Thor: The Dark World – A Sequel Better than the Original

Joe Milcinovic `15
The Plot:
Thor: The Dark World came out on November 8^th, 2013. Thor: The Dark World, directed by Alan Taylor, takes place after The Avengers and the first Thor. At the beginning of the film, protagonist Thor, played by Chris Hemsworth, intercedes in many galaxies to create peace, for almost all of the other worlds are in war. He eventually succeeds in creating peace throughout the galaxies and returns to Asgard. Thor and his friends rejoice but Thor cannot forget about scientist Jane Foster, played by Natalie Portman. His father Odin, played by Anthony Hopkins, tells him to find a wife in Asgard but Thor is still in love with Foster. All is well until Foster and her team of scientists locate a rift in space, which allows Foster to travel to an underground dungeon where an evil secret, the Aether, lay dormant. Foster is then infected with the Aether. This awakens a dormant evil dark elf, Malekith, played by Christopher Eccleston, who is hell-bent on bringing all of the galaxies back to darkness. To do this, Malekith needs the Aether, which is the inciting incident of the movie. Thor, who cannot locate Foster’s presence goes down to Earth and looks for her. He finds her but she has a defense mechanism due to the Aether which injures many police officers. Thor then takes Foster to Asgard to be healed. This leads Malekith and his dark elves to Asgard, which they attack with their stealthy elf ships. Thor tries to protect Asgard, and his mother Frigga, played by Rene Russo, tries to protect Foster. Frigga gives her life for Foster, and Thor is unable to stop the invasion but does force the dark elves to retreat. Thor then releases Loki, played by Tom Hiddleston, and tries to work with Loki to avenge their mother’s death and to stop Malekith from bringing back darkness. Through their cooperation, Thor and Loki eventually stop Malekith. Thor lets Malekith take the Aether from Foster and then eventually kills him. At the end of the movie, Loki kills Odin and disguises himself as Odin, but nobody knows.
The Spin:
The comedic value of this film is far superior to that of the original film. I found myself laughing at certain well-timed jokes and crossover jokes from other Marvel series. I found myself looking at Asgard as a fairy tale, and also noticing its improvement over the original. Also, Portman had a more believable acting style in this movie. In the previous Thor, Portman fell in love with Thor almost instantly but in Thor the affection is understandable and actually makes sense. Another thing I found interesting is that Taylor made me more empathetic towards Loki, which is a much better option than just viewing him as an evil-doer, for it shows more of the inner workings of the characters. And Taylor does this with a lot of head and shoulder and close up shots of Loki. As mentioned before, the graphics are much better than that of the first Thor, but it’s not perfect by any means. Additionally, in Nordic mythology, Thor and Odin are overthrown by Loki and the frost giants, as evil actually defeats good. With the cliffhanger of Loki taking Odin’s place, I was pleased that Taylor and the writing staff tried to tie the film in with the mythology. The only true qualm I have with this movie is Malekith. The character in essence is an interesting idea, but Eccleston lacked the proper rage to fill the character’s role. Sometimes I really wouldn’t believe that he was the main antagonist due to his lack of acting in intense moments. Also, when he talked in his “foreign language” I felt a resonating feeling of Star Trek. The language lacked a sense of originality; the characters should have spoken in English throughout the movie.  Besides that, Thor: The Dark World is a great movie for an edsman to see on a weekend. I recommend going to the 2-D viewing, as the 3-D doesn’t add any effects that justify the price.
Edsman rating: 8.5/10