Thor 2: The Dark World has been out for a week now and we have been talking to the Free Loki campaign founder, Denise Heard-Bashur, about the her thoughts on the film. Heard-Bashur is a marketing professional and devoted Tom Hiddleston fan, who has dedicated her free time to promote a solo Loki spin-off film petition. The group has also dedicated their increasing influence to support charity events. In the following review, Heard-Bashur talks Dr. Who star Christopher Eccleston’s performance and gives her critique of the film. Warning Spoilers Follow.
“Part II: The Bad & the Ugly”
“Rather than let the axe fall a little at a time, I’d rather mix it up. That being said, we’ve covered the best; let’s jump into the worst.
As much as I would love for Thor: The Dark World to be the perfect film, I’d be lying if I said it was. Some characters experienced a lot of growth in this film such as Thor and Loki, as it should be. We saw a bit more of Heimdall, a lot more of Darcy and far more than we ever wanted to of Dr. Selvig. Then there are characters who seemed to get shoved to the sidelines even though many of us had wanted more of them this time around such as Lady Sif and the Warriors Three, and even worse, Frigga. However the title of Least Developed Onscreen goes to Malekith.
Inhabited by the extraordinary Christopher Eccleston, who I’ve seen pull off evil deeds with some pretty amazing calm and cool in other films, and sporting fierce armor with some wicked dark elven features it should have spelled out smooth with a heap of evil yet somehow that’s where the intensity ends. Upon leaving the theater, after taking my kids to see the movie, my 6-year-old daughter said, “I thought Malekith was going to be scary or angrier but he was okay and quiet.” I was taken aback that even a kid her age zeroed in on that.
I expected a truly fearsome bad guy. I thought, “Someone who takes the title of villain away from Loki? Wow, he’s going to be pretty menacing!” Instead Malekith seemed too much like an untapped resource. I got the feeling there was a lot of meat and story beneath that pale skin, but we never really got to see it. There was nothing personal in his vengeance. He never faced Odin. He didn’t even really seem to get or care why the big blond guy with the hammer was after him.
I’m sure Marvel wasn’t trying to create another villain with the staying power of Loki or Magneto, but within the confines of the story, the villain has to mean something. We have to be able to either understand where he’s coming from and/or have a really good reason to despise him. At no time did I sympathize with or hate Malekith. His act of murder, the one time he could have really shocked us, was so hurried that we really didn’t get absorb the weight of it. And that’s a common complaint: there wasn't enough time.
Frigga’s death was over pretty quickly. No returning the camera to her to give her son one last look or say one last word of wisdom. Her funeral, while very moving and stunning, didn’t lead into the aftermath smoothly. I found it odd they waited until then to tell Loki his mother was gone. While his reaction was heartbreaking this is another aspect I feel could have been explored further. It would have been ten times as devastating if we’d seen Loki react for more than just a few seconds. She was the only person who believed in him, who still loved him. That’s a tragedy. I think an opportunity was missed here to really get the audience’s hearts going.
It should be no surprise then that Loki’s own death was treated brusquely. As he’s dying we have a beautiful, if cryptically-worded, shared moment between Loki and Thor that we’ve never seen within the thread of these stories (since the first time they acted as brothers who love each other was cut from the first film). It’s a touching, poignant and heart-stopping moment. Then you blink, and it’s as if it didn’t happen. We were given very little time with Thor’s pain and Loki’s redemption, which given the gravity of the character, should have been a very big moment (regardless of what we would learn later). Instead Thor and Jane are off to the cave where we have our next bit of comedic exchange.
The humor in this film is truly great. I laughed at every side-splitting moment. Great one-liners from Loki, awesome cameo, another couple of instances of Thor being totally awkward and out of place on Midgard--I loved all these moments. Comic relief is a valuable tool in dramatic storytelling. The problem is I didn’t feel like the dramatic moments were ever allowed to get tense enough to warrant so much comic relief. And really, in a story like this, you don't need it so much because you WANT the tension, the challenge, the discomfort, the suspense.
I think a lot of us were expecting something like the first Thor or The Avengers where you’re brought into this very broad range of heavy dramatic moments and lighthearted, witty ones which ebb and flow easily into each other. Instead, given the overwhelming sense of haste throughout, the film seems almost more of a synopsis of itself than the story in its entirety. In the end, the overall result took a hit.”
Denise Heard-Bashur
Founder of Free Loki
Twitter: @Free_Loki
Free Loki petition: https://www.change.org/petitions/free-loki
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