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THOR: THE DARK WORLD - Grading & Discussion

Grade the movie...

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    110
A

Agent Richard07

Admiral
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[highlight]***SPOILERS AHEAD***[/highlight]





hammertime-darkworld.jpg


Marvel's 'Thor: The Dark World' continues the big-screen adventures of Thor, the Mighty Avenger, as he battles to save Earth and all the Nine Realms from a shadowy enemy that predates the universe itself. - Moviefone
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According to Marvel.com, ABC's 'Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.' will feel the repercussions from the House of Ideas' latest major motion picture in the show's November 19th episode titled 'The Well'. Here’s the official synopsis:

"In the aftermath of the events chronicled in the feature film Marvel's 'Thor: The Dark World', Coulson and the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. pick up the pieces–one of which threatens to destroy a member of the team." - Source
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Official Website | IMDb Page | Wikipedia Entry
Box Office Mojo Page | Rotten Tomatoes Page | Metacritic Page

[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=npvJ9FTgZbM[/yt]​
 
Saw it on tuesday. Here's what I thought:

Thor: The Dark World is both the funniest and the best-looking Marvel movie yet! I liked the first Thor quite a bit, but this one easily blows it out of the water, giving even The Avengers a run for its money in terms of entertainment value. The visual effects, cinematography, and production design are nothing short of breathtaking, the characters are hugely enjoyable all around, and the action-packed story, which effectively interweaves sci-fi and fantasy elements, is exciting, funny, and emotionally engaging.

If I had any complaint, it's that the villain isn't all that interesting, but this doesn't really matter much, since he doesn't take up a lot of space, and the interactions between Loki, Thor, Jane and the rest more than make up for it.
 
I liked it.

The way Jane stumbles into the main story is pretty random.
The convergence of the 9 realms was pretty disappointing, effect wise. Just a bunch of flat discs hovering over each other.
I liked to see Thor and Loki in action together.

Anyone know what happened to Odin in the end?

But where's Shield? This and Iron Man 3 lack Shield, which seems pretty unusual, given how prominently it appeared in the Phase 1 movies, and eventually in Avengers.
 
JarodRussell said:
I liked it.

The way Jane stumbles into the main story is pretty random.
The convergence of the 9 realms was pretty disappointing, effect wise. Just a bunch of flat discs hovering over each other.
I liked to see Thor and Loki in action together.

Anyone know what happened to Odin in the end?

But where's Shield? This and Iron Man 3 lack Shield, which seems pretty unusual, given how prominently it appeared in the Phase 1 movies, and eventually in Avengers.
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They are busy watching Coulson's weekly adventures and preparing for Captain America 2 :)
 
B-

The Good

- Once again, Chris Hemsworth was fantastic as the larger-than-life hero who acted with strength and spoke with old style formality. He's a good actor.

- Hiddleston was great too. He's what you'd call "deliciously evil" but he had some other good moments too.

- The hammer work that combined Hemsworth's own skill with some pretty creative effects was incredible and fun to watch. I think we have here an entirely new fighting style. Hammer Fu.

- Asgard was a fascinating place and I enjoyed seeing more of it. Tech so advanced that it looks like magic.

- Lots of big names reprised their bit parts and non-starring roles. I'm impressed that someone made that happen.

The Bad

- Not the most compelling story. I thought the first movie was better in this department.

- Hemsworth's Thor and Portman's Jane were a mismatch. They didn't have much in the way of chemistry.

Other Stuff

- I totally didn't recognize Zachary Levi. Click here to see. :eek: Apparently he replaced Josh Dallas who couldn't reprise the role because he of his commitment to Once Upon a Time. I wouldn't have known. It was a bit character.

- There's a mid-credit scene and an end-credit scene so stay for those.

I didn't understand the mid-credit scene but I hear that it has something to do with Guardians of the Galaxy.
 
