Thursday, November 28, 2013

Gravity/Thor: The Dark World

If you had told me I would have come out of these films wishing one had more action and less character, and the other less action and more character, I probably wouldn't have guessed the latter would be Thor. Its interesting but in all the Marvel Films the characters (particularly Iron Man) have been so established that I prefer the time spent just hanging out with them, rather than the generically interchangeable fight scenes. This is particularly true in Thor where they try even less than usual to make the villain compelling (or even logical). As a result the best scenes focus inherent goofiness of the character (particularly when its just Thor and Loki hanging out and talking trash), rather than 20 minute fight scenes where you never really believe the world is going to end. Joss Whedon got close to the desired dynamic with the Avengers (in the scenes with Iron Man and Hulk) but even there the action ended bogging down the proceedings. Really I wouldn't mind someone like Kevin Smith getting ahold of one of these films. Someone who would put all the focus on the interactions of the characters, and the incongruity of having them in the world, as opposed to massive set pieces.  Don't get me wrong. I still enjoy the universe, I guess I'm just less impressed by the spectacle.

Gravity on the other hand is a taut 90 minutes of essentially real time space action, and it looks as good as everyone says. Really the only problem with it, and this is the same point Will Leitch made in his review, is the arbitrary attempt to force a back story on Sandra Bullock's character. Its completely unnecessary, and really grinds whats an overall propulsive film to halt. There's plenty of tension already, we don't need a dead kid thrown in there as well. This is only a minor quibble though, and its well worth checking out.