Thor returns to his solo franchise with a new director at the helm, a new enemy and the return of some old friends and foes. The result unfortunately is mixed at best, the picture tells the story of an ancient evil coming to wreak havoc upon Asgard and Earth in the form of Malekith (Eccleston) and its up to Thor (Hemsworth), Jane Foster (Portman) and his recently imprisoned brother- Loki (Hiddleston) to save the day.
While Thor: The Dark World, improves over its predecessor, in terms of its scope, in the sense of going beyond Asgard and seeing more of the nine realms as well as having spectacular action. It really falls down due to its dramatic core, which comes down to two reasons, the first is the screenplay.
At best, the script feels very comic booky, in the sense that on the one hand you have one of the writers who worked on it, (Christopher Yost) coming from that background, and on the other hand at times it feels like an expedient 20 page single issue. While this approach did feel quite good for the first twenty minutes or so, this really hurts the film as it goes along its near two hour running time.
In addition, while I can see the script`s central theme being that of sacrifice, it is barely developed save a few lines from Odin and a story point from the prologue of the film and one major event that occurs but is later reversed. The screenplay looks as though it has been rewritten and three screenwriters does not help this fact either, in addition to reported re writes from Whedon and overall the script feels half baked with good ideas that are barely developed at best.
The second problem comes from the overall conception of the film itself. Upon leaving the film, I did think that the amount that actually happens to Thor through the course of the movie is quite significant, veering on an almost Empire Strikes Back level of drama and character depth. However when these moments occurred, I was left rather cold even though the movie was telling me to care.
Dark World, is more interested in broadening its world and scope that it does ultimately leave the character moments and drama rather dry and sparse. The first great example of this comes from the new antagonist Malekith, as presented in the film, he is really bland and even though the script is telling me to fear him, he really has no prescience through the film. Added to this, in interviews Eccleston said the motivation for his character is revenge and that his arc is tragic in nature, coupled with the fact that he had lost his wife, children as well as his whole world.
I don't see this in the film at all, which makes me think that the studio heavily tampered with his scenes and that more footage of him exists. It did bring to mind, the severe treatment that Rourke`s Ivan Vanko got in Iron Man 2, except this time you are left with a cardboard cutout of a character. This is a great shame as Eccleston is a really talented actor that can be both menacing and heartfelt.
This is not to take away from the general acting of the returning cast. Hemsworth continues to prove that he was the right person to play The God of Thunder and in this film, brings a great amount of depth from emotions that range from sheer anger to regret to pure unleashed fury. Hiddleston continues his mischief on screen with Loki while having some great moments that conceptually are tender and touching.
As for Russo and Hopkins it was great to see them in expanded roles in this movie, particularly Hopkins having some important scenes with Thor in the picture. The only returning cast member that feels rather bland is Natalie Portman, who despite being central to the plot feels like a plot device that is done away and forgotten towards the middle of the picture, and Portman does not help things during this part of the film with her stiff and almost borderline board line deliveries.
As for the directorial work done by Alan Taylor, the best thing he does for the film is expanding the scope of Asgard and the other worlds, he does this by showing aspects of Thor`s home world that we did not see in the first movie such as its pub, social environments as well as hospital. This combined with quite a great visual pallet for a first time director and Taylor does a fairly good job directing the picture.
He just misses what Branagh had with the first film which is being able to showcase the dramatic scenes really well, no matter how spectacular the effects as well as Branagh great sense of humour. Here we are shown an image of a naked Stellan Skarsgard and some of the other humour flourishes got a bit too much and took away from some of the serious scenes particularly towards the end.
Brian Tyler`s whose previous work in the Marvel cinematic universe was his score for Iron Man 3, does great work here with his score of Dark World. The best piece is the main theme which has a great combination of bombastic excitement and great subtle choral work with some great trumpet work that all make for a very exciting piece that has ripples of Terminator 2 in it.
Overall, I think that there is a really great film in Thor: The Dark World, but in its current form, it really gets lost and bogged down in the bells and whistle of spectacle, that it loses the true dramatic core that the first film had in spades, I truly preferred it when Asgard was quieter.