Thor: The Dark World
Thor fights Evil Doctor Who, cosmic menstruation, studio notes.
+: cast generally good, action scenes pop, not much overtly wrong with it
-: unfocused, feels inessential, tries to do too much and only does some of it well
Although Iron Man 2 was rushed, and it shows, and Ant-Man had its endless delays, Thor: The Dark World is, in truth, the first Marvel Studios film that can truly be characterised as ‘a troubled production’. Patty Jenkins’ still-unexplained departure also meant the abandonment of a better premise than the one we got (not to throw blame at an easy target, here, but it’s also a target Ike Perlmutter wouldn’t have approved of, at the height of the Marvel Creative Committee’s influence on the MCU’s film side).
Instead, Marvel brought in Alan Taylor, and here their headhunting capabilities failed them, for fairly predictable reasons. Marvel’s previous choices for directors, however offbeat, usually had a deeper logic: sure, Joss Whedon wasn’t, in 2012, a proper blockbuster director, but he had a proven track record with ensemble casts, which was what The Avengers needed. Kenneth Branagh’s Shakespearean background lent gravitas to Thor’s tale of family squabble, and, well, the director of Elf made sense on some level.
On a surface level, Alan Taylor also makes sense: the Nine Realms are kinda medieval, so is Game of Thrones (Taylor also arrived with plenty of other HBO/prestige TV credentials, most less directly relevant). The trouble is, nothing else follows: Sif isn’t Arya Stark, Loki isn’t Joffrey and the invader isn’t Daenerys Targaryen.
Indeed, the invader of Asgard is Malekith the Accursed, a major Thor villain in the comics, and the biggest case of MCU Villain Problem in the film. He is introduced, straight off, in one of the film’s most hobbled scenes — an opening prologue-with-voiceover common to lousier franchises and rare to the MCU. The naked exposition isn’t good, but it’s undermined by various parts of it being explained more-or-less identically later on, reinforcing but not deepening anything about the Aether, the Convergence or Malekith. As we’re reminded at least thrice, Malekith wishes to restore the universe to a time of darkness, when his people thrived. He’s a Daily Express reader with a spaceship, and explaining this takes too much time the film doesn’t have — in the first instance alone, three whole minutes.
Whether through time pressure or stress, the editor at some point towards production’s end started stabbing buttons. The end result is a film lasting 1 hour 47 minutes, reducing to a mere 98 minutes once credits are taken out. This alone isn’t a problem, but tight runtime requires tight focus in storyline and tone, which The Dark World lacks in spades. Is it Game of Thrones, or at least some other fantasy series? Is it the romance Patty Jenkins wanted to make? Is it about Thor and Loki’s rivalry? Does Earth or Asgard (and their respective casts) matter more in this? The Dark World can’t decide.
To be fair, the film has fun with its indecisiveness. Where it gets bogged down in quieter scenes, it comes alive with action beats, such as the first attack from Malekith’s forces, or the heist-like escape from Asgard. More than the first film, it recognises absurdities both small (Thor doesn’t quite get the point of coat hooks) and large (worlds will collide! Reality will tear apart! And in a battle for the fate of the universe, Thor and Malekith will… slide down the Gherkin).
Thor: The Dark World is often cited as the worst MCU film. This feels a little unfair; the film is not as big a fumbled pass as Iron Man 2 (for one thing, it’s too much, not too little), and it’s not an outright miss like The Incredible Hulk. Ultimately, it’s a victim of Marvel’s ‘superhero-in-genre’ approach; fantasy is a genre, sure, but it’s also a setting, and this film can’t quite parse the distinction. Luckily, ‘political thriller’ isn’t a setting; in this regard, the next entry had it slightly easier.
High Points: Heimdall takes down a spaceship with knives. Thor turns out to be a pretty decent fighter pilot. A certain someone decides the fall of Asgard and the destruction of the Nine Realms would be a terrific prank. Oh Loki, you utter card, you.
Low Points: several superfluous scenes, many but not all on Earth. Anything involving Ian seems especially unnecessary.
Curios: sure, the Aether needs a host, but Jane Foster still manages to survive having an Infinity Stone inside her for hours. Peter Quill can barely hold a Stone for a minute. Star-Lord’s a total pussy, is what we’re saying here.
Flagrant Product Placement: ITV News, Vimto, old Volvos, Bifrost travel, Stonehenge, Shreddies, Charing Cross, sexual harassment on the Tube, the UK’s post-industrial decline.
Connections to Elsewhere: back to The Avengers and Thor, forwards to Guardians of the Galaxy, none of it all that complex. The most important thing, ultimately, is the foreshadowing that occurs eleven films ahead.
Stan Lee Cameo: an annoyed man who wants his shoe back. It’s a good line, well-delivered, in a scene that seems mostly divorced from the storyline and doesn’t add much. Sorry, Selvig. (6/10)
End Credits: two scenes. Sif and Volstagg hand the Aether over to The Collector, an ostensible Guardians preview which tells us more about the wider metaplot than anything (7/10). Also, Thor returns, kisses Jane; a Jotunheim creature (a bilgesnipe?) chases after birds. Nice, but inessential. (6/10)
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Next: Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014)
