Thor: The Dark World

Out of all the Avengers I think Thor probably has to be my favourite, which is why I was so excited to see the big beardy hammerman get a sequel.

Thor: The Dark World follows directly from The Avengers and beardface's first film, with Thor (Chris Hemsworth) crusading around outer space/the Nine Realms cleaning up after his brother Loki's (Tom Hiddleston) mess.

For those not in the know (which is weird. Who goes to see the sequel of two separate movie franchises without seeing both said movies?) Thor was forced to destroy the main mode of transportation around the Nine Realms at the end of the first Thor film.

While the Asgardians rebuilt the Bifrost, all the opportunistic space barbarians and rock monsters decided to try their luck and loot and plunder while the going was good.

The going turned out not to be so good.

Meanwhile, back on Earth, Thor's main squeeze Jane Foster (Natalie Portman) is busy being an astrophysicist. She's researching astrophysicist-y things while looking for Thor. And she's in London. And she accidentally stumbles across an ultra-mega-death-weapon/zero-gravity oil spill which then infects her.

I hate it when my girlfriend is infected with magical oil and gets all "floaty"

That in turn awakens Malekith and the Dark Elves, ancient enemies of the Asgardians from a time when the universe was darkness. The Dark Elves must have used terminal boredom to fight the Asgardians, because they're a little bit terrible and just feel like an Advancing Wall Of Doom rather than a people fighting off extinction. The only good thing about the elves was their costume and vehicle design. 

Pictured: kind of a waste of Christopher Eccleston.
Also, possibly Jon Irenicus? Shout out to my Baldur's Gate peeps.

Thor: The Dark World is basically a reversal of the original Thor film. Instead of Thor strutting around New Mexico and punching very confused doctors, Jane is taken to Asgard where she acts as an audience surrogate to the laser longboats and elves with spaceships.

The reason Thor is my favourite franchise is because it extends the created universe. It gives viewers the sense that there is so much more going on than just what we see on Earth.

Pretty ladies never grimace on Earth.
Well, they do at me, occasionally.

Each character has such a rich background that isn't elaborated on fully. There are subtle interactions between the Warriors Three, Lady Sif, Loki and Odin that are intriguing but not hammered home. They feel like old friends with a history, rather than new characters the narrative has to spoon-feed to the audience.

Old friends have beard growing competitions. Odin only shaved two minutes ago.

Asgard gets the lion's share of the characterisation, with the cinematography showing off the elaborate halls, the prisons, towering buildings, and of course anti-gravity longboats with laser cannons, which is fantastic as it sounds. The end design looks like Hellboy 2 or Neil Gaiman's Sandman series set in space.

Some of the other worlds, however, feel a little generic for their lack of attention. I believe the standard list goes: "grass world, desert, jungle, ice world, fire world..."

Asgard > Random Forest World-heim.

Hemsworth's does a great job showing the growth of the character. Compare his boisterous performance in the first film and the arrogance of The Avengers to The Dark World and you'll see what I mean. The character of Thor is significantly more restrained and level-headed, but is still rough around the edges and more of a pugilist than a politician.

Hiddleston's Loki is engaging and complicated. Of all the characters, Loki feels the most developed. While he is a trickster and has done terrible things, his justifications feel weak and his regret seeps through.

This is what regret looks like, right? I've got this correct, yeah?

The interactions between Thor, Loki and Jane are priceless, riddled with dry humour and quick wit.

But for all the praise I have for Thor: The Dark World, it falls short of the original.

Plus it doesn't just rip off Skyrim.

The first Thor film was boisterous and fun. It was simple and had a lot of slapstick. The Dark World has to work with character growth and trades the majority of the humor that came from Thor's bullheaded nature for quips and sarcasm.

What slapstick there is in the film comes at the climax of the film and can feel very jarring. One second Thor will be getting pummeled and the next minute wordlessly sliding off the glass of a skyscraper. It made the "action" part of the "action comedy" grind to a halt every time one of these moments happened. And it happened three times. Three times in the climax is too many times.

Thor pls take ths srsly.

There's plenty to like in Thor: The Dark World and it comes in at under two hours long, so I recommend it.

Three and a half stars.