owlmoose | Thor: The Dark World

T took today off work, so we went to catch an early afternoon showing of The Dark World. Very fun! I had some issues, mostly minor, which I will put under the cut below. But overall I enjoyed it quite a lot. T liked it, too. Don't go looking for a strong, coherent plot. This one is about the spectacle and the characters, which is perfectly fine with me.

The Good:

Thor and Jane. Thor/Jane. Yes. I thought the way the Asgardians side-eyed their relationship was realistic, but I am so, so glad that it never developed into a full-blown Sif/Thor/Jane love triangle. Frigga did make a couple of nudges in that direction, but I never got the sense that Sif really wanted him for herself as much as she was concerned that mooning over Jane was bad for him.

Thor and Loki and just how Loki was used in this film overall. I have some questions about how it all shook out in the end, but I really thought it all worked just right.

DARCY. Darcy having an intern, Darcy taking initiative, Darcy being Darcy. I could wish that she and Jane spent more time interacting, but oh well.

Jane and Darcy save the day with Science!

The visuals and the battle scenes. The scenery and costumes were just gorgeous. I can safely say I never expected to see a dogfight in a Thor movie, but it worked well. And then the final battle, with the portals opening and closing between worlds, was both epic and entertaining.

Entertaining is just the right word for this movie. I loved that there was so much humor in it -- the film would not have worked nearly as well if the tone had been too serious.

Still a good strong slate of female characters who have agency and interact with each other, although see below. But Thor continues to be better about this than the other MCU films.

The Less Good:

Jane was a little too much damsel in distress at some points in this film. I mean, not terrible, not out of bounds, but it twinged at me in places. Fortunately, she was back to kicking asses with science by the end.

The killing off of Frigga for real. I understand why they did it, and it's not the worst way it could have been handled, but still... more dead mothers, yay. And semi-fridged, at that: although her death did come based on the choices she made to protect her home, still, its main function in the plot was to make Odin stupid and give Thor and Loki an incentive to work together. The Asgardian funeral was pretty awesome, at least.

We didn't get to see Sif's epic solo battle. Booooo.

Thor falling for Loki's fake death. Yeah, he was pretty convincing, but come on. He's a master of illusion, and it was the perfect opportunity to slip away from Asgard and prison. Thor should have known better. I certainly did.

The OMG LOKI'S IMITATION OF CAPTAIN AMERICA OMG I WAS DYING OF FANGIRL GLEE I NEED THE BLU-RAY RIGHT NOW SO I CAN WATCH THAT SCENE A BILLION MORE TIMES NOW PLEASE CHRIS EVANS I LOVE YOU:

Yeah, that pretty much says it all.

So, yeah, a good time. And now we start counting the days until April...