Blame the Olympics: there's a rash of movies in which London is being smashed to smithereens, in breathtaking detail
For the briefest of moments, you might have assumed that the new was a sweet little St George's Day gesture from Marvel. After all, the first shot – the very first snatch of footage that anyone has seen of this much-anticipated sequel – is a beautiful aerial shot of London. Not Asgard. Not that weird little desert town from the first movie. London. Thanks, Marvel.
Except, no. Nobody actually thought that, did they? Because this was a shot of London in a film from 2013, which could only ever really mean one thing: imminent destruction. And, sure enough, our payoff came just 23 seconds later – a shot of the Old Naval College in Greenwich being irreparably smashed up by a giant flying crystal or something. A load of oblivious Londoners even get blinded, let's assume permanently, by shards of exploded glass. Oh Marvel. You guys.
This shoddy treatment shouldn't have come as a surprise to anyone. The hottest new fad in Hollywood seems to be destroying London. Where once an action film wasn't complete without a offensively gratuitous parkour sequence, now it isn't complete unless at least one London landmark gets battered into oblivion by a bomb or a superhero or a space crystal or whatever. Just last month, GI Joe: Retaliation shot a laser out of a satellite and blew London bandy. The early signs are that London – albeit a futuristic London that's 90% greenhouse – will meet a similarly sticky end in Star Trek 2. I haven't seen any of The Great Gatsby yet but, if this pattern is any indication, there's bound to be a scene where a monster farts on the Gherkin until it falls over.
It's happened before, of course. The Millennium Bridge was taken out by Death Eaters in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. The London Eye fell into a sinkhole in Fantastic Four 2. Big Ben ended up being riddled with dragons in Reign of Fire. Even back in 1967, Quatermass and the Pit all but destroyed London – taking out, if the sound effects are to be believed, over 30 dinner plates in the process. But now it's happening much more frequently. Perhaps we should blame the Olympics for bringing London to everyone's attention, or the London Eye for being an immediately recognisable landmark that US audiences can use as shorthand for a large yet safely distant metropolis.
Whatever the reason, we probably shouldn't take this wanton destruction personally. For one, the London getting blown up in all of these films isn't actually real London. It's tourist London. The South Bank, for example, tends to bear the brunt of most of this devastation, which leads me to believe that most of these egomaniacal despots responsible are simply a bit narky about street entertainers. And who can blame them? Street entertainers are awful. Perhaps this is proof that even dictatorial maniacs are human after all.
And because none of the parts of London where anyone actually lives – the fringes of the north and south where property is still just about affordable – ever get destroyed in these films, it's just as much a thrill for us as it is for anyone else. More so, even. Over the years I've watched gleefully as office buildings that I've toiled in, pubs that I've had bad dates in and train stations where I've been repeatedly smacked in the face with a copy of ShortList have been reduced to rubble onscreen. It's all the joy of crushing a matchstick city underfoot without the bother of actually having to build it yourself.
So, whether it was meant as one or not, I'm taking Thor's clumsy treatment of the capital as a compliment. In fact, more films should try and total London. They all should. And if any director wants to specifically blow up the branch of Pret that slightly shortchanged me once three years ago, they're more than welcome to. Who's with me?
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/filmblog/2013/apr/25/film-makers-what-london-done
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