A bit of background for those who are not too well versed in the Marvel superhero universe. Loki is the god of deceit and illusion, a descendant of the giants Jotuns, the adopted son of Odin and Frigga, the half-brother of the god Thor. In the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Loki first appeared in the movie “Thor”, and he was there in full mischief.
In the first “Avengers” Loki was honored to become the main antagonist: since he was expelled from Asgard dear to his heart, Loki began to have plans for the planet Earth, the state of the Zazhopinskaya Galaxy. Since Loki didn’t become the king of Asgard, then why shouldn’t he become the king of this outback called Earth, right? Loki agreed to cooperate with the vile scoundrels from the planet Chitauri, but the Chitauri boys are ready to help Loki only if he gets the Tesseract hypercube stored on Earth.
Loki can steal anything from anyone, besides, he was also provided with a magic staff, so he stole the Tesseract, but a team of superheroes called the Avengers stood in the way of the Chitauri warriors, who won hard but worthy. Loki was captured and given to Thor for experiments.
Actually, that’s why in the continuation of “Thor 2: The Kingdom of Darkness” Loki is mostly in prison, but when Asgard becomes DANGER, Loki goes to fight on the side of Thor. And here, for the first time, Loki uses his copy, which died heroically, and Loki himself usurped the throne of Asgard, and from this Ragnarok went in full.
In the events of Avengers: Infinity War, Loki finally found his peace: he tried to deceive the orderly of the Thanos forest himself, but that noble gentleman, usually not prone to sentiment, figured out Loki’s idea and, without hesitation, twisted his neck. It felt like Loki was done for good.
However, in Avengers: Endgame, which concludes the whole story, the Avengers team roams through various times to collect the Infinity Stones. They come for the Tesseract right at the end of the events of the first Avengers movie, where Loki was captured and sent to Asgard, and so the very still alive Loki managed to grab the Tesseract and disappeared, thus creating a new timeline.
With this, in fact, begins the series “Loki”, made by Marvel Studios for display on the Disney + streaming service as part of the “Fourth phase of the Marvel Cinematic Universe”. The first in this phase was the excellent series “WandaVision”, which I really liked. The Falcon and the Winter Soldier came out next, but it got scolded and I didn’t watch it. But I was going to watch Loki anyway: this is my favorite character (I love bright and ambiguous characters), Tom Hiddleston played him perfectly, and I, of course, could not miss Loki.
What happens in this series? After escaping from the Avengers, Loki finds himself in the Gobi Desert in Mongolia. And after a short time, a portal opens in the air, through which people in military uniforms and with weapons appear in front of Loki. They are commanded by a B-15 Hunter (Wunmi Mosaku). B-15 tells Loki that they represent some kind of “Temporal Change Management” (TUT), which monitors the inviolability of the main timeline – the so-called Sacred Timeline. Any “options” (alternate time loops) that threaten the Sacred Timeline must be destroyed or the consequences may become unpredictable. And he, Loki, is just such an “option” – along with his time loop, which he created.
Loki, of course, is a god, and you can’t just kill him on the road (even the Hulk didn’t succeed, and he’s such a powerful man!), but UVI hunters have powerful weapons and almost unlimited possibilities, so Loki’s death seems inevitable. He is taken to the UVI base, where the judge quickly sentences him to death, but the UVI agent Moebius (Owen Wilson) begins to work with Loki, who explains what is happening and why Loki was not destroyed.
It turns out that in the Sacred Timeline, another Variant travels through time, which kills the Minutemen – a UVI soldier. And he kills them in order to steal the bombs used by the UVI to reset the time branch.
This Option is terribly dangerous, and the task of the UVI is to find it and destroy it. And the UVI will help in this – Loki. Because that same Option is another (or another) Loki from another time loop. So who, if not Loki, will help to cope with another (or another) Loki, right?
***
Great series, loved it. Like WandaVision, it shows a completely new approach to a character from the films of the Thor and Avengers franchises, and in the series you almost don’t even remember those films, which, in my opinion, is very good.
