Thor: The Dark World (2013)

Credit: Marvel Studios

You know what truly makes life worth living? The anticipation for the next Marvel Studios movie; at least it’s the life of this movie geek. Once Marvel Studios set in motion their plan to link their own movies together and eventually build towards the first super hero team-up movie called The Avengers, they have set the bar very high, not just for the super hero genre, but for all movies in general. The special effects are grander, serious actors and directors are involved, and they’re not afraid to actually be a movie based on a comic book hero.

I believe these movies are not afraid to embrace their comic book nature because if you look at many past movies, they altered many quirks and traits of the source material. Many heroes were clad in leather, unlike their usual mutli-colored costumes, while Thor features it lead character flying around while sporting a red cape and blue-tinted armor. The Fantastic Four series altered its heroes’ origin, while Thor: The Dark World spends much of the movie in his homeworld of Asgard and other realms such as Jotunheim, Svartalfheim, and Vanaheim. Sure, those names may evoke a chuckle, but those are the places where the movie spends a majority of its running time and it immerses itself within the Nine Realms. The previous Thor movie only gave us a taste of Thor’s homeworld.

Chris Hemsworth, who portrays the mighty “God of Thunder”, appears to be relatively new to the role of a Hollywood leading man, though his charisma would lead you to believe otherwise. He completely owns the role of Thor, as does Tom Hiddleston, who portrays his adopted brother Loki. In fact, Tom Hiddleston has repeated his feat of stealing the show for a third time (following Thor and last year’s The Avengers.) Thor’s brothers-in-arms are seen again, as well as his parents, and a guy who isn’t featured enough- Heimdall, the guardian of the bifrost bridge that links the Nine Realms. These gods seem to be without any weaknesses since Thor is unstoppable with his hammer and Loki can create illusions and duplicate versions of himself. If there is a weakness that Thor has, its not physical like an Achilles heel or his hair like Samson, instead its his love interest on Earth, which is Jane Foster (again played by Natalie Portman.) This also happens to be the weakness of the movie, too. It seemed to spend too much time with Jane’s comic relief intern named Darcy, who now has her own intern, which is as funny as it sounds. Thank you so much for reminding me of her nickname for Thor's hammer, "Meow Meow." Just when I thought it was safe to go back to the theater.

I felt The Dark World was most compelling when it showed us what this “dark world” is and what threat it poses to Thor. Apparently, much like when we have an event like a solar eclipse, the Nine Realms have come into a rare alignment, which evil elves from the “dark world” want to use to their advantage and rule the world in typical bad guy style.

This movie might be seen as just a fluffy, summer-styled blockbuster, and it mostly is, since it doesn’t touch on the same emotional level as the first. Thor’s brother Loki betrayed him in the first movie, then unleashed a cosmic army in his second appearance, yet this movie picks up far after the fall-out of that battle. We’re only treated to the very end of Thor restoring order to the realms, and Loki is mostly forgotten in his prison cell away from Asgard’s castle. Perhaps that was the point, to keep the brothers separate until it was absolutely necessary because Loki was given much of the focus in his previous movies, and they'd give more attention to Thor and Jane's relationship. I’m now sensing a pattern here, as you could make a case that Iron Man 3 was a love story about Tony Stark giving up the life of a super hero for his significant other. Those sneaky fellows over at Marvel Studios, disguising love stories as action blockbusters.