Thor doesn’t deserve a franchise: Loki does. Thor: The Dark World is a stop-gap Marvel film padding future superhero adventures with some post-credits action and setting the stage for the end of Thor’s trilogy. When Loki isn’t onscreen Thor: The Dark World is rudderless and worst of all, boring. Even naked Stellan Skarsgard cannot save the movie.
Thor: The Dark World picks up 2 years after the first Thor on Asgard. Loki (Tom Hiddleston) is imprisoned for his role in the Avengers events in NY. Thor (Chris Hemsworth) is completing his quest to create peace across the 9 realms. Enter Malekith (Christopher Eccleston), the leader of the dark elves who was in slumber until the Aether (like the Tesseract from the Avengers, a powerful darkness creating substance) awakens him to resume his quest for the Aether. On Earth, Thor’s squeeze, Jane Foster (Natalie Portman) and her partners Darcy (Kat Dennings) and Eric (Stellan Skarsgard) continue to search for portals to get to Thor, but they unexpectedly come into contact with the Aether, conveniently right before the realm alignment allows Malekith to use the Aether with devastating consequences.
The fish out of water concept made the Lokiless scenes of the first Thor entertaining. Thor’s immaturity provoked some very clever banter giving the first film a playful tone. Thor: The Dark World abandons that tone entirely, trying to push gravitas about ruling people since Thor has matured. Director Alan Taylor (leaving Westeros for a little bit) misinterprets adult themes for compelling drama. His focus should be on the royal family: Odin, Thor, and Loki have a Shakespearean relationship that can be called upon for very positive results; heck, you could even reverse the fish out of water stuff and put Jane Foster on Asgard having to meet Thor’s family. Instead, half formed thoughts on ruling and a horribly dimensioned bad guy ruin any momentum Thor generates from family drama.
Some of the faults of Thor 2 do not lie in the director’s hands though. He makes Asgard look grand and vulnerable at the same time; not an easy feat. Loki, by far the most fascinating character in the Thor universe, is set up here as a semi-peripheral character who has no power. By the end of the movie, Loki gets back the upper hand on his older brother, giving a potential third Thor movie a juicy confrontation. Thor 2 is essentially a righting the ship of a franchise that could have spun off its moorings, plus it adds another pieces of Marvel’s universe under the radar to be used later. If you can’t tell, these positive points are mostly to generate set up for future films, making Thor: To Be Continued a better title for the movie.
Tom Hiddleston is the reason to see Thor: The Dark World. Loki represents all that is great in the superhero world: duplicity, snakebite wit, and relatable pain. Hiddleston commits wholeheartedly to Loki, embracing the mischief and intellect. Loki’s scenes crackle with energy missing in the rest of the movie. Chris Hemsworth looks great shirtless and sells his regal transformation. He may not be as funny, but he embraces what Thor has become, clearly showing that writing and screen partners determine how well Hemsworth can act. Kat Dennings shows some spunk as the unpaid intern, but doesn’t get too much to do. Stellan Skarsgard gets to look like he’s under the influence of several drugs, and Natalie Portman, Rene Russo, Anthony Hopkins, Christopher Eccleston, and Idris Elba act like they want to be in other films.
After the payoffs, the real reason anyone is paying to see this film, Thor 2 can quickly be forgotten for the Captain America Sequel. Thor may be a God, but God’s are boring unless they are named Loki. Seeing how prevalent Loki has become in promoting this film, can we get Hiddleston more Loki screen time? I feel like Gravity would be amazing if Loki were convincing Sandra Bullock to give up, mocking her feeble humanity.