Week 11: Thor: The Dark World

I got some good chuckles out of this Thor installment. And I appreciate that most of the action takes place away from Earth, which takes away the “where the hell are the rest of the Avengers?” argument.

Shield is still… CSI: Shield to me.

Well, that was unexpected! I actually liked it this time. For years I considered this the worst Marvel film, and low expectations might have helped me get more out of it today. The stiff Asgardian dialogue played better (you can sense the actors getting more comfortable with it), the CGI-driven action played better (streaming in HD helped me notice more detail), and the plot made more sense this time (I think because I cared enough to pay more attention this time).

The film has just two major problems. One, the villains are incredibly dull. I can't tell frost giants from dark elves any better than I could tell the various mer of Skyrim apart, so this felt like a rehash of the last film, except that the henchmen all wear masks this time so that they have no facial expressions. Malekith and Kurse have zero personality. There's a huge void in the film because we should have feelings about them. And two, there's just not enough humor. The film really needed punching up by a script doctor to add some wit. There's a van floating in the air and slowly spinning, and the funniest thing Darcy can say is "that doesn't seem right"?

The music is pretty good here, with a decent heroic theme and especially good music in the funeral, which was a gorgeous sequence if a bit fridgey. There's only one piece of music that could have improved the film: Kelly suggested that during the Greenwich finale, when all of the characters and monsters were chasing each other into and out of portals, the movie should have played "Yakety Sax." (6/10)