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Movie ties into other media, holds up well

Disney’s Marvel Studios has left itself a lot to live up to, after it’s success with The Avengers and it’s growing fanbase for movies like Iron Man and Captain America. Thor: The Dark World has been hyped up for months now, hinting and promoting itself at Comic-Con and spreading the word on Twitter and Facebook, and being a fan of Marvel movies, I was understandably excited.

Hoping it wouldn’t fall short of expectations, I attended the film and was not disappointed.The movie opens to the sound of the character Odin’s (Anthony Hopkins) voice, telling a story about a war fought many, many years ago. He tells about this race of dark elves, and a dark elf named Malekith (Christopher Eccleston) who planned to plunge the 9 realms, including the earth, and other worlds in the Marvel universe, into darkness, using an ancient weapon known as the Aether.

Malekith was stopped and the Aether hidden where no one could find it. That is, no one could find until now. Odin finishes his story, giving the viewers a bit of background for the movie, and the movie jumps to see Jane Foster (Natalie Portman), astrophysicist and Thor’s (Chris Hemsworth) love interest in the first movie.

Her assistant, Darcy Lewis (Kat Dennings), interrupts Jane’s date with someone in London to show her these unusual readings their instruments picked up. After a bit of prompting, she convinces Jane to come with her and Ian, Darcy’s intern, to investigate it.

On Asgard, Thor’s home world, we see Loki (Tom Hiddleston), villain in The Avengers, marched in the palace in chains and sent to the dungeon by Odin. We also get a glimpse at what Thor’s been doing all this time; trying to unite and bring peace to the 9 realms. Jane and Darcy, meanwhile, drive out to this abandoned warehouse location, and investigate a strange set of anomalies they found: objects being dropped and disappearing midair, heavy objects reacting as if there is no gravity and floating and many other strange occurrences.

Jane separates from the group to look around, and manages to disappear herself, being transported to a place that is definitely not earth. This sets off a wide chain of events, involving Thor, Loki, a reawakened Malekith and the Aether, setting the plot into motion.

Thor: The Dark World does a great job at picking up where the other movies left off, showing us the original Thor characters and what’s happened to them after the events of The Avengers.

The film also handled having multiple story lines ongoing in one “universe” rather well, hinting at ABC’s new show Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and alluding to the events and affects of the earlier film The Avengers. Thor: The Dark World acknowledges the presence of these ongoing stories without drawing too much attention away from it’s own story.

The movie itself is hilarious, getting myself and the whole theater to laugh at the sarcastic one-liners delivered by Loki and other jokes made throughout the movie. The humor never distracted too much from the actual story and balanced out the sadder points of the movie as well.

There is a lot of tension in the film, especially with Loki, who struggles with a lot of inner turmoil and the consequences of his actions during Thor and The Avengers. Thor needs Loki’s help in the film, making Loki the anti-hero instead of villain of the movie.

The special effects and CGI in the movie are well done, the acting fantastic and over all quality of the film is great. If I could, I would rate this movie 3.5 stars. It isn’t a three star film, but it isn’t the best it could be. Despite its occasional weak story points and plot holes, Thor: The Dark World is an enjoyable and well made film, and makes a great addition to Marvel’s ever-growing movie collection.

Thor: The Dark World runs at 120 minutes and is rated PG-13 for violence.

Follow The Feather via Twitter and Instagram: @thefeather and @thefeatheronline. This writer can be reached via Twitter: @ejLadd

For more reviews, read the Nov. 8 article, Book turned movie impresses with effects.