as always ( as one would expect from a classically trained actor) and I was pleasantly surprised by Chris Hemsworth and his ability to act when compared to some other modern age ( non - classically trained) actors and actresses.
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