Thor: The Dark World: Holds Strong and Delivers the Fun

The Dark World Poster

Out of all the marvel characters, Chris Hemsworth’s Thor has to be my favorite. Don’t get me wrong, I love Iron Man, Iron Man 3 being the best of the films, and Captain America has a wonderful personality, but when it comes down to a demi-god with greasy golden locks and a bleeding heart, Thor takes the cake. I was pretty excited for Dark World to roll into theaters and for good reason too.

Thor: The Dark World is set two years after the original Thor and a year after the events of The Avengers happen. The movie begins with a prologue introduction that lays the ground down for our eventual antagonists: the  Dark Elves lead be Malekith the Accursed (the unrecognizable Christopher Eccleston) who were defeated by Odin’s father Bor. Eventually we see Thor thunder in to the battlefield to help his warrior friends regain one of the Nine Realms. After Thor, Sif, and company save the day, the Nine Realms are safe for the first time since before the events of the previous Thor film. But obviously not for long. While Thor (Chris Hemsworth) pines after Jane Foster (Natalie Portman), Jane is moping about on a lunch date with the adorable Chris O’Dowd, when Darcy interrupts to tell Jane some of the equipment is going crazy. So Jane wasn’t just moping around doing nothing at all, she did travel to London, England to continue her research on trying to find Thor again.

After Jane tracks down why the equipment goes crazy in an abandoned warehouse that seems to be defying gravity in certain areas, she gets sucked into another Realm. She ends up in the Realm that once hosted the Dark Elves and is still the home to the Power Stone Aether of the Infinity Gauntlet. But Aether isn’t so much of a stone but more of a mist, and the minute that Jane just so happens to stumble upon it, she absorbs it into her body. She then awakens on Earth back in the abandoned warehouse. The Aether protects its host by not only keeping anyone with malice thoughts from touching her, but also by not letting it rain on her? A weird fact to include in the film, but it evens out when we find out it’s raining on Earth just because Thor makes it happen once he shows up to whisk Jane away to Asgard. The rest of the film is trying to keep Jane safe from harms way and figuring out a way to remove this grand power from her body that could inevitably kill her. And harms way is Malketh, obviously.

Meet harms way.

So, some more fighting happens, there’s a decoy prisoner that helps create chaos on Agard, and Loki is eventually enlisted by his brother to help save not only Jane’s life, but also the entire Nine Realms. What’s wonderful about Thor: The Dark World is that you don’t have to worry about all the action happening on Asgard, because Director Alan Taylor and Writers Christopher Yost and Christopher Markus did a great job of including the characters from both Asgard and Earth in the film’s plot. Which is an important factor when your creating a Thor movie, because he’s a man of many Realms, unlike Tony Stark or Black Widow, heroes of one world, Earth.

Bad assery

The entire cast, main and side characters, return for Thor’s first sequel, and they all have a decent amount of screen time. Jane Foster, Odin, Loki, Frigga, Sif, Fandral, Volstagg, Hogun, Heimdall, Darcy Lewis, and Erik Slevig somehow create a wonderful cast of misfits and warriors that keep you entertained for just shy of two hours. Watching Thor’s mother Frigga (Rene Russo) kick some serious ass is awesome when you think about her being a royal. She knows how to fight, and I wish that there would have been more of her in both films. Hopkins’ Odin is even more thickheaded and personally unpleasant in this film than the previous, but that’s just his character.

Darcy has a new intern (Ian) who also isn’t getting paid, but that new relationship is a fun side story to watch develop. Kat Dennings is a gem, as always, and brings back the same spunk as before. And poor, poor Erik is trying his damnest to help save the world and not go completely mad after Loki got inside his head after the events of New York in 2012.

Look at the smug little trickster

And Loki steals the show. Almost anytime Loki is on screen his raw mischief steals the attention away from anyone else in the shot. We really get to see the brother relationship between Thor and Loki in this installment of Thor which just makes the film. Thanks to the gentleman Tom Hiddleston, there is a nice, sly dose of comedy in this action-packed superhero movie.

Thor: The Dark World is jammed pack with an amazing cast (with a mind blowing cameo), powerful fight scenes, beautiful special effects, and an entertaining script. I watched the film in 2D and enjoyed it thoroughly, to me, there is no reason to see the film in 3D and the film didn’t seem like there would be that much depth to it anyways. There are two credits scenes, one is in the middle for a build up for the Guardians of the Galaxy which the director was not happy about. Then there is one at the very end of the credits which will melt your heart.

There is a gratuitous shirtless scene  that was tossed in the movie just for the women who adore Chris Hemsworth, which I loved. Trust me, I’m not complaining, his acting is you know, good too. He is one with his hammer, and it’s like an extension of his arm. The movie does a great job of keeping you on the edge of your seat considering the usual formula of a superhero sequel. The Dark World is in all honesty better than the first film, and it’s great enough to watch over and over again. Which is what I plan on doing when the film is released on Blu-Ray.