Film Review: Thor: The Dark World

Thor - Norse God of thunder and perhaps one of the most surprising additions to Marvel lore - returns to his fantastic universe that blurs the line between ancient myth and science fiction.  Kenneth Branaugh's film has always felt like a "good but not great" affair, so this sequel had nowhere to go but up.

Naturally, there are loads of great action scenes throughout the film, with Asgardians, humans, and evil dark elves fighting on land, sea, air, and space.  Among the film's highlights, the elves' raid on Asgard is a fantastic sequence with spaceships zooming around the city and shooting things up.  The final act presents a wildly imaginative sequence with characters duking it out across multiple worlds.  In between, the film goes through plenty of compelling drama, but a lot of it is ultimately crushed by the comedy; hardly a moment goes by without something funny or ridiculous.

The story continues after the Thor film and The Avengers in a logical manner, continuing the established character arcs.  The plot itself is a stand-alone affair, and can be watched pretty easily on its own (you do not need to see the other Marvel films to understand The Dark World, since most connections are passing references, and the narrative does its job of setting things up).  The plot goes through a pretty standard structure, but I was intrigued to see where they were going with everything; there are a few surprising twists and turns, and the film takes the characters to bold new directions.  A lot of the characters are fairly one-dimensional (especially Thor himself, the main antagonist, and the scientist characters, who are there mostly for comic relief), but everybody's favorite supervillain, Loki, easily steals the spotlight.

This film pretty standard photography, but I think it is meritable for being solid, having good movements and angles, and generally allowing the action to speak for itself without being stylistically excessive (thus, all the weird Dutch angels from the first film are nowhere to be seen).  Editing struck me as being a little screwy in a few scenes, but is mostly spot-on.  Acting is good:  Chris Hemsworth, Tom Hiddleston, and Anthony Hopkins all reprise their roles admirably (Hiddleston has especially grown into his role most comfortably).  Natalie Portman continues to play a rather ditzy love interest, but she is given more in this film.  Everybody else is decent, although I don't think Christopher Eccleston stood out much at all.  Writing is not bad, although I felt that the film's explanation of the Aether and its connection with things like dark matter and the universe in general was pretty weak (pretty much technobabble just for the sake of it).  This production has decent-looking sets, props, and costumes.  Most special effects are cool, but I thought that some of the backgrounds and starfields looked a little low-rez.  Music is alright.

Thor:  The Dark World is a grade better than the first Thor film, and it's an easy recommendation for fans of the Marvel films.

4/5 (Entertainment:  Good | Story:  Pretty Good | Film:  Good)