The series “Loki” is diverse and multi-genre. “Management of temporary changes” in the first series is something very funny and clearly satirical: an organization bureaucratized to death with almost unemotional employees indifferently performing their duties, caricature trials of “options” and death sentences that are instantly carried out. Simultaneously reminiscent of the Vogons, space bureaucrats from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, and the whimsical offices of Terry Gilliam’s Brazil.
Loki himself is a more dramatic character here than a scoundrel, although there are a lot of funny moments associated with him: with the help of Mobius, he delves into his past life and his actions, and, as it were, slowly begins to comprehend himself and his obvious duality – he is in his life did a lot of evil, but a lot of good, he also greatly regrets certain events.
Another major line of the series is the search for another Loki, who turns out to be a woman named Sylvie (Sophie di Martino). She is found quite quickly (Loki guessed why Sylvie was successfully hiding from UVI all the time and could not be found), and Loki and Sylvie begin to act together: each of them has a lot of complaints about UVI and they are going to unearth what it really is this organization and who are the mysterious Keepers of Time, who, like, are in charge of the UVI.
Tom Hiddleston is great as Loki, as always. Here, Loki is no longer such a cunning dirty trick, who always plays his own game and is ready to deceive or frame anyone. Here he is more reflective, and his character is constantly faced with serious challenges: he must get to the bottom of what is happening.
Owen Wilson did a great job as Moebius, the UVI agent who uses Loki to figure out Sylvia. Mobius knows a lot about Loki and makes Loki look at himself and his actions from the outside. At the same time, Mobius is not at all a stupid campaigner, blindly following orders. He is very smart and observant, can draw his own conclusions about what is happening, and he and Loki develop a friendship. Owen in films often played charming klutzes, but here the character is completely different, although also charming, and he turned out to be very interesting.
I really liked Sophie di Martino, who played Sylvie. The story of the character is also interesting there (it is very difficult), and how they communicate with Loki and how they act together. Sylvie’s fighting style is more assertive and aggressive than Loki’s own, and I’ve read that Sophie di Martino was inspired by the action scenes of Charlize Theron’s character in Explosive Blonde.
Of the other most prominent actors and actresses of the series, I will note the good actress Gugu Embathu-Ro: I had seen her before in The Morning Show, and here she plays UVI judge Ravonna Rensleyer, who is Mobius’s boss.
I also really liked the solo performance of Jonathan Majors, who played here – let’s say very briefly, so as not to spoil it – “The One Who Stays.”
We finished the first season, in my opinion, perfectly: on the one hand, we completed this story and explained what was happening, on the other hand, we left a good foundation for other seasons. So far, all that is known is that at least the second season will definitely be – it is being filmed now.
I’m really impressed: I liked this series even more than WandaVision, where at some point the creators nevertheless switched from extremely interesting and unusual solutions to more or less standard superheroics, but here, in my opinion, everything was more solid and more even.
A fascinating story, spectacularly staged, excellent acting, a worthy end to the season. We approve with terrible force!
PS There are reviewers and viewers who did not like this series. They complain about the story itself, complain about the betrayal of the ideals of the franchise (this is especially funny), whine about the fact that among the main characters there are two determined black women (Judge Rensailer and Hunter B-15), and this, they say, is a femp agenda and BLM . Well, their problems, I can’t say anything more about this. Personally, I’m absolutely purple that the skin color of the characters (the green Gamora is so spectacular in Guardians of the Galaxy), that their gender, I need an interesting story, high-quality production and good acting. Here it’s all present in abundance, so the series is really cool! And the whiners – let them whine, this is their planid, fempovestka in their drawbar.
Loki movie review
Director: Michael Waldron Cast: Tom Hiddleston, Gugu Embata-Rho, Wunmi Mossaku, Eugene Cordero, Tara Strong, Owen Wilson, Sophie Di Martino, Sasha Lane, Deobia Oparei, Richard E Grant
Series, USA, 2021, 50 min.