So, last Wednesday, I got my Thor: The Dark World (which will be referred to as TTDW from now on in this review) DVD in the mail. This was the sequel to Marvel's Thor (2011) movie, which introduced Thor (the Norse god of thunder) and his adopted brother, Loki.
To understand fully what's going on in TTDW, you have to have watched Thor and The Avengers first, or you'll be completely and utterly lost as to why the nine realms were not at peace, why the Bifrost was destroyed, and why Jane Foster (Thor's love interest) wigs out on Thor when he returns to Midgard (Earth).
With that said...let's continue. [Edit: The DVD comes with two bonus features: "Jane learns about the Aether", and an exclusive look at Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Both are very awesome. The Blu-Ray has a lot more bonus features, from what I've heard. I'm sure they'll be on Youtube!]
Things are a little slow-moving in the absolute very beginning, but you have to keep close attention to the prologue so you are able to understand what all is going on in the movie. In the prologue, Anthony Hopkins narrates and tells about Malekith and the Dark Elves, who reside in one of the nine realms -- the Dark World. They possess an extremely powerful object, similar to the Tesseract, but very, very dangerous -- the Aether. It cannot be destroyed, so when the Dark World is under attack by Asgard's army, they bury it somewhere they hope will prevent it from being found; and it stays there for likely thousands of years...until Jane finds it on accident.
After the prologue, the first person you see is Loki -- brought to Odin in chains. He is sentenced to life in Asgard's dungeon, and without contact to the only person he connected with and cared about: Frigga. This was two years ago, after he was brought home from his little adventure in New York (The Avengers).
Things are going along well enough in Asgard after that. The nine realms are at peace, the Bifrost repaired, and Thor is well on his way to becoming king of Asgard, replacing his father.
Until the Aether is reactivated by Jane Foster, which regenerates Malekith and his Dark Elves.
When all this happens, Thor goes back to Jane, takes her to Asgard, and they find out what happened to her. As all of this is happening, the Dark Elves are working on their revenge attack on Asgard.
From here on out, the spoiler-free plot is that Thor ends up joining forces with Loki and Jane on this epic journey to stop the nine realms from from throwing Earth completely off and possibly destroying it. There are so many twists and turns in the film, and it's just absolutely perfect, very hilarious, and at the same time, there are a couple of scenes that are just really, really sad.
I definitely reccomend Thor: The Dark World. It is an awesome movie, has this amazing soundtrack to boot, and any Marvel/Thor/Loki fan will like it! Make sure to watch through all the credits to see the mid-credit and after credit scenes, one of which includes what happens to the Aether after the movie's end.
Fun fact: Fandral is played by Zachary Levi. Is anyone a Zac Levi fan? I know I am...
Has anyone seen Thor: The Dark World? Anyone planning on seeing it?
Now, I'm going to continue with the review with some insight on the movie, but if you want to remain spoiler-less, I'd highly reccomend stopping
HERE.
***SPOILERS NEXT**
Frigga dies.
Loki dies. Or does he?
Oh, and there's this little part how Loki starts going by "Loki of Jotenheim", just to trick Malekith and the Dark Elves...which is cool.
Frigga's funeral is truly one of the most emotional funerals that I have seen in a movie like TTDW. It's beautiful, yet so tragic, and I had the score from this scene stuck in my head for days.
But what I wonder is...Frigga taught Loki all of his tricks. This is shown not only when Thor is arguing with Loki and says "You had her tricks, but I had her trust!", but also when the Kursed enters the room she and Jane are hiding in. She created Jane's illusion so that the Kursed and the Dark Elves wouldn't take her, so why didn't she create an illusion for herself? If she would have done so, the illusion could have fought them off and they would have both been safe. I realize that this was a major game-changer in the movie, but that's just a thought. Or did she just not have as many magical abilities that Loki did?
There's also a little piece in which Loki and Thor are talking about Jane and the fact that her body won't be able to handle the Aether's power, where Thor is reluctant to even admit that something might happen to Jane. Of course, I can see why he wouldn't want to look at that reality. But Loki also gave an excellent, quick speech that while you can avoid the matter as long as you want, but someday -- and it could be either a heartbeat away, or years and years away -- someone will leave your life, and you won't be prepared, and avoiding it will not help, especially if you don't tell someone how you feel about them before their time is up -- or even if they just go away.
Or at least, that's how I took it. This was, though, excellent foreshadowing.
Which brings me to something else:
Loki's death scene is absolutely sudden and heartbreaking. A++ acting to Tom Hiddleston, and this scene just kills me every time I watch it -- especially the part where he's apologizing and telling Thor that yes, he was a fool. And the part where he says "I didn't do it for him?" Yeah. Wow.
Which brings me to ANOTHER thing. What on earth did Loki DO?
Obviously, this all worked out in his favor, being that he ended up being the king of Asgard, but how? He obviously fine-tuned his illusions whilst his two-year-long stay in Asgard's prisons, so did he create an illusion of himself, to make Thor think he was dead? Or was it
Lorelei, who just made an appearance on Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D last night? If you are interested in reading the info on Lorelei, click her name above. Paragraphs 3 and 4 are the bits that are most crucial to this other idea.
Also, what did he do with Odin?
And will Thor find out eventually that he left Asgard in the hands of not his father, but his brother? Or will this remain hush-hush? Hmm...Marvel, we need a Loki movie. We need it, and we need answers -- ASA-Please.
So, what does everyone think? If you read through all that, congratulations -- you're awesome. Feel free to comment, I love talking about fandoms!
