Marval Movie

The sequel to one of my least favorite Avenger and least favorite MARVEL movie. It doesn't seem like there's a tall order to fill, therefore Thor: The Dark World simply has to be passable.

We are told through ominous voice-over that there was once pure darkness then came the light, there was also some very powerful thing that could be used for great evil as you'd expect there to be in a movie like this. 

One of my complaints about the first Thor movie was that we were offered this immense fantasy world and then dropped into a plain old, boring Earth town. That is left behind and we do get to be emerged in the realm of Asgard as well as some of the other worlds. These are much more visually interesting than the first movie and gives Thor and his movies a more distinct visual look.

Also the characters are given more of an edge. Jane Foster (Natalie Portman) is more decisive and a lot more necessary to the plot. The relationship between Thor and Loki (Tom Hiddleston) is pushed further along and the other supporting characters are given more moments to shine and distinguish themselves. Though this is not a movie that has sold me on Thor as a truly endearing character he is given more of a personality and Chris Hemsworth still is the most perfect casting you will find.

Our villain for this movie is a dark, evil Elf named Malekith (Christopher Eccelston). He has a cool design and can apparently deal-out some serious amount of damage, but overall he is neither truly scary, memorable, or sympathetic. You don't need to be all three but a true villain, or even just a character needs to be one of them to hold some weight. In-fact none of the MARVEL villains have been truly engaging, besides Loki, who is already in the movie so why do we need this guy?

The movie unfortunately has to tackle the same question that all the MARVEL movies will have to address post Avengers. Why don't they just assemble again? The movie partially fixes the duduk kasus with the conflict being off-world, but the climax and many other key events do happen on Earth, so  the questions still dangling in the air.

Just a point I'd like to make as a nerd is that Christopher Yost was one of the screenwriters for the movie. He is a animation and comics writer with a long list of credits. This means that someone that wrote the comics is now writing the movies, that's very pleasing to me as a fan.

The Dark World is probably better than the first Thor movie is in nearly every way. It is not The Dark Knight level of a movie because when you get twice as good as a mediocre movie you simply get a pretty good one.

Rating: 3 stars out of 4