"Thor: The Dark World" Not Up To Par
Connor Strange
Staff Writer
Regardless of the star-studded cast in “Thor: The Dark World”, it just didn’t provide as enjoyable of an experience as the first movie, and it wasn’t even comparable to “The Avengers”. It seemed that the exposition lasted for three-quarters of the movie, making it a forgettable film.
“The Dark World” picks up with an oddly despondent Thor as he fights for peace in the nine realms. His mind is occupied with thoughts of his human lover, Jane Foster, yet he is too busy to visit Earth. In the meantime, she searches for him on her own planet and unleashes an ancient and evil force, the dark elves. This prompts Thor to return to Earth to fight the threat only known to legend.
Thor juggles this impending threat with his mistrust of his brother, Loki, who is integral to his plan to defeat the dark elves. Another factor is Odin, their father. He’s blinded with rage toward the dark elf adversaries, so all of Thor’s council is ignored, causing him to act discreetly. Maybe it was all of the things on the thunder god’s mind, but his plan was infinitely stupid. It basically pinned everything on taking the enemy’s key goal straight to the dark elves’ leader, Malekith, even though the energy source in question was completely unknown to Thor. Even worse, the most clever of the gods, Loki, goes along with this plan.
The film has more of a fantasy feeling to it than previous Marvel titles, even more than the first movie. It could be because Loki isn’t the main villain, but rather dark elves, who seem far more fantasy focused than other adversaries in the Marvel universe.
Dialogue sounds awkward throughout the film, which really lends to its mediocrity. Lines are out of place, and every single scene with the annoying Darcy Lewis sounds way too forced to effectively work as the comedic relief that the writers wanted it to be.
Strangely enough, the acting wasn’t bad at all in the film. Chris Hemsworth is a great cast for Thor, and Tom Hiddleston even better as Loki. Natalie Portman is one of the main characters, which is one of the largest downfalls of the movie. She’s a good actor, but she just doesn’t work in her role as scientist Jane Foster, romance of the god of thunder. Something about her acting style doesn’t lend itself to the character very well. And oh dear god, Kat Dennings. Her character Darcy Lewis is on screen far too often, and is obviously intended to be the funny role. However, everything she says comes off as incredibly irritating rather than chuckle-inducing. Christopher Eccleston was present as Malekith, but he was forgettable. Not necessarily for his performance, but instead because the antagonist was a boring character.
For all of its flaws, the movie is still worth a watch for those who have kept up-to-date on Marvel superhero flicks. It’s not the best out of the lot, but it still was quite a lot more enjoyable than “Captain America: The First Avenger”, which easily beats out any other film for worst recent Marvel movie.
Although “The Dark World” is action packed, it still dragged on somehow. Any glimmering hope for a sequel to be as good as the first vanished as quickly as lightning.
