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| Thor: The Dark Age Directed by Alan Taylor and James Gunn Three Stars |
Alan Taylor’s and James Gunn’s “Thor: The Dark World”, the
latest in the Marvel movie ponzi scheme, is the big, dumb comic book movie we
deserve. Make of that what you will. I’ve maintained that the first “Thor” was
the most turgid and listless of the Marvel superhero movies, and the most
emblematic of the Marvel marketing con, wherein each Marvel movie seems to
exist merely to sell the next Marvel movie. Marvel, Marvel, Marvel. The machine
has been effective, but most individual installments don’t have the foundation
to stand independently of the others. Each film is propping up the next, and
the system barrels forward with an ever-more perilous pace of bar-raising
spectacle. Given the momentum, “The Dark World”, with its bumbling,
Shakespearian, Hammer-wielding barbarian, behaves like the proverbial bull in a
china shop, and the effect is weirdly satisfying.
The setup is a pleasant smorgasbord of post-“Avengers”
character development and prototypical Asgardian political intrigue. Replacing
the Ice Giants in the role of the formidable, god-like foe are the Dark Elves,
who ruled the universe before the advent of light and, well, matter, who seek
to restore the universe to its pre-universe state, when darkness and
anti-matter ruled, and the Carl Sagan in me laments that dark matter, a symbiotic
term given the name of said villain and the state of said villain’s preferred
state of energy, is never employed. It is however worth celebrating that in two
films now Thor (Chris Hemsworth) has yet to square off with any maladjusted
variation of his doppelganger, as is protocol for the Marvel film universe
(see: “Iron Man”, “The Incredible Hulk”, “Iron Man 2”, “Captain America: The
First Avenger”…).
The Dark Elves depend on the power of the Aether, an ancient
material reawakened from its hiding place on earth by Thor’s on-again off-again
love interest Jane Foster (Natalie Portman), and with it they are a superior
force even to the armies of Asgard. When a skirmish takes the life of Thor’s
mother, he must free his evil adopted brother Loki (Tom Hiddleston), imprisoned
in the dungeons of Asgard for the stunt he pulled in New York during “The Avengers”, for help.
Hiddleston’s Loki remains the most complex and entertaining
invention in the Marvel universe. A conniving weasel, smart, sardonic, and
ambitious, and with an abundance of mommy issues, his mischievous posturing
lends the intrigue and humor that gives this material an edge. These Marvel
superheroes operate in isolated universes (save for a labored cameo from Chris
Evans’ Captain America), but they do all now have in common that “The Avengers”
happened, and that these universes – Thor’s, Iron Man’s, Captain America’s,
etc… - have experienced a brief rendezvous. So while “Iron Man 3” and now “The
Dark World” make little effort to acknowledge their own prequels, they do go to
great pains to acknowledge “The Avengers”, and that history lends Loki’s
presence here an added dimension, as a nearly apocalyptic villain who must be
freed by his brother’s hand so that his anguish over the loss of his adoptive
mother might be channeled into something productive.
The climax, involving a Babel-like starship parked in
Greenwich and a fight between Thor and Malekith (Christopher Eccleston)
bursting in to and out of all of the nine realms as Jane cranks on a bunch of
science-fiction dials, is absurd and amusing, and works because “The Dark
World” never really bothered with any strong sense of setting in the first
place, and because it demonstrates what this sequel possesses that its predecessor
did not – a real conflict, a purpose. Thor and Loki were intriguing characters
the first time around, but the first film was more of a teaser pitch for “The
Avengers”, spending nearly as much time with S.H.E.I.L.D. as it did with its
heroes. Finally, the two brothers got a film of their own.
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