I won't get to see the movie till tomorrow, but this short fight scene looks awesome and hilarious at the same time.
[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=kpEDUvU3dI8[/yt]
 
It was a good, fun, fast-paced action movie! Almost too fast-paced at times, but the frantic feel really worked in the crazy final act. Chris Hemsworth and Natalie Portman were really good and OF COURSE Tom Hiddleston was great at Loki. The final twist got an APPROVING MURMUR from the audience.

All the characters get good stuff to do. Some less than others, granted (poor Hogun) but every scene moves the plot on and there's no pointless filler. Frigga got a pretty good part (considering she didn't speak in the first move until 90 minutes in) and I liked the scene with her and Loki. Her death scene was good too and she had a really pretty funeral!

I've seen people complain that there's too much humour but I wonder if those people have actually seen a Marvel movie before? Maybe a couple of the jokes could have been cut, but was all good humour and a lot of it was laugh out loud. Kat Dennings was really good as Darcy and I was pleased she was relevant to the plot and had a lot more to do than in the first movie. But the humour highlight was probably Stellan Skarsgard, surprisingly! And his lack of trousers. The Chris Evans cameo was hilarious too.

I liked the design of Asgard. It felt more like a real place this time and less like Rainbow Road from Mario Kart. I like that they have flying boat things.

The final fight travelling through the portals was more fun than just a straight fight would have been and they brought back the ice dog thing from the first movie and I love that ice dog thing. Having Jane and friends involved helped make it different from a standard super hero finale.

I liked that because it was set in England there were recognisable brand names (Vimto!)

ON THE DOWNSIDE

I watched a press conference thing a couple of weeks ago where Alan Taylor or Christopher Eccleston said about the villain Malekith "hey has a really compelling backstory...that you'll see on the Blu Ray release!" I thought they were joking but no, most of his backstory scenes seem to have been cut. And the prologue narrated by Odin feels a bit halfassed and too similar to the first movie with Laufrey. It's a shame because Eccleston does a good evil sneer and I would have liked more scenes with him talking to Mister Eko. But as I said it's such a fast paced movie that I guess they thought he only needed the bare minimum of screentime.

They kind of set something up with Sif being jealous of Jane but it never goes anywhere. But I didn't really want to see Sif being all bitchy anyway. Also Jaimie Alexander was badly injured during filming and I think they had to scarp some of her scenes.

I can see why Alan Taylor didn't like the mid-credits scene. It's not bad but the tone is completely different to the rest of the movie. They should have swapped it with the post credits scene.

STILL this was another hugely enjoyable Marvel movie and there's definitely room for a Thor 3.
 
Great movie! I really liked it. There was balanced story telling and good use of all the characters, including secondary ones like Heimdall, Freija, Dr. Selvig and D'Arcy. Even Jane had a much more important and bigger role as an unlikely vessel of the Aether.

I loved Tom Hiddleston who owned his character Loki, whom I felt was such a scene stealer. The god of mischief was the one everyone loved to hate, but I almost felt sorry for his "death."

Hemsworth looked more buff than ever. Oh my! I wish there were more shirtless scenes of him. And Thor has shown more maturity after two movies. He has really developed into a noble character less the cockiness in the original movie.

I gushed seeing Captain America's cameo. That was pretty clever. And I liked the extra scene following the credits. "One down, seven more to go. "

I give it a solid A.
 
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It's not perfect, but I had a great time. Certainly a major improvement on the first (and I rather like that one.) It delivered on the epic sci-fi/fantasy action spectacle that I felt the first film was really lacking. Lots of great humor as well, especially from Loki. He really walks away with the movie. I hope the powers that be at Marvel realize what a gem they have with Hiddleston as Loki. They should continue to insert him anywhere it's practical to do so.

On the downside, Malekith is rather shallow as a villain. He doesn't have much to do other than be the threat. This is especially disappointing with Christopher Eccleston playing him. I really wish he had been more engaging.

