The Marvel Cinematic Universe has grown really big now and till now, it has been led by Robert Downey Jr. as Iron Man, Chris Hemsworth as Thor and Chris Evans as Captain America. These are the big guns who have got trilogies telling their epic stories in the MCU. Out of the three solo trilogies (Excluding the Avengers trilogy), only Captain America has stood out to be perfect while there were little to many flaws in the movies of Iron Man and Thor.
Iron Man started amazingly well and his first movie is still considered among the Top 5 MCU movies and is probably the best Superhero origin story of all time. The second Iron Man movie was good, but it did not live up to the expectations that people had after watching the first Iron Man movie. The final Iron Man movie actually enraged many fans as it did something totally different from the source material, turning one of the best Iron Man villains into a stage actor. But still, it made the most amount of money at the Box Office, so its fine.
Captain America had a great origin story, but it was not able to do what Iron Man did. At the Box Office, it grossed even less than the first Thor movie. Still, it made a profit and was good at plot, so it cannot be considered a failure. The Winter Soldier is considered among the Top 3 MCU movies ever! It was more like an espionage thriller than a run-of-the-mill superhero outing. SHIELD was penetrated by HYDRA, the villain was menacing and had an intimate connection with Steve Rogers’ past. This was one of the very few times that Marvel actually took a much darker and brutal tone in their plot. Then Civil War pits out favourite heroes together, made the big bucks at the Box Office and completely blew us away.
The Captain America trilogy is really the perfect one out of all. We cannot say the same for Thor. He is one of the big guns in the MCU but his solo movies did not create a big buzz in the MCU until Thor: Ragnarok. The first Thor movie was a good successful attempt at the origin of the God of Thunder, but the second movie is actually considered to be one of the worst if the not worst MCU movies if we had to rank them all. It has been slammed by all and is surely a mediocre movie. Then came in Taika Wiaititi who actually fixed Thor, made it closer to the source material and everyone loved the sudden comedic change that happened in the (presumably) final Thor movie.
Now, Chris Hemsworth who plays Thor himself has agreed with the fans and critics, slamming Thor: The Dark World. In a recent profile interview for GQ, Hemsworth admitted that the first Thor movie was great but The Dark World as mediocre. He said:
“The first one [Thor] is good, the second one is meh. What masculinity was, the classic archetype — it just all starts to feel very familiar. I was so aware that we were right on the edge.”
It is good that the MCU actors are actually confident enough to see and say the things as they are, and not as they would wish for them to be. The Dark World is not the best thing in the world and everyone including Hemsworth who worked on the movie as the lead agrees to that. It was directed by Alan Taylor, but it could actually have been way different than what it was as Wonder Woman Director Patty Jenkins was on board to direct the movie earlier. She left due to creative differences.
She would have brought the female characters forward in the story that she was going to tell. We don’t know how that might have turned out, but it is good to know that the actors and the people working on the movie see things the way we all do. It had cool visuals, the plot was okay, but the villain was pretty bad! So, all in all, it does deserve a “meh”. The Dark World was not a complete disaster, but it was surely not as good as other MCU Movies are, period!
Thankfully, Taika Waititi gave us the best Thor movie and we surely want to see more of that! Thor will return in Avengers 4 which comes out on May 3, 2019.
