Thor: The Dark World afterthoughts

I went to see the new Thor movie on it's local premiere, that being last Wednesday. Of course, a post like this would be preferable without spoilers, so I'll talk about that stuff later. This post will be a succint "yays and nays" type of a post.

Thor: The Dark World is good. I liked it better than the first Thor movie, although it was one of the better superhero movies that came out back in 2011. The Dark World improves on the first movie in many places, especially visually and thematically in many places. Where TDW fails in respect to it's predecessor, interestingly enough, is the plot.

The cover art actually tells a lot about the movie.
There's a lot of everything that doesn't really add up to a whole.

Thor: The Dark World is pretty, and it is pretty in a good way. The visualization of Asgard (and the other Nine Realms) has been, in my opinion, honed to a fine point. The feel of Asgard is fascinating, as is it's look. A lot of the jokes in TDW are funny, in what is now pretty much a standing trope in Marvel superhero movies. As the Marvel universe has had enough big screen appearances to have a good backdrop on it's own, even without the comics, The Dark World has a lot of backround material to fall back to, which it uses scarcely but effectively.

The characters are good - Thor's still Thor, Odin's still old, the Three Heroes are still heroic, Loki will still elicit squeals from the ladies... My two favorite displays of the movie, however, come from Idris Elba as Heimdal and Rene Russo as Frigga. Frigga is perhaps the best character in the movie, becoming during the movie, in my opinion, the scifi viking queen that the backdrop gives her the possibility to be.

While the movie is good, it has one largish drawback that often troubles the superhero movies. It outshadows it's own plot. It has a plot device, thrown in at the very start, and a looming bad guy. Then it trips over itself to get in all the guys that were in previously, everyone that someone might have liked, and jumps through hoops to play with the whole Yggdrassil - Nine Realms - connected worlds mumbo jumbo that's actually always been one of the more stupid parts of the Marvel Thor mythos. It all ends in a bit of a jumble, with Asgard sequences being rather awesome since the visual and style elements have been honed to a fine point. These are cut with drab sequences back on Earth, a few cuts here and there to the other nine realms, and it's all tied together by this huge, looming threat to end all of creation. Just like always.

Thor: The Dark World is pretty, from time to time witty, funny and engaging. It is, however, plotwise rather hollow. If you like superhero movies, I suggest watching it, but don't expect to be too surprised at any point. The Dark World is, apart from it's direction (which I think was mostly rather good, an astounding show from Alan Taylor who's mostly been doing tv series until now) and visuals, a cut and dry superhero movie. It's good, but it isn't astounding, it isn't mindblowing, it's nothing to write home about. I suggest watching it, but don't expect a spectacle.