Meanwhile back on earth Jane "Fatal Attraction" Foster is finally allowing herself to leave the basement where she's been holed up the past couple of years sticking pins in her Official Thor action figure and has decided to go on a date. Still smitten by a couple of sweet words and a Hollywood kiss in the desert though she can't see the male forest for the Asgardian oak and basically treats her date like a napkin holder. Thankfully Darcey shows up bearing instruments and suggests that strange things are afoot. Jane of course ditches the napkin holder and she and Darcey follow the techno bread crumbs to an abandoned warehouse where some kids from the "Animatrix" short "Beyond" have discovered a gravity anomily, right there in downtown London of all places. And wouldn't you know it just by walking into an adjoining room Jane stumbles upon some aether - a cosmic concoction not so unlike the black goo from "Prometheus". Whatever this stuff comes in contact with it turns to super-aggressive, super-strong, super-evil. Well, Jane comes in contact with it alright and when she does she drops off the intergalactic grid prompting Thor to intervene personally to find out wazzupwidat.
What he discovers after bringing JF to Asgard (hide the bunny rabbits!) against Odin's wishes is that the aether is the preferred weapon of the Dark Elves. Led by the darkest of the dark Malekith these nasty buggers predate the universe and have never forgiven the big bang for happening. They like the dark. Several thousand years ago they had attempted to take over the universe using the aether but were defeated and the aether buried where no one could find it. (Somebody should have told Odin's dad though that that "bury it where no one will ever find it" stuff never works.) As it turns out the reason Jane and Darcey were able to stumble upon that gravity anomily and by extension the aether was that every 5,000 years there is some sort of cosmic alignment whereby the borders between realms become blurred, hence the burial place of the aether suddenly materializes in London. Right down the street from Jane's place. Amazing!
Meanwhile back in Asgard all hell has broken loose with Dark Elves suddenly appearing in great flying ships and wreaking havoc or' the House of Odin. They're hell bent on destruction and before the dust settles from the initial battle Odin will take on aspects of a war criminal (at least according to Thor) and one member of the cast will head for the unemployment lines.
Back on earth Eric Selvig is running around in his underwear (or less) attempting to warn everyone that the alignment is coming. He might as well be railing about global warming though because nobody's listening, except Darcey. Thank god for Darcey.
Maybe you're starting to pick up on the fact that I had a difficult time buying into the premise at work here. It's too convoluted and far fetched, even for a comic book movie. I can see why Kenneth Branagh pulled out of this project citing "creative differences". He obviously saw that the people in charge of the property didn't really understand it, at least in cinematic terms. He knew (and demonstrated beautifully in the first film) that with a character like this one should paint in broad strokes. The settings should be grand, the story should be simple and the characters given room to breathe. Here, Thor is suffocated by his tiny human love interest, Odin allows someone he considers to be little more than "a goat" to speak to him directly (wouldn't happen) and the broad canvas of the desert is replaced by the repackaged-for-consumerism remnants of empire in London. In Asgard we spend a lot of time in the dungeon or listening to the gods speak of their powerlessness. Not exactly the stuff grandeur is made of. (In one thoroughly unwelcome exchange Odin renounces his Godliness outright. This scene has noted atheist Joss Whedon's fingerprints all over it and while I'm personally sympathetic to Whedon's beliefs methinks he should spend less time trying to rewrite ancient mythology and more time letting the characters be what they are, whether he likes what they are or not.) The characters are also diminished by the constant cross-referencing with other Marvel properties and no one is given a chance to really shine amid all the marketing distractions.
I really wanted to like this movie as I believe the original "Thor" to be the best comic book superhero movie yet made. In and of itself there's nothing wrong with "Thor: The Dark World". It's an attractive, well made piece of 21st century entertainment that should keep the less critical overseas audiences queuing up for weeks. However, it never takes off, doesn't really pay off and pales in comparison to the compelling, cinematic opera the first film was. When taken alongside the disappointing "Iron Man 3" it seems to me that the folks at Marvel have begun to lose their way. I'd like to think that they'll snap out of their daze and leave the marketing department out of the script meetings in the future but that's probably asking way too much. At least as long as the goose continues to lay golden eggs.
Verdict: ★★★☆☆
