Disney+'s "Loki" Series is Magic from the Start [Review]

“Loki,” which premieres on Disney+ on June 9th, seems to finally hit the right balance of energy, tone, and fun that has so regularly permeated the Marvel Studios feature films. With a flavor very similar to “Thor: Ragnarok,” and “Guardians of the Galaxy,” “Loki” is an easier show to get behind than both “WandaVision” and “The Falcon and the Winter Soldier.”

In “WandaVisison,” the series, leaned into the hook of the various episodes and their differing eras of television to catch viewers’ interest. Sure there was the general mystery that permeated, but it very much felt like it’s own stand-alone vignette. “Falcon and the Winter Soldier” was fine, but generally dry – reaching for some deeper messages, and failing to keep enough of a thread pulling the audience forward.

In this new series, we are picking up immediately after the New York/Avenger’s-era Loki has snagged up the Tesseract (take a drink!) and vanished during the events in “Avengers: Endgame.”

Wunmi Mosaku, Owen Wilson “Loki,” Photo courtesy of Disney+

Disney+ has wisely asked that no spoilers or main plot points be revealed prior to the show’s airing, so we’ll have to keep things relatively vague for the time being and will update this review after the pilot airs. Tom Hiddleston returns as the titular Asgardian trickster god and crosses paths with Owen Wilson as Mobius M. Mobius, an analyst for the TVA (which stands for Time Variance Authority).

As seen in the trailer, Loki has been captured, and Mobius has a particularly troubling project which he hops Loki might be able to help him with. Wilson’s Mobius works well as a counterpoint to Loki, he’s a little bit aw-shucks (which let’s face it is Wilson’s regular character type), but also still very capable of doing his job. We will often see agents of various organization who can barely function as people, let alone as agents. Mobius is more than that, and he’s willing to go out on a limb to try to get Loki onto his side.

There are various easter eggs, and while the TVA and various characters have appeared in the comics, not having encountered them before will not hinder the viewer’s enjoyment of the stories. There’s a mix of the whimsical humor from “Ragnarok,” while also keeping one foot firmly planted in suitable gravitas to the main plot threads.

Rating: 8 out of 10 stars

“Loki” hits Disney+’s streaming service on Wednesdays.

Author

Bill Watters

Bill Watters is a child of the late 70s- he walked into a theater to watch Star Wars, and emerged to become a lifelong fan of cinema and television. Spending nearly a decade as a projectionist, he fell into the Silicon Valley dot-com boom and became a codemonkey for a range of game companies. These days he's a frequent speaker, moderator, and panelist at pop-culture events and conventions, as well as a prolific film and television critic and genre news writer. He is also a member critic of both the San Francisco Film Critics Circle and the Broadcast Film Critics Association. In addition to his writing, he is also a photojournalist and can be found on Getty Images.

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