Cinema Reviews