As for the stinger, this one is problematic. Anybody without the requisite comic book knowledge is just going to be completely confused. It doesn't help that the thing is so awkwardly filmed, and doesn't mesh at all with the tone or style of the film that preceded it. So in the MCU the Tesseract and the Aether are Infinity Gems? I assume they're going to change form once applied to a certain gauntlet.
 
Not as good as the first. Since sequels practically never are, I wasn't disappointed. I like the characters from the first movie, and I enjoyed seeing them again.

Swords and ray guns are just a lousy visual mix. I could willingly suspend disbelief, but a decent design would have left more energy to willingly suspend disbelief for the plot. The discovery that nudity improves thinking to the point that Selvig's tech is so useful is quite a strain. Perhaps if Jane Foster had stripped down to her underwear too Thor wouldn't have been needed at all.

Lots of ill-motivated hugger mugger and to-ing and fro-ing weakened Thor's dramatic choice which rather came out of the blue. Even more confusing, if a mortal lifetime is such a nothing, Thor taking a vacation with Jane is also a nothing.

B-
 
To me, one of the strongest points of this movie is that it combines both fantastical and sci-fi elements in the way it shows the battle scenes in Asgard and other worlds. The realms are like a combination of Star Wars and Lord of the Rings, with sort of medieval and high-tech warfare.
 
A-.

Malekith isn't a very developed villain, but I don't think the one from the comics is either; he's a classic myth villain. He wants to destroy the universe, because that's the sort of thing a Dark Elf instinctively wants to do.

The film has great action, terrific design, and effective humour. It also probably has a few too many supporting characters, but that's nothing new. It's also a bit unfortunate that Frigga was in the first movie so little, because the biggest emotional aspect of the film would work better if that had been the case.

Also, Sir Anthony seemed kind of bored to me.
 
I just got back from the movie and I enjoyed it. It wasn't perfect, parts of it dragged and the main villain was woefully underdeveloped.

-Asgard is finally opened up and it's one of the highlights of the movie. It was cool seeing the other realms and having Thor and Malekith realm-hop really helped the final battle stand out.

-Chris Hemsworth once again nails it as Thor.

-Tom Hiddleston once again steals the show. He dominates every scene that's Loki swerves and swerves you never know what you're going to get from him. The reveal at the end was pretty awesome. Loki remains the only memorable villain in these recent Marvel movies.

-Which brings us to the villains. I've been a fan of Christopher Eccleston since I watched the first series of Doctor Who but they gave him absolutely NOTHING here. His henchman fares better here but the Dark Elfs are are woefully underdeveloped. I hear their scenes were cut to include more Loki. It was the right decision but I still wish they could have done a better job with the villains. Having Makekith get his butt kick by Thor's mom and reciting most of his lines in an alien language did him no favors either.

-Anthony Hopkins was good but really seemed to be showing his age at times. The Thor/Odin conflict works as Odin can be a prick sometimes.

-I was glad they gave Rene Russo more to do but sadly Frigga ended up getting fridged. But it did give the movie an emotional kick.

-I'm glad they gave Jane more to do in the story, which was lacking in the first movie. Natalie Portman is fine but the Thor/Jane relationship really pales in comparison to Tony/Pepper and Cap/Peggy. Her opening sequence is one of the scenes that dragged in the movie.

-Speaking of having more to do, I'm so glad that Idris Elba's role as Haimdell was expanded. He was awesome in the movie.

-Loved seeing Thor lead Sif, The Warriors Three, and the Asgardians into battle. I wish we could have seen more of them.

-Jane is okay but I don't see how Thor can have no interest whatsoever in Sif.

-Finally, the Captain America cameo was a brilliant little moment. I was also happy Marvel showed a scene from the upcoming Captain America movie.
 
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I see Josh Dallas has been replaced by another actor. I can understand, seeing as he's no doubt committed to his show Once Upon A Time.
 
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