Friday, November 8, 2013

Thor: The Dark World

It seems every time a Marvel project hits theaters, I’m already looking past it toward the next bigger and better chapter. The extended preview of Captain America: The Winter Soldier did just that before Thor: The Dark World began. But that is a bit unfair because Thor’s second solo effort is quite successful. In this instance, Jane (Natalie Portman) stumbles on an ancient power and gets possessed. So Thor, played by Chris Hemsworth, has to try and save her. The main villain is a Dark Elf, Malekith the Accursed. But don’t worry; Loki (Tom Hiddleston) is in there plenty. After all, he is everyone’s favorite Asgardian.

At this point, there isn’t much mystery about whether or not a Marvel Studios film will deliver. The Dark World has big drama, a twisting plot and some witty humor sprinkled in. One difference in this chapter is the amount of death that occurs. Characters seem to bite the dust more than usual. But that is understandable since there is now the difficult task of adding weight to the individual character movies after The Avengers. The other difficult task is trying to make the audience understand why the other Avengers wouldn’t help out with this dire circumstance.

As Hemsworth’s career defining role to this point, he has Thor pretty much figured out. The performance is solid, which allows for others in smaller roles an opportunity to shine. For example, Idris Elba plays Heimdall, a flat character, who shines in every scene he appears in. But at the end of the day Hiddleston steals the show again as the god of mischief. The after-credit stingers predictably show up also to hype Guardians of the Galaxy, but all it tells us is that this project is going to be WEIRD. Weird, but awesome. Just take my money now, Marvel.

Each film earns either zero, a half or a full arrow in five categories. The categories are Acting, Writing/Directing, Emotion, Innovation and Overall Impression. The arrows are added up to equal the full score.

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