Review: Thor: The Dark World

To no one's surprise, the world of Marvel Comics continues to live on after The Avengers. This time, the cameras and the story returns to the world where Thor resides. It's called Thor: The Dark World and it catches up on his story while also introducing some new characters who arrive with some bad intentions. It's a tough battle for Thor, but he won't be going at it alone. This time he's going to have some assistance from an unexpected source.

Picking up some time after The Avengers ended, Thor (Chris Hemsworth) finds himself on Asgard living his life without Jane Foster (Natalie Portman), his true love. At the moment, his life is going relatively smooth for a superhero who just saved Earth from the clutches of Loki (Tom Hiddleston), his brother turned arch nemesis, but that's all about to change when an old legend from the past awakens with the desire to destroy everything in his path comes around.

This new villain on the block goes by the name of Malekith (Christopher Eccleston) and he's out to see the nine realms fall at his feet. Once everything is laid out, it becomes clear that the mighty Thor can't go it alone when facing this guy. He's going to need some help for the dangerous battle. From that standpoint, he does have some of his loyal allies from his "neck of the woods" on his side, but he also recruits Loki in a bid to save everyone from certain destruction if Malekith's plans fall into place correctly.

The pacing in Thor: The Dark World is essentially the same as what we experienced in its predecessor. It starts off kind of slow with a lot of walking and talking, but much of it is done better since the characters are already established this time around. Because of this, there's no Thor being a normal human being or any other stuff like that we had to sit through the first time. Here, he is who he is and has his powers throughout.

The plot in this comic book movie is awfully familiar, but it doesn't begin to truly look at it until later on. Much of the early portions of Thor: The Dark World are focused on slowly building up some parts of the story while attempting to fit the pieces together. There's also a bit of it that simply looks at the characters in this universe living life in the various places that they live. I know they couldn't do this, but I would have appreciated it if they pushed through all of this stuff instead putting the spotlight on it for so long.

As a part of that segment of the story, the film places a large spotlight on the romance between Thor and Jane Foster through much of it, but it remains watchable when you consider the fact that there are quite a few fun parts going on when those two aren't lovingly gazing into one another's eyes longer than I could take. A good portion of that success is due to some of the comedy and guys like Loki who bring legitimate personality and charisma to the screen. Taking him (and a couple of others) away would have pretty much killed the film, so be thankful that he's here to help out.

I think I view him the same way that I viewed him in The Avengers. He's really grown into this role and turns out to be the perfect choice in my opinion. That's not what I was saying after watching the first Thor movie, but I'm happy to see him improve so much within this character. At this point, I think he has what it takes to be the lead character in a film. Since he's supposed to be a villain, that probably won't happen, but I'd love to see it. He doesn't get as much time on screen as I would have expected, but he certainly should have. He deserves it.

While I would have liked to have seen more from the underutilized Hiddleston, I can't say the same for Kat Dennings. I know she's supposed to be there for comic relief, but I found her to be far more irritating than entertaining. She doesn't really add much to the movie in any way and she is as unfunny as a comedian can get. I hope that they at least think of removing her character from the third installment, because she really serves no purpose and she's not really funny. Then again, she's not bad looking though. Maybe that may be a reason to keep her in the eyes of some.

One of the things that we watch movies like Thor: The Dark World for is the action. It takes a while to get into it, but when it does, it's interesting for the most part. I can't say that you won't see better action elsewhere, because you will. What I will say is that it'll give you much of what you're probably asking for if you're into watching movies like this.

When I look at Thor: The World for what it is, the most I can say about it is that it's at least entertaining more than it's not. There's nothing about it that stands out, and there's nothing about it that's amazing. The story line is what we've seen before on plenty of occasions and it takes too long to get into the important parts of the film since they spend so much time on the love story between Thor and Jane Foster.

Pushing this out too quickly with a plot that we've seen a million times isn't what I want potential blockbusters to be. There's a ton of movie pushed into movies like this, so why not make a better story than the one they use? Luckily, there are some characters that are rather entertaining and some action that's at least serviceable. Hopefully, they give us a legitimate story the next time around. That and Loki having more to do will certainly continue to improve the series as a whole.

Score: 3/5

Rating: PG-13

Director: Alan Taylor

Cast:
Chris Hemsworth
Tom Hiddleston
Natalie Portman
Christopher Eccleston
Stellan Skarsgård
Idris Elba
Anthony Hopkins
Rene Russo
Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje
Ray Stevenson
Zachary Levi
Tadanobu Asano
Jaimie Alexander
Kat Dennings

Film Length: 112 minutes

Release Date: November 8, 2013

Distributor: Walt Disney Studios

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