Film Preview: Thor: The Dark World (2013)

Poster

Additional posters can be found below.

Trailer Link

Release Date:

November 8, 2013

Synopsis:

From IMDb: “When Jane Foster is targeted by the denizens of the dark world of Svartalfheim, Thor sets out on a quest to protect her at all costs.”

Poster: B- / B+ / B- / B / C- (2) / B+ / C+ (3) / B- (7)

Review: It’s actiony without having any real action. That will get fans of The Avengers films excited. Otherwise, it’s a rudimentary and unengaging design.

This is a bit more fascinating than the first design, with plenty of background details to keep an onlooker visually stimulated and increasing their interest in seeing the film.

Design #3 is too similar to #1, which makes it feel unnecessary. Design #4 is starkly different from the predecessors, but establishes the problem with designs #5 & #6. Those two designs employ the exact same poorly-photoshopped image (Hemsworth looks fine but Portman looks completely fake), neither of which are that interesting when you’re distracted. The masked villain in design #7 is much more engaging, asking the audience to wonder what the film’s plot will truly be.

The last ten designs are all character posters, but only the first three are for the English-language roll-out. #8 uses the same physical positioning of #15, undermining both designs while the other two are as adequate as needed for the design work, which for these isn’t apparently to create unique background elements.

#11, #12 & #13 are each in Spanish and are more interesting than what has come before, largely because they are different characters. #14 is in French and the remaining three designs are in German (I think). What sets the last 7 apart from the previous is that they’ve focused on characters other than Thor his brother and his lover. That makes for at least an interesting shift in design focus, though makes me wonder if my source tossed designs that were identical except for the subtitle/text.

Trailer: C+ / C+

Review: I liked Thor well enough, but it was a step down in terms of quality after Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk and Captain America: The First Avenger. This design with its lack of excitement and suggestion that there’s not much new under the sun may be just enough to depress turn out and limit it to fanboys and film critics. This design doesn’t have cross-generational or cross-demographic appeal.

We get more plot details this time around, but there’s little more of interest in the trailer and, surprisingly, this lookins to be one of the least involving of the initial Avengers follow-ups.

Oscar Prospects:

Iron Man is the only stand alone Avengers film that’s had any success with Oscar. I don’t expect that to change with this film considering Iron Man 3 will dominate the year’s conversations.