The Norse god of thunder returned to the Marvel movie fold in October last year (2013) and it’s been followed up with the home entertainment release recently, with the Thor: The Dark World DVD. As with the first movie things are a bit hit and miss at times but on the whole it’s a visually impressive thrill-ride that brings the comic book series to life pretty well.
The storyline picks up after the defeat of Loki and Laufy in the first movie and the events in New York in The Avengers as Thor is pretty busy trying to bring peace to the nine realms one battle at a time. With Jane Foster (Natalie Portman) pining away on earth for the big guy, and the hammer wielding berserker trying to stop himself from bringing too much trouble to the love of his life, the scene is set for a reunion when trouble arrives in the form of dark elves.
Led by Maliketh (played by Christopher Eccleston), the dark elves were the only creatures alive before the stars began to shine in the sky, when all that existed was their dominion and the darkness of the void. However, when life and light pierced their existence they spent eons coming up with a force that could bring an end to everything and return them to their hegemony, which they called The Ether.
When Odin crushed their plans, decimating their race and leaving Maliketh and the remaining dark elves locked in stasis aboard their attack fleet, The Ether was hidden away, but when the nine realms began to align, creating space-time links between the worlds, The Ether is awakened by Foster as suddenly the dark forces rise again to bring an end to the known universe once again, leaving Thor with no choice but to return to Jane’s side and join forces to the jailed Loki (Tom Hiddleston). Watch the trailer below if that’s all a bit too confusing to work out.
Chris Hemsworth (Snow White and the Huntsman) is as Thor like as anyone could possibly be as he fully embodies the cinematic adaptation of the super-being from Asgard to perfection. It’s a similar story for Tom Hiddleston, who brings a lot of depth to the character of Loki, ranging from anger and vengeance, to sardonic wit, sorrow, deception and glib power.
Natalie Portman plays a pretty faultless Dr. Jane Foster too, with more than a few of the best scenes in the film featuring her in action, not least of all her epic slaps. She’s got a bit of light comic relief from Kat Dennings as her intern Darcy, and while the jokes bring a little too much comedy to the movie at times, making us feel that director Alan Taylor needed to dial this aspect down a little, it wouldn’t have been as entertaining without her. It’s a similar story for the inclusion of Chris O’Dowd as Foster’s bumbling blind date.
Christopher Eccleston puts in a sinister performance as the lead villain in the movie, Maliketh, Lord of the dark elves, but he’s let down just a little by the make-up design department, which doesn’t quite get the character to look as impressive as they perhaps could have done. While his dialogue, foreboding demeanor and resolute defiance is all present in abundance, he just looks a bit too fabricated, so he’s not entirely the malevolent baddie he might have been. The special effects of his weapon, The Ether, are also a little bit underwhelming and poorly executes, so all-in-all Eccleston had a lot working against him, so the performance he gave was impressive under the circumstances.
Idris Elba (Pacific Rim) has a bit more to say in The Dark World than he did in the first movie, but it’s sort of delivered a little too conversationally to portray the all-seeing guardian of the Bifröst Bridge, Haimdall. That said, he does feature in some very cool action scenes when the dark elves attack Asgard and he gets to take down one of the massive attack ships single handed.
Anthony Hopkins doesn’t exactly live up to his best acting capabilities either as he just sort of delivers his Odin lines without giving his all. However, Rene Russo features a little more in the latest movie as the queen of Asgard, Frigga, and her role in the development of the storyline is delivered very well, especially her fight scenes, which are very convincing.
As with the previous film, the warriors three are less than impressive and feature as a background joke more than anything. Jaimie Alexander does a lot to make up for this though as she fills the boots of Thor’s childhood warrior friend Sif quite well.
The special effects and visuals are very impressive for the majority of the time throughout the film with awesome construction of the Asgard backdrop and the dark elf attack battle ships. However, they don’t all work out so well as the animation effects for The Ether and the fight scenes with Algrim the Strong when he’s in his monstrous alternate form are very hard to buy into.
However, the most significant let down for the movie is that some of the makeup and costume design is just a bit week. We’ve mentioned Maliketh earlier in the review, but actually it’s a criticism that could be levied at all of the dark elves, including both sets of costumes for Algrim the Strong (played by Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje), although it’s also the case for the warriors three and pretty much all of the baddies in the battle for the nine realms in the beginning of the film.
It’s kind of weird though, because other costume design works well in the movie, including Thor, Odin, Frigga, Sif or any of the Asgardian guards, but it’s just not consistent throughout. While this doesn’t ruin the movie as such, it does take the edge of things, resulting a movie that doesn’t quite live up to its potential.
It also contributes to the feeling that you’re watching a movie set being filmed at times as opposed to believable scenes that draw you into the film. This is mainly in the opening scenes where Thor is fighting to bring peace to the nine realms as it looks a bit too much like a bad version of Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit.
The Thor: The Dark World DVD is still a lot of fun, if a bit silly at times, and has a good framework underlying it. When you write it down, the storyline sounds incredibly imposing and monumental, and while the movie does deliver on this to some degree, it also misses the mark a little too.
DVD extras include: never before seen extended and deleted scenes, a gag reel, an exclusive look at Captain America: The Winter Soldier, a 30 minute featurette on the brotherly journey of Thor and Loki, a behind the scenes look at the scoring of Thor: The Dark World with Brian Tyler and audio commentary with director Alan Taylor, producer Kevin Feige, Tom Hiddleston and cinematographer Kramer Morgenthau.
Thor: The Dark World DVD review: 3.4/5
