By Madmax673

While I didn’t stock up too much expectations for this movie, I neither expected this movie to be bad.

Story

Begins with Asgardians storming against the Dark Elves, whose leader Malekith wants to destroy the universe when all the nine realms converge using a thing called “Aether”.

Asgardians win. As they can’t destroy aether they decide to hide it way too deep so that no one can find it.

Cut to present Asgard: Loki is being brought into Asgard as a prisoner of war crimes he committed on Earth – presumably from Avengers as it’s not shown. His father Odin puts him in prison and asks a victorious Thor, from a battle far away, to rule, enjoy, drink and revel in others’ success.

Down to Earth in London: After a few gravity defying, teleporting revelations, Jane Foster comes in contact with the dreadful aether and wakes up Malekith. Thor shows up and takes her back to Asgard to cure her.

Malekith and his general Algrim attack Asgard and kill Frigga.

Finally the plot arrives in revenge form. Thor has to disobey his dad and commit treason to follow his quest and to stop/kill Malekith and save the universe from being destroyed.

Bad Part

– The plot doesn’t start until 45 minutes approx. I am willing to bet it’s more.

– Most of that time is consumed with too much fighting. The fight scenes had no focus. No detail.

– One of the problems with those early minutes were the lack of setpieces that show how the action affects people as characters, resulting in poor character windows.

– No dramatic elements.

– Adding to this dragging lengthy first half was the insertion of trivial tongue twisting title cards like “Svartalzfheim”.

– Talk about cliche. There are lots. Particularly this one: instantly after being saved by her intern, Darcy Lewis exclaims “You Just saved my life” and then they kiss and teleport to another place.

– Another moment where the main two leads try to smooch, and as it always goes, some geek screwball enters to ruin the party.

– The acting looked like a stage drama.

– With too much teleporting it felt like the characters kept hopping around like bunnies.

Worst Part

– When we are shown Asgard, the backdrop (the huge icy mountain region) of it is so obvious and familiar.

– Looks like the entire team of director/writers have changed after the first version of Thor except Don Payne.

– There were a few shots of Chris Hemsworth and Natalie Portman where their on screen chemistry absolutely sucked! The former looks like Hulk and latter looks like a lizard.

– The choice of Christopher Eccleston to portray Malekith is one of the worst casting choices. Seriously, he looks like Freddy Kreuger (played by Robert Englund) in Nightmare on Elm Street.

– Cinematography was dull and murky. I wonder if the director of photography got stuck with the title. It’s surprising considering it’s the same guy who shot the previous version.

– One profile shot of Chris Hemsworth during the last few frames looked like they shot it with DV camera.

There were a few moments that were mildly amusing like when Loki transforms into Captain America, and when Erik Selvig hugs the main two leads while in his undies. However these came too late as by that time I felt too burnt out. Hardly brought me a chuckle.

Even Thor fans in the movie hall gave a genuine attempt at laughing out loud at a few places but they lost steam by the end as well.

The first version of Thor had simple yet clear structural beats gluing us to those characters, rooting for them at a particular spot during their adventure.

But in Thor: The Dark World, they jump back and forth between Asgard and Earth losing focus on both the main plot and the main character’s transformational arc.

Rating

The evening premiere drew average crowd.

If Thor: The Dark World has anything to prove, it is that Marvel Comics have made shit load of money with Avengers and can afford to write this off as a bad debt.

Unless you’re craving to watch something that you’ve already watched a gazillion times before, skip this movie at all costs.

  Thor