Leaving Earth With Thor: The Dark World
Thor: The Dark World. It absolutely encapsulates the mantra of phase 2, bigger and better to a T. It isn't really a superhero film as such. At least not until the whole 'Thor saves Earth during the battle with Malekith in London' in the final act. But it is a brilliant expansion of the story began by Kenneth Branagh back in 2011. The duties of the throne. The tenuous balance between a father and his two sons. Sibling rivalry. All those facets triumph here, making it a far more worthy sequel to
Thor than
Iron Man 2 was to
Iron Man. The effects are stunning, the battles captivating. Director Alan Taylor brings his
Game Of Thrones experience just as Branagh brought his Shakespearian drama to the franchise. It's something quite different.
Lord Of The Rings meets
Star Wars in the assault on Asgard and Loki's jailbreak. The love story between Thor and Jane Foster, something I felt a little weak in the last film is made stronger by her purpose in this film. The portal-hopping struggle between our hero and adversary is spell binding. Most of all, it's actually very funny... something that audiences might not have suspected when they saw the trailers or viewed the poster. Kat Denning's inappropriate intern Darcy (complete with intern of her own) adds a very human element to the events back on Earth, surprisingly being the one to get characters like Jane and Erik Selvig together. And of course, there are Erik's naked escapades at Stonehenge. My favourite but though has to be Thor hanging his hammer on the coat rack. Simple but very effective comedy. Chris Hemsworth continues to make Thor a fully three-dimensional character, creating a balance between the sense of loyalty and heroism, tempered with the 'fish out of water' humour we saw in his first on screen performance. But Tom Hiddleston steals every scene again as loyalty, not in his mischievous cunning and roguish behaviour but in the more dramatic moments, such as the loss of his mother Frigga.
Thor: The Dark World will probably not be everyone's cup of tea. It's already doing much better than expected at the box office though it will unlikely do as well as
Iron Man 3, which is going to attract broader audiences. But it does set the scene for wider adventures than audiences, like myself, will not have seen before in the superhero genre. A success, for sure. Click "next" to continue reading...