Thor: The Dark World

 Thor: The Dark World (2013)

Starring Chris Hemsworth, Natalie Portman, Tom Hiddleston, Anthony Hopkins, Christopher Eccleston, Kat Dennings, Stellan Skarsgård, and Rene Russo

Directed by Alan Taylor

Click here for my Letterboxd review

The RyMickey Rating:  D

Click here for my previous RyMickey Rating review

Movie Review - Unfinished Song

Unfinished Song (Song for Marion) (2013)

Starring Terence Stamp, Gemma Arterton, Christopher Eccleston, and Vanessa Redgrave

Directed by Paul Andrew Williams

***This film is currently streaming on Netflix***

There's an overwhelming sense of sentimentality in Unfinished Song that you either buy into or don't. Fortunately, I did and I found this little seen British dramedy quite a charming surprise.  The story is quite simple -- Marion (Vanessa Redgrave) is dying.  Cancer has taken its toll and she doesn't have very long to live.  She wants to make the most of her final months so she joins a choir of elderly folks headed by the young and chipper Elizabeth (Gemma Arterton). Elizabeth doesn't want her choir to be looked at as a bunch of old fogies so she has them sing modern songs ("Let's Talk About Sex" by Salt 'n' Pepa, "Love Shack" by the B52's) in unique ways.  Marion loves the concept and it makes her incredibly happy, allowing her to forget about her illness.  Her curmudgeonly husband Arthur (Terence Stamp), however, finds the whole thing ridiculous.

It's not difficult to see where writer-director Paul Andrew Williams' film is going to go.  Of course Arthur's going to have a change of heart, but there's something about the innocence coupled with the natural and "real" performances from Terence Stamp, Vanessa Redgrave, Gemma Arterton, and Christopher Eccleston (as Marion and Arthur's adult son) that make Unfinished Song much more compelling than it probably has any right to be.  Stamp, in particular, manages to make a stock character -- Grumpy Old Man -- into someone that you not only root for, but desperately want to realize the error of his crotchety ways.  His final scene -- good luck trying to keep your eyes dry.  I managed to avoid the tears, but I can totally see how it could cause the waterworks to open up.  [I must say that I rewatched the scene on YouTube and sure enough, it caused a tear to fall.]

Don't misunderstand -- Unfinished Song isn't necessarily a great film.  We've seen everything it presents here before (including the tired trope of old people saying things "young people say" for laughs), but if you're willing to buy into the concept, I can't help but think you'll be won over by the sheer niceness of it all.

The RyMickey Rating:  B

Movie Review - Thor: The Dark World

Thor: The Dark World (2013)

Starring Chris Hemsworth, Natalie Portman, Tom Hiddleston, Anthony Hopkins, Christopher Eccleston, Kat Dennings, Stellan Skarsgård, and Rene Russo

Directed by Alan Taylor

I know this is an unpopular opinion, but 2011's Thor is my favorite Marvel comics movie (not including some X-Men co-productions...for some reason I don't think of them [or Spider-Man] when I think of "Marvel" movies).  There was something about the fun that director Kenneth Branagh brought to the flick that made the sheer ridiculousness of the title character and his hammer wielding an enjoyable summer romp.  Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for Thor: The Dark World which feels like a heavy burden to sit through lacking any modicum of the fun and excitement that was found in its predecessor.  Quite frankly, this one is probably the worst film to come out of the Marvel/Disney pipeline in part because of an awful screenplay and direction that can't really compare to Mr. Branagh's in the first Thor. 

What the sequel really boils down to is this:  Two species in space -- one of which is Thor's people and one of which is someone else -- fought with each other a long time ago.  Thor's people won and buried this other people's energy source (or something) deep in the earth.  Thanks to wormholes (which played a prominent role in The Avengers) this energy source has been found by Dr. Jane Foster (Natalie Portman) who has been sitting around in London depressed since Thor (Chris Hemsworth) left her at the end of the last film.  This magical energy source somehow gets transferred into Jane which causes the bad guys to chase after Jane only to have Thor help her.

It's all so ridiculous...even more ridiculous than a guy from space coming down to Earth and fighting people with a magic hammer.  Chris Hemsworth and Natalie Portman look bored out of their mind in this with Portman in particular a blank slate whenever she appears onscreen (and, unfortunately, she's onscreen a lot in this one).  Tom Hiddleston injects a little bit of pizzazz into the mix, but even his Loki isn't able to overcome the inanity of the plot.

The one advantage the Thor flicks have going for them is that they do seem to understand just how silly their plots truly are.  There are jabs here and there about how ridiculous the goings-on are and I do appreciate that.  However, Thor: The Dark World is such a huge step down from the original that I don't think I'll be looking forward to the next one at all.

The RyMickey Rating:  D