This is effectively Thor 2 1/2 , after Joss Whedon made the first Thor movie in 2011 and also Avengers Assemble in 2012. Only one year later Thor is back. This time it's directed by Alan Taylor, who has previously made a lot of good TV.
Although Thor headlines the movie, he's not much of a character. Instead he's easily outshone by a very good cast, especially an incredibly old Anthony Hopkins as the 1000 year old God Odin. He looks about 1000. I thought he'd retired, but he's apparently still going, and unlike the equally old Christopher Lee he actually gets up sometimes to say his lines. When he does stand up it's both intimidating and a bit worrying, as you're afraid he might fall over.
Idris Elba brings some dignity to a very silly costume as some sort of all seeing half-blind man. Christopher Ecclestone fails to bring any dignity to the chief bad guy, a dark elf determined to end the Universe, just because he wants to. A much better villain is Loki, who makes a low-key entrance but becomes increasingly interesting, right up to a silly twist at the very end.
There's a lot of people and a lot going on. Thor: The Dark World is good value for money, and I enjoyed it. I think that might partly because I haven't been to the cinema for a few months, and it was a big exciting spectacle and cost me £11.20, plus an extra 80p for my fourth pair of 3D glasses. I barely noticed the 3D effects at all, not sure if that means they were good or not. The only time it was apparent was during Frigga's funeral scene, which was nicely done but wasted on a character I didn't care about.
The plot is this: the nine realms of the Universe are colliding in a once-every-five-thousand years event called the Convergence. At the same time a villainous dark elf reawakens, and also a magic liquid called the aether is rediscovered. I'm not sure which came first, and what caused what. All of these events are heralded as being hugely significant and important, though I don't think they've ever been mentioned before (or probably since).
The important bit is that it happens to be Thor's illicit Earth-love Natalie Portman who rediscovers this dubious aether, and that gets her swept into the plot. Loki tags along with the good guys (some of which have come straight from The Hobbit), but you know he might turn bad at any point. There's plenty of brooding male angst, and I like it.
Some of it is fun, but I don't feel like this movie connects with me at all. Obviously it's a comic book story, but even knowing that it's a very silly movie. The aether, the Tesseract, the Eternity Stones. It feels like they're just making stuff up. There's enough odd Viking stuff already, without all of that.
But I'll probably watch the next movie too.
No comments:
Post a Comment