If making movies like this was easy, everyone would do it

I watched Thor. Seems like yesterday, but we know it wasn’t. It was a great action flick, with a little adventure thrown in, and they weren’t afraid to insert some comedy, too. It was the fantasy elements in that movie (when they were in Asgard, as opposed to Earth) that really sold me on it the first time. It still managed to be a super-hero movie. I liked it.

I watched Thor: The Dark World. I chose to go in cold, as I am now wont to do. You’d think I had a real job to do, being too busy to spoiler movies for myself or pay attention to trailers. Thankfully, dear ghost readers, I take time out of my busy day for you. Yeah, I guess that wasn’t a choice. Anyway. Dark Elves. The movie started with dark elves and I was kind of shocked. Just didn’t see it coming until it hit, though it made sense. Dark World. Dark Elves. Thor. Norse mythology. Where dark elves come from…right? And then there was the constant mention of Malekith.

Yeah, I never read any Walt Simonson. Give me blunt trauma with a hammer.

At first, I thought I was watching a Warhammer movie about Malus Darkblade. Maybe Warhammer 40k? Look at all those shiny suits. Dr. Who? Wraiths from Stargate: Atlantis? We get some tidy exposition, and it’s fun to watch, despite the fact that it’s the usual dark elf mythology. The dark elves use some weird berserker-terrorist tactics. Why doesn’t our world have terrorist berserkers? You would think a crazy semi-naked dude swinging a primitive weapon back and forth while screaming would be about as scary as some skinny dude with a bomb under that horrible, horrible suit with a fused jacket. Always buy canvassed suits, fellows. Gah, I got me started. We’ll talk about that later.

Back to the Dark World. It’s dark. There are dark elves. They’re not all dark. Some are pale. There are shiny sci-fi vikings. The vikings win with a gambit- unfortunately, not the Batman kind. Malekith faithfully informs us that “It’s far from over!”

It’s always far from over.

There’s a village. Some badass dudes fighting vaguely monster-like barbarians. A not-valkyrie leads the way. Sif. I do like her armor. Feminine, yet not, you know, something that will end up parodied in the Hawkeye Initiative.

“Bury it deep!”

“Somewhere no one will find it!”

Thus begins the greatest string of comic relief in a non-comedy ever. It might be simple. It might be vulgar, in the ‘you filthy peasant!’ sort of way, but I’ve grown nothing if not an honest sense of humor. It made me giggle inside. That makes it funny. The scene that follows would be at home in any fantasy movie, with Thor bantering with the  Warriors…Four? I’m going to call them the Warriors Four now. He makes a boast while fighting what looks like an especially large stoneskinned ogre, and what’s better, he proves the boast true. I have read enough with 616 Thor in it to know if this is faithful to the comics, but it definitely hearkens back to the likes of Beowulf and the Norse Sagas, where boasting was a perfectly fine virtue as long as you could back it up.

We’re back in the throne room at Asgard, and the subject of Loki comes up. I’m going to state here that although Thor is the titular character, this is, at it’s heart, a movie with an ensemble cast. It makes full use of that. In the conversation that follows, we basically get that adoption is bad and you can’t escape your blood. I’m not sure if it was meant that way, but that’s unfortunately how it comes across. Loki plays the part of jealous little brother well, and it’s hard to see why the Asgardians, who, as a people, seem fond enough of killing things, haven’t killed him yet.

There’s another fantasy battle, and again, it’s got everything you expect from one of those. Except, you know, they do a better job than most fantasy movies. I could be watching Lord of the Rings, and the choreography is sufficiently dazzling- not quite Dazzler, though. There’s not enough dancing (or disco) for that!

The aesthetic of this movie is beautifully unified. Whoever those set and costume designers were, I should’ve taken enough time to find out what their names are. Sorry. I’m lazy. They did a great job. We get back to Asgard, which, I must say, looks like a prettier version of Dinotopia, if any of you remember that tv show and mini-series.

We’re given a quick recap of who Jane Foster is, and why we should care about her. There’s a requisite amount of brooding on both sides, and better yet, a male hunk scene. If you weren’t sold already, this bit of Chris Hemsworth eye candy should settle it. There’s Chris O’Dowd, playing one of the characters he’s been typecast into. That’s alright. You can never get enough of those, even in a movie where it seems like it shouldn’t work. Because it does. You can even forget you’re watching Thor, and pretend you’re watching some new HBO comedy. Not quite enough understatement there to be on Channel Four. Still great.

There’s a naked Skarsgård but it’s not True Blood! Or Vikings. Hrm. I guess we do get enough of them. Can you really ever have enough, though? I’m not too sure what his nakedness has to do with the plot, other than to show that he’s gone a little wonky post-Avengers, but personally, I can deal with it. Kat Jennings proves herself a force to be reckoned with as the snarky sidekick to Jane Foster, and I have to admit that I’m probably going to give 2 Broke Girls a shot now. Darcy’s intern, yes, the intern’s intern, makes Wallace + Gromit faces.

You know that thing from the prologue that was hidden? The dark elf weapon? Jane finds it. SPOILERS. She goes to fantasy land, and it seems like she’s infected with toxoplasm. Except instead of maybe making rats attracted to predatory cats, the mind control here renders her amicable to dark elves? It’s not clear, at first.

The envious child comes back in the form of Loki, but Jane is also in Alderaan with…hrm, yes. Asgard sort of looks like Alderaan, too. Except Chris Hemsworth is a hottie and Hayden Christensen is a not- just not. There’s finally a kiss everyone waited for. It’s funny how this movie, that’s focused on action, adventure, and comedy, plays with dramatic tension so well. It’s hard to notice that it’s doing it, in fact, until I’m sitting here and recalling the movie from my opthalmicly challenged notes.

The dark elf Mr. Eko…okay, not really. Just the same actor. The big dark elf bruiser goes into Asgard in berserk mode, disguised as a regular prisoner. He breaks out of his cell after killing some of his fellow inmates (absent shank) and frees the rest. Loki looks longingly at him, pining for freedom. REJECTED! Not entirely sure why, in retrospect. Too wimpy, maybe? Too dangerous? Anyway, he’s left in his cell, though he does tell the monster where to find his mother.

Thor & friends fight off the jailbreak crowd, and we’re treated to more winning lines that could’ve been in a great action comedy. We also stumble onto one of Thor’s many great lessons. It isn’t enough to be a badass. You have to be able to fence with quips, too. All this while the dark elves crash into the throne room on a ship and jump out to attack the good guys. They’re…not the Sith attack on Coruscant from the trailer for Stars Wars: The Old Republic? I’ll accept that. It was a great scene there, and it makes for a thrilling fight scene here. More action movies need to involve vehicles crashing into places and people jumping out to attack other people.

It’s around here that you might notice that the Asgardians primarily use melee weapons, and the Dark Elves prefer ranged lasers. It’s why they’re winning, but it’s also why they’re COWARDS and the Asgardians are the good guys. It wouldn’t really matter who committed atrocities where. The thing that makes the Dark Elves evil, here, is using cowardly tactics as opposed to the noble brute force of the Asgardians. This strikes me as, at the very least, a neo-Viking virtue, if not a real one. I mean, who else brings swords to a laser fight? The blackhole grenades prove just as nefarious here as the blackhole gun in Saints Row IV.

Speaking of badassery, there’s an incredibly satisfying fight between Thor’s mom, Frigga, and Malekith. She wins, of course, because culture of badass. Unfortunately, he’s a coward, and uses cowardly teamwork to overcome her. She dies a hero’s death, though lasers are admittedly not involved.

Later, Jane gets some blood visions, but she hasn’t become a Grey Warden, unfortunately. Thor delivers a rousing speech that basically says there’s always a better way. That happens to be one of the guiding principles of my life, and what I believe the greatest super-heroes are all about. There is always a better way.

Thor goes to Loki for help, though you might already be wondering if he gave that one berserker dude the clue to find his mother because he knew that Thor would need his help.

There’s some banter, and the escape features one of the best chase scenes I’ve seen in awhile. Not really because of the cinematics or anything, but because of Loki’s back seat driving. Thor proves that he’s capable of being a guile hero as well as the resident bruiser, and he’s still boasting here, with a line like “I thought you liked tricks!” Since he isn’t a stupid guy, he distrusts Loki, who tells him to “trust my rage”. That’s the thing about Thor, here. It’s not that he’s stupid, it’s that he wants to see the best in people, especially his brother.

The trio go to dark elf land in order to perform an exchange- the weird weapon inside Jane, for her life. Loki betrays Thor. Except he doesn’t. It’s all another trick, and a fight ensues. Loki gives his life for Thor. Is this it? Is he redeemed? Are we going to get him returning as a kid who truly embodies chaos, as opposed to being just a jealous power-hungry brother?

We come down to the boss fight. It’s entertaining, and we even get an orgasm face from Christopher Eccleston when Malekith is struck by Thor’s lightning. If they weren’t yelling it at you before, you now know these dark elves are really into BDSM. There’s some strange shit going on here, though. I don’t think Loki is dead. Just sayin’. There’s more badass boasting, and the final fight is as satisfying a final fight as any I’ve seen before. Yeah! YOU SMASH THE COWARD! Trying to use magic bomb things instead of a manly weapon, like an axe. Or his fists.

Thor, Jane Foster, & friends save the day. It’s a great scene, almost reminiscent of the closing scene of Mass Effect 2 in the sense that every character is needed for them to win the day. Thor talks to his dad, essentially showing that he’s a better man than Odin, though there’s no boasting here, no ego from Thor, who’s definitely grown up from the person he was in the beginning of the first movie. This is Thor, the responsible adult who knows exactly what he wants. To be with the people he loves, and to make the world a better place.

A lot of things added up to make this the best super-hero movie to date. It’s crazy that a cross between a tv sitcom and a fantasy movie could be a super-hero movie, but that’s the beauty of super-hero stories. It can cross into any genre. What makes Thor really stand out, besides the bazillion little things and the fact that it didn’t shy away from blending genres or using one-liners as much as it did is that it pulls it off and manages to show everyone what the best super-hero stories are about: there’s always a better way, and even if you don’t find it every time, you’ve got to keep trying to save the world while sticking to your principles and seeing the best in people.

I can only hope that the same team behind this movie works on the next one. Hell, I hope they work on all the other Marvel movies. Now that they’ve introduced the infinity gauntlet, I’ve got to wonder if the next storyline after Ultron will be something vaguely similar to the Infinity event.

Oh, let me include a bonus review:

I saw Man of Steel. It was horrible. It was so bad it made my heart beat faster in rage.