A Decade On: Revisiting Thor: The Dark World
In 2013, the Marvel Cinematic Universe was going through a transition. With the help of new owners at Disney, the studio had successfully pulled off The Avengers the year before, and two of the undeniably greatest entries in the long series were just ahead in 2014. But the two movies released in 2013 struggled under the increasing pressure of the MCU. Iron Man 3 was criticized for feeling a lot like an anti-Iron Man movie that made some of the actual superhero action feel weirdly tacked on (but that’s what makes it good, actually). And the much-derided Thor: The Dark World seemed like all of the still-young MCU’s worst impulses being brought to light for the first time: A forgettable villain, a largely pointless MacGuffin, and a tiring dependence on Infinity Stone mythology that wouldn’t pay off for several more years. Anthony Hopkins has figured out what we all knew about Marvel movies
But the MCU has grown a lot creakier in the last decade. Those worst impulses are more noticeable than ever, even when there are still good movies coming out of Kevin Feige’s marvelous machine, so it’s the perfect time to consider reappraising Thor: The Dark World. Is it really worse than, say, Black Widow and Eternals and Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness and Ant-Man And The Wasp: Quantumania and Thor: Love And Thunder and Avengers: Age Of Ultron? (Just to name a few random examples.) Or was it just one of the first MCU movies to feel like a real stinker, beyond even the general disappointment of Iron Man 2, and that feeling has stuck with everyone ever since? It would be nice to think of Thor: The Dark World as a lost, hidden gem of the MCU; a great work of superhero art that nobody appreciated at the time and has become more special in retrospect. It’s not. What it is, is perfectly fine. The Dark World is no longer the low point of the MCU, and by comparison to some of the lesser films that followed, it is very watchable almost annoyingly so.
This Loki was a great character in Ragnarok and sacrificed his life to save Thor in Avengers: Infinity War than the one written by the weirdly misogynistic Joss Whedon in The Avengers He is similar to Loki, and spin-offs are currently in the works. The Off Show on Disney+. Technically, it’s a different Loki, but multiverse and all. But even if Loki isn’t Loki, it’s Darcy Lewis, played by Kat Dennings, who quietly plays a part in this movie. When we got back from the first Thor, she was like, “What is Norse mythology?” Darcy’s main job this time around, standing in for the audience, is to add spice to the boring exposition scenes that Natalie Portman’s Jane Foster has to handle, allowing Jane Foster to become more actively involved in the plot. Despite being there, I can’t do anything interesting or interesting. This is interesting. The best line of the movie comes just minutes after Thor’s little laugh, when Darcy and Thor are reunited and Darcy asks Darcy what “the universe” is like, and Darcy replies, “The universe is fine.” It’s a scene. Loud funny funny? No, it’s just a sweet little moment that feels at least a little bit real in a movie that’s 90% about magical portals. In an even worse film, perhaps the truest expression of the undeniable nadir of nearly 30 films, Dennings’ self-aware “what we’re doing is weird” comment is deeply offensive. (and it is also false). Marvel’s Throne and some of her Marvel movies often fail, but she’s so good at it that she makes up for the stupid storylines.