50 God-Tier Acting Moments Buried in Bad Movies
38. Loki’s Death - Thor: The Dark World
The Marvel Cinematic Universe's big-screen output has, ever since Avengers: Endgame, been wildly mixed at best and downright awful at worst. Having said that, yes, Thor: The Dark World is still arguably the MCU's worst film.
That's not to say that it's all bad, though, for it does bring back the dynamite double-act of Chris Hemsworth and Tom Hiddleston as Thor and Loki, respectively. They show off just how great they are all the way through, doing their usual angry, bantering brother schtick with aplomb.
Things change when Loki is seemingly killed by Kurse, one of the movie's villains; Loki apologizes for all that he's done, and Thor is devastated by his apparent death, with Hemsworth providing a reminder of how underrated he often is as an actor. Even though this does ultimately turn out to be Loki tricking Thor once again, Loki's words of apology do seem genuine.
In this sequence, Hemsworth and Hiddleston excellently capture the inherent tragedy of the brothers' dynamic. However much they fight, they are still brothers, and Thor does wish he could teach Loki to be a better person, yet he's never able to get through to him. Even after this scene was memorably parodied in Thor: Ragnarok, it hasn't lost any of its dramatic weight.