Teleported to the realm without fun

Rating: Null/10 (2 February 2014)

The first Thor is the only one of Marvel's recent crop I take to. It got Loki wrong to satisfy the demands of a generic plot with evil squarely on one side. But up above it had a gilded astral world, and down below Branaugh had all sorts of fun at the expense of his Shakespearean setup.
Why did they have to mess a good thing?
They made a good early decision for starters. The whole cinematic world would be defined by (hypothetical) quantum physics that allowed all sorts of spontaneous fun with appearances and transportation, an illusory fabric that changes at whims. They could now graft on it the right Loki from the fables, which are from a pre-Christian time when evil was not yet neurosis and sin, where Loki embodied capricious nature, illusion, uncertainty, spontaneity, a deeper understanding than a simple duality.
So this could be fun, inventive and revealing in the same swoop.
It's easy to see where this went wrong, they wanted a serious dark saga. A serious saga demands no surprise really, allows no playing. Thor goes from goodhearted jock to Superman brooding about Lois and his duty as protector of worlds as he flies around fighting gods, the worst possible decision.
Why do we need these to be serious anyway? The forces are no more comprehensible in this way, the heroes no more human, just archetypes of some inner conflict. It should be as baffling to encounter these worlds, a civilization which has mastered the quantum field but still fights with swords, as capricious to decide on their mechanics as the actual physics at play.
Strangely, they got a better Loki. Their whole trip together with Thor to the elven realm has a bit of that scent of the sagas. This is not a matter of sticking to origin, but seeing the value. We have some of that playing and illusion around Loki, that is until the end when they unmask him again as malicious tyrant.