The MCU juggernaut continued with another post-Avengers solos outing, this time with the Mightiest of Asgard’s heroes. But in light of Avengers Assemble’s treatment of all its characters, Greg D. Smith investigates whether director Alan Taylor would stick to the template laid down by Kenneth Branagh in his debut, Whedon’s interpretation, or some third way of his own? As an old foe from the distant past resurfaces to threaten the balance of the universe once again, Thor must decide who he can trust, and where his heart truly belongs.

It’s fair to say that Dark World probably spends most of its time slumming at the bottom of rankings lists of the MCU for most people, together with Iron Man 2 and Incredible Hulk. But as we have already seen from my earlier features, I see much more value in those other two movies than most, so what is there that I can say in defence of Thor’s second solo instalment?

Let’s get my main bugbear out of the way early doors – the main issue with this film is the shadow that Avengers Assemble – and specifically the way that movie treated the challenge of getting all the characters to share the screen with and not get overpowered by Robert Downey Jnr’s Tony Stark. Namely, it made everyone sassy, with quips and one liners zinging between everyone at a rate of knots. Branagh’s original Asgardian outing had used humour, to good effect, but it had been sparing in its application. Unfortunately, Taylor chose the opposite direction.

The first time I saw the movie, my main takeaway was that it was trying too hard to be Avengers Assemble, and forgetting the roots of its initial movie. Arguably, the character with the most disjointed set of solos films is Thor, because we have had three outings with three very different directors and three very different styles. And whereas I won’t get into detail on Ragnarok here, as it isn’t the place, I will say that yes, that movie is also laced with humour and zany one-liners, but it handles them in a very different way, knows when to pull back from them and has a distinct flavour to its humour that separates it from that of Whedon.

On its own though, it’s not a deal breaker – it just feels… disappointing. I spoke of how the characters in Avengers Assemble felt like they had lost some of the individuality from their solo outings, but Thor was the one who seemed in Phase 2 to suffer the most, long term, in that he never got it back again.

Still, a slightly needy side to the way it played its jokes aside, what else did the movie bring to the table? In a pre-Guardians of the Galaxy world, Thor was still our only avenue to the cosmic side of the MCU, his adventures alone taking place in the weird and wonderful possibilities of outer space. Herein lies the first slight problem – whether they’re on Asgard, Vanaheim, Svartalfheim or anywhere else, the characters always seem to be in places that don’t look all that different from Earth. Sure, Asgard in wide shot as approached by a camera looks like an outer space spectacle but close up, where the people we are following are, it looks like a medieval cosplay convention with some admittedly flashy techy bits. Vanaheim just looks like a medieval fair, albeit with the occasional giant stone creature. All things considered, for a story about god-like mythical beings of awesome power and amazing capabilities, Thor: The Dark World has a tendency towards a certain level of visual mundanity.

Not to say that the visual effects are not up to scratch, nor that some of the scenery isn’t very impressive. The chase in the boat, the odd, portal-hopping final fight at the end, the effect of the aether itself and the opening scene depicting the ancient battle between Malekith and Odin’s father Bor are all visually arresting and technically gorgeous, but they represent exceptions in a movie which, when it isn’t set in places which look pretty much like Earth, is actually on Earth.

The movie also makes the mistake of introducing a new villain but retaining Loki for a large chunk. This meant that the villain would have to be a large one – a powerful and charismatic screen presence who could avoid being overshadowed by the beloved trickster prince. Unfortunately Christopher Eccleston, a talented actor perfectly capable of turning on the charm when required, was hamstrung by ropey dialogue which he had to deliver through way too many layers of makeup. Any actor would have struggled here, and Eccleston was no exception.

As much as this is in issue, I can’t deny that Hiddleston gives good value with another sterling performance as Thor’s delinquent brother. We see some depth lies behind the mask at several points – his use of illusive magic to hide his true state from his brother, his genuine emotion at the death of his mother and his willingness to work with Thor to bring her killer to justice. Of course, Marvel isn’t quite ready to let go of their most reliable bad guy just yet either, so he’s not all the way good, and that’s probably a good thing, given what it’s allowed us to get from the character since.

However, the real problem is the Earth-bound cast, so vital in the first outing as a bridge between audience and title character, and so richly and warmly realised. Here, they all become relative caricatures of themselves. Where Jane was a dedicated, socially awkward scientist who fell for the one man in the world fantastical enough to distract her from her work, now she’s just a moon-faced moper, missing her boyfriend and doing her best to convince herself (and everyone else) that she isn’t. Then things get worse, as she gets infected with the Aether and goes straight to the classic trope of the Girl Who Needs to be Saved. Sure, there’s still some fire there (‘That was for New York’, she half-acidly manages as she slaps Loki across the face) but mostly, it seems as if Jane has just resigned herself to being Thor’s girlfriend. Very little in the movie fights against this notion – when she’s not just staring, starry eyed at Thor, or moping that he’s not there, she’s basically used as an exposition device, Portman delivering endless lines of explanatory nonsense to try to convince the viewer that somewhere, actual plot is happening.

Erik Selvig gets worse – apparently after his time spent under the influence of Loki in Avengers Assemble, the good doctor has gone mad, and what follows is a series of terminally unfunny scenes which deal as insensitively with the idea of mental health issues as they possibly can. After the way in which Iron Man 3 had dealt so constructively and brilliantly with the issue of Tony’s own problems post-New York, it’s difficult to believe that this… trash fire of a portrayal comes from the same studio.

And then there’s Darcy. Darcy apparently wasn’t sassy enough in Thor, so in The Dark World, that sass factor is turned up to 11 so that it basically becomes her only definable characteristic, and then she gets paired off with a hapless guy because, of course she does. She does, for what it’s worth, get the funniest line of the movie, but given that it’s a repetition of her mangled attempt at pronouncing ‘Mjolnir’ as the hammer itself whizzes past her face, whatever points it gets for laughs are immediately deducted again for lack of originality.

If it seems like I’m avoiding discussing the plot, there’s good reason – a liking for snappy zingers at every single opportunity of squeezing them into the script is not the only quality this movie shared with Avengers Assemble. The plot, such as it is, is frankly laughable. The Aether is ‘indestructible’ according to Bor at the start, so it just gets buried ‘somewhere nobody will ever find it’. That’s never a good line of dialogue anyway, but when it’s spoken in this context, by a god like being from outer space who travels freely between nine realms, and it translates to ‘stick it on Earth’? Seriously.

Then there’s the whole thing with Malekith himself – a drastically underused character whose purpose seems to be… the destruction of all life everywhere. So to be clear, he sacrificed most of his people so that he and a handful of others could escape into a stasis-bound exile for thousands (possibly millions) of years, only to reappear and then set about destroying all of creation. At least in the opening monologue it’s presented as him wanting to use the Aether to return the universe to Darkness (because they’re Dark Elves and, um, yeah reasons). But at the end, it’s literally just morphed into ‘I want to destroy all of existence because… yeah, um, reasons again, I guess. With little screen time, no discernible or logical motivation and a goal that just seems stupid, little wonder that Malekith does not rate highly in the pantheon of MCU cinematic villains. We get no backstory either – the Dark Elves themselves for example: where do they come from? Who are they? Why do they hate Asgardians? Never mind that, shrugs the movie, look at how edgy and bad they are, they dress in black and have weird, ceramic looking masks that hide their faces and make them all identical, so that they just become an army of generically identical bad guys for our heroes to mow through, just like the Avengers with the Chitauri.

A consistent criticism of the movie’s plot is one that runs through nearly all MCU solo movies since the Avengers assembled: why didn’t the Avengers show up to help? Here, it may seem most relevant of all – the threat is supposedly a world-ending one, huge alien ships appear in London and stuff gets blown up – hell, even the Agents of SHIELD turned up to tidy up afterwards in one of the earlier seasons where these kind of ill-advised attempts at crossing over the show with the movies was still a thing. But in all honesty, it’s kind of understandable. The Avengers very definitely go their separate ways at the end of Assemble, and the events of the finale of Dark World take place over the course of mere hours (if that) in the film’s chronology – those Helicarriers don’t just launch straightaway, and it’s entirely possible that in-universe, there’s a separate story of the rest of the gang just finishing tying up their laces when they get told it’s all over now and they can stand down again.

Still, the final confrontation is another example of the slick FX and stunt work which has become a staple of the MCU, and whereas it lacks some of the soul of other entries in this respect, visually the movie holds its own without too much issue.

Character wise, it’s a mess, with nobody really getting any decent development (with the possible exception of Loki but even there it equates to ‘I’m bad, but I also have a heart and slightly more than two dimensions’). Thor just sort of machos his way from scene to scene, hitting things that get in his way. Eccelston has the definite air of someone who’s realised too late how little the part he’s got resembles what he imagined and is just trying to get the hours done so he can go home and Portman looks positively bored, though given how ill-used her character is, it’s difficult to feel ill will towards her on that score.

Some people, in seeking to defend it, will tell you that Thor: The Dark World isn’t a bad film, and they’re right – it’s not the sort of actively terrible thing that you hate-watch. But it’s also not a good film either. When people talk about the MCU as a soulless corporate experiment in templated popcorn blockbusters, I mostly disagree with them. Thor: The Dark World is the exception – this is the (thankfully sole) example of the studio settling. They put together almost the same cast as the first movie (congrats if you noticed that Zach Levy was the new Fandral, recast after commitments to a TV show left Joshua Dallas unable to reprise the role – it’s not like it mattered) but chucked out all of the heart that made that movie work, replacing it with a never-ending stream of snark and a bigger plot that somehow managed to feel so much smaller.

If it feels like I’ve spent a lot of time talking about Avengers Assemble here; hopefully the reason why is obvious. This is the most cynical MCU movie by far, created as a sort of semi-clone of the 2012 ensemble in a lazy attempt at scoring the same levels of success for very little effort. Thankfully, it isn’t a complete loss. It has its moments, and it works well enough as one of those brainless popcorn flicks if that’s your thing. Most importantly of all, Marvel sat up and took notice, and nothing this derivative, lazy and unambitious darkened the MCU again. If this movie has a legacy, let it be that it saved us from any more like it.