The problem with Thor: The Dark World is that it wants to be an action movie. A big, loud roller coaster ride that never lets up and takes you to fantastical worlds filled with creatures unknown.
Marvel Universe movies are not action movies; they are character pieces that occasionally feature some explosions. Iron Man chiseled the template in 2008. That film didn’t work because you were on the edge of you seat when Tony Stark fought Jeff Bridges in a Transformer costume in the final reel. In fact, that final scene is incredibly forgettable. What made the film hum was Robert Downey, Jr. dealing with his mortality and fighting it, watching a man with a super ego become super human and the blossoming relationship with Pepper Potts.
All other Avenger movies followed suit. Lots of talking, little action. Even the culmination of all the characters in The Avengers, which featured the best action sequences of the bunch, really worked best in the scenes where the superheroes were all in one room trying to establish that they were the alpha dog.
Thor 2 tries to break the mold and fails. The story takes place almost entirely away from the planet Earth and strives for a heavy blend of Science Fiction mixed with its heroes donning capes. The results are more a kin to the horrid Ryan Reynolds version of The Green Lantern than they are to the other Marvel Universe films. Characters are lost in the mix and even our beloved villain Loki (Tom Hiddleston) is devolved into a sneering, two dimensional character that says every smartass line with the same smirk.
Chris Hemsworth seems strangely disengaged and Natalie Portman tries to sell it with her best cute but fails. The chemistry between the two that was tangible in the first film is all but lost.
The sets look cheap and un-lived in and the violence is staged with a clunky hand. This really feels more like an episode of television show than a legitimate movie and that may be due to the fact that the film was directed by television director Alan Taylor who was pulled from his duties on Game of Thrones to make this. Marvel Mastermind Producer Kevin Feige also mined his animation department and allowed Christopher Yost to co-write the script with Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely (Captain American). Yost is a veteran of the Marvel Cartoon world and his influence pushed things too close to the comic book world that may have the Con Geeks drooling but isn’t accessible or all that fun.
Making bold creative decisions in the past has worked for the Marvel Movies. Shane Black came from writing gritty cop noir and made a solid flick with Iron Man 3 and Shakespearean thespian Kenneth Branagh directed the first Thor and gave that film some nice gravity as Odin cast Thor to the Midgard. Here, placing unknown commodities in important positions on the set hurt the project and makes me apprehensive about the fact that the next Captain America film is being directed by a pair of brothers known for directing comedy television shows such as Community and Arrested Development. If Thor 2 is any indication of things to come, Marvel Universe Phase 2 may be littered with misfires. I truly hope not. I want Ant Man to rock!