Thor Dark World is the second in the Marvel Universe of great comics films. Marvel continues their excellent portrayal of their universe picking up where we left off with the last Avengers film.
Family:
Loki clearly has family issues. His father is disgusted with him, considering that Loki’s fate should have been dying on one of the Nine Worlds than being taken in by Asgard. Loki is jealous of Thor, cannot be trusted and has several tricks that are evident in the film.
Loki’s ability to trick through changing his appearance is used to great effect. Hilarious scene where he changes into Captain America!
The tension between Loki’s mother Frida and his brother Thor is quite intense at times and lends some realism to this fantasy tale.
Odin:
The All Father gets to shoot a few power blasts at the Dark Elves, gives us a closer look at the mythology of the time. Really liked that the film went more for the Asgard realm and the mythology of the time rather than staying mostly on small-town Earth.
Malekith:
Not a bad villain. He’s the leader of the Dark Elves, and the actor who portrays this character is trying to play it cool and subdued. But I like my villains active and energetic than subdued. My Marvel fan friends took offense on how Malekith is portrayed. But heck, it’s fiction, right? Malekith wants to collapse the Nine Worlds and after thousands of years (great back story) he makes another try at it.
Jane Foster inadvertently loses the Aether, an interesting “Tesseract” of power, that some internet blogs figure might lead us to the other Marvel tales of the Infinity Gauntlet. Perhaps so. This stuff is pretty evil; I don’t understand why Jane could not have used it against the Elves but that’s fine.
Romance:
Yeah, a bit of that. We have a few scenes between Thor and Jane. Even between Jane’s assistant and her intern.
Comedy:
The director really went overboard on the comedy. I don’t mind one or two scenes to break up the seriousness of the story, but a new skit every five or ten minutes was a bit much, but I feel that’s really a matter of taste.
Bottom Line:
Great fight scenes, though it was disturbing to see Thor being mopped up all over the place. The overall themes of family, of betrayal and of love & honor were well-displayed. Can’t wait for the final film in the trilogy.
There are two extra scenes at the credits and after the credits. Don’t miss them!
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