Thor: The Dark World Trailer

UK Release Date: 30th October 2013.

Stars: Alan Taylor (director), Chris Hemsworth, Tom Hiddleston, Natalie Portman, Anthony Hopkins, Jaimie Alexander, Christopher Eccleston, Idris Elba, Stellan Skarsgard

Plot: Thor battles an ancient race of Dark Elves led by the vengeful Malekith who threatens to plunge the universe back into darkness.

This is the first action packed trailer for Thor: The Dark World, which sees the Norse God return to Earth, as promised, to see Jane Foster and whisk her back to Asgard with him. The trailer doesn’t really give too much away and leaves a lot of questions to be answered but it sets the seeds for a great story.

I’m pretty interested to see why Thor just decides to take Jane with him to Asgard rather than let her stay on Earth, presumably Asgard is the only safe place in the Nine Realms, despite the fact she seems to get captured later. However, I get the impression I’m really gonna hate Natalie Portman in this. In the first film she was a pretty smart woman, a scientist who was so good in her field that SHIELD wanted to contain her. Now she seems to have transgressed to ‘damsel in distress’.

I am looking forward to see the relationship between Jane and Lady Sif which should be interesting. Sif didn’t look too pleased that Jane was hanging around with Thor. Also, we didn’t get to see too much of Christopher Eccleston but what we do see looks extremely positive.

Marvel’s success continues.

Should Disney Make an Oscars Push for Marvel’s The Avengers?

Warner Bros. have this week announced their intentions to push The Dark Knight Rises forward in hope of getting a few Oscar nominations. The Dark Knight won two Oscars and received another six nominations although none of these were in any of the ‘big five’ categories. Disney have decided that they are not going to push The Avengers for Oscar nominations and instead will concentrate on their animated features: Brave, Frankenweenie and Wreck-It Ralph. On the surface of it this seems a strange choice as The Avengers became one of the highest grossing movies of all time and is one of the most well loved films of this year! Have Disney made the right choice?

Acting

There are four categories at the Oscars for acting: Best Leading Actor, Best Leading Actress, Best Supporting Actor and Best Supporting Actress. After you decide who in The Avengers is adjudged to be the Lead Role and who is Supporting then you have to think does anybody really deserve a nomination? Mark Ruffalo came out of The Avengers really well, as did Clark Gregg but none of these really did anything to warrant an Oscar. Before it’s release I was touting Robert Downey Jr as a potential Oscar candidate but I wasn’t blown away with his portrayal like I was in Iron Man. As for the female characters Scarlett Johansson put in a good performance but nothing Oscar worthy. Tom Hiddleston is considered by many to be the best actor among the cast but I think there have been better performances than his in other Oscar-worthy films.

Ruffalo and Hiddleston get along much better off screen!

Direction

Joss Whedon made himself a God among geeks with The Avengers but how good was his direction? He told a fantastic story and put together some incredible set pieces including the unforgettable continuous shot during the final battle. However, his technique came under fire from cinematographer and long time Christopher Nolan collaborator Wally Pfister as his camera angles apparently didn’t make much sense in terms of telling a story. Unfortunately, there won’t be any recognition for Whedon’s direction here.

Best Picture

As I mentioned earlier The Avengers became the third highest grossing film of all time and nobody could avoid the huge superhero mash-up this year. I gave it a 10 out of 10 in my review because it is everything that I could have hoped for, it was easily among the best films of the year! However, it seems to be that more often than not, Oscar winners for Best Picture are usually more serious film and you can see that The Avengers was made to be fun and enjoyable. You could say that, much to its credit, The Avengers was made for comic book fans rather than the critics and that could damage it’s hope of a nomination here, especially seeing as how The Dark Knight didn’t even get recognition in this category.

Best Adapted Screenplay

For me, this is the most likely category that The Avengers will feature in. Joss Whedon is a fantastic writer for television and now he has shown that he can tell wonderful stories on the big screen too. Whedon’s writing was what made The Avengers what it is and his dialogue, character development and interaction was fantastic. I think it is a much more well written film than a lot of what we have seen this year (including The Dark Knight Rises) and I do hope that it does receive a nomination here.

So they’re the biggest categories discussed and my opinions on The Avengers‘ chances. Of the rest I don’t think a nomination is out of the question in categories such as Best Film Editing, Best Costume Design or Best Visual Effects but at the end of the day, who remembers the winners of those awards? I think Disney made the right call not to make a serious push for The Avengers‘ Oscars chances.

The Avengers Review [No Spoilers]

So The Avengers is finally upon us (in Britain anyway, over in the States you still have another week to wait. God knows where the logic in that is, but anyway) and fanboys can rejoice as their favourite superheroes are brought to the big screen together. Since the release of Iron Man in 2008, the excitement has just been building and today what I imagined throughout my childhood was put before me in the cinema.

The Avengers, if you don’t know the story by now, is the tale of these superheroes: Iron Man, Captain America, Hulk, Thor, Hawkeye and Black Widow. Together they are brought together by Nick Fury and SHIELD to defeat the enemy that one single hero could never defeat alone. There is an army from another world waging war on Earth, led by Thor’s evil half brother, Loki. Family ties and egos get in the way but can these great people overcome their difficulties to save millions of lives?

The cast and director of the biggest superhero film to date.

The cast is incredible. Robery Downey Jr is, as we have come to expect as Tony Stark, fantastic. Joss Whedon’s snappy dialogue really lends itself to Downey’s portrayal of Stark excellently and he really continues to make the character so, just, amazing. Chris Hemworth is the Avenger stuck in the middle, on one side planet Earth and on the other his family, and he pulls off the torn God of Asgard well and the character continues to develop from his own film. Chris Evans as the ever warm hearted and honourable soldier Steve Rogers, or Captain America, is great. Jeremy Renner doesn’t have as much screen time as I would have liked or enough time to showcase his acting abilities but he does what he needs to, along with Cobie Smulders, Scarlett Johansson, Samuel L. Jackson and Clark Gregg. Tom Hiddleston once more continues to play the delightfully evil Loki but it is really Mark Ruffalo who impresses, especially as I was a big fan of Ed Norton as Bruce Banner but Ruffalo puts any doubts to bed almost immediately.

The Avengers is in a very lucky position in which all the characters are all already known to film audiences thanks to their own films. So here, we dive straight into the action and waste no time with character introductions which makes the first act one of the most compelling I have seen in recent times. How the heroes are brought together is very well done, it’s something I had my doubts about before watching and it could have been done very cliched so well done to Whedon for that. Thor’s arrival in the film in particular is well handled.

Hemsworth and Evans have expressed an interest in appearing in each other's sequels.

Most things that fans may question are put to bed almost immediately in The Avengers which leaves ties open to all of the other individual films that will surely follow once more. Things such as where Jane Foster is, why the Avengers are not after the Hulk (something alluded to during The Incredible Hulk‘s final scene) and how Thor returns to Earth are answered very quickly and very sensibly. The only thing is there is no mention of Peggy Carter which I think could have been hinted at (I know a scene that featured Steve and Peggy was cut but it would have been nice to have her name mentioned at least).

The Hulk is unlikely to get another film to himself.

The final war is incredible. These are some huge action scenes, whole sets are blown up and the special effects are phenomenal, especially in the case of the alien ships. Seeing Thor, Hulk, Cap and Iron Man all working together is something that is sure to get the fanboys worked up into a sweat and it will leave them grinning after leaving theatres for weeks afterwards. Watch out for the ‘continuous shot’ in the war scene which is one of the best scenes I have ever seen; in one shot we follow all the action and get to see each individual showcasing their skills. It looks as though one hero becomes the leader (although I shall leave out who so you can find out for yourself) and watching The Avengers one hero really steals the show: The Hulk. Ruffalo’s performance, as I said earlier, is really good! But when he turns into the Hulk you know that sh*t is about to go down. Every time the Hulk is on the screen he is destroying things and he becomes the best possible weapon for SHIELD and the Avengers to be in possession of. Words just can not describe how good it is to see these heroes fighting side by side.

The Avengers is everything that a comic book movie should be. We have heroes with a lot of heart, not always getting along (and the insults and little ego battles are really entertaining), we have a villain with motivation and a real sense of evil. There are huge explosions, great action scenes and the dialogue is full of wit. The direction is top class and everything just comes together superbly. The only phrase to describe this movie is with these two words: absolutely orgasmic.

My Rating (a little biased): 10/10