'Loki' opens some portals.
Let's address the elephant in the room. For hardcore Marvel fans, I know why you're excited about Loki. To my knowledge, the Multiverse is about to open. Such an idea of intersecting movie worlds has been done on numerous occasions but usually from within the same studio. We've had Tim Burton's Batman morph into Joel Schumacher's Batman. Many could argue that the Schumacher films count as sequels, even the producers, but creatively, the differences in tone were complete opposites, rendering them cinematic crossovers. The entirety of The Terminator franchise has been defined post T2 as nothing but multiple rewrites of Arnold's T800 intersecting between Terminator flicks. Jurassic World: Dominion has the original cast returning along with the new cast. Have any of those worked out?
Marvel's Multiverse is a strike between acquiring 20th Century Fox (the X-Men) and having joint custody of Spider-Man with Sony. Winning an Oscar in the animated realm with Into The Spider-Verse introduced the idea that combining actors from other worlds could work entirely as a theme to a narrative. If the idea can work with animation, maybe it can work with live-action. Marvel already achieved the Hollywood dream of creating a world of limitless sequels compounded by neverending audience engagement; all complemented through a talented staff of creators. How could they screw it up? Nobody is flawless. I hope it works out. So far, with Loki, it looks like it is.
Before the door-shaped portal ending (which isn't much of a spoiler since it's in the trailers), our show reaches its middle act. With Loki (Tom Hiddleston) on the hunt for himself from another time, a buddy cop relationship establishes between him and Agent Mobius (Owen Wilson). As light as he is in spirit, Mobius has been cursed with knowledge like Thanos. The difference here is Mobius uses his knowledge for good. Also a love for jet skis. Everything is predetermined where fate is our ultimate destiny. Being trapped within time and space may have left Mobius a bit jaded. How this relates to his backstory should be interesting to discover. Hopefully, it's not another tale of a deceased family member. That's too easy to write. On Loki's end for empathy, I'm hoping it doesn't wrap with the regurgitation of Loki's familiar redemptive arc.
Loki doesn't feel slow like the last two MCU shows did; where you could tell by the second episode of Wandavision or Falcon and The Winter Soldier, the writers didn't have much material. Some may argue otherwise. There's a confidence I have through Marvel's track record that they'll know what they're doing. Thanks to television, those usually duller movies only made to build more films like Iron Man 2 was just another episode of Wandavision. Not every step towards that ultimate movie tie-in journey will be thrilling. Some moments seemed to drag in this episode—one, particularly where Loki is toying with a group of TVA officers. When the episode reaches its finale, we discover who the other Loki is; I honestly didn't know who it was upon the reveal. I've seen just about every Marvel film except for Ant-Man and Thor The Dark World, which may explain why. Otherwise, I'm not entirely compelled to visit a movie I didn't care much to see in the first place. With Act One out of the way, Act 2 is where everything starts to go wrong for the good guys. For that, I say bring it on! As for successfully opening up a crossover cinematic universe with Sony, I wish you Godspeed.
Do you agree with my rating? Let me know. Please be respectful.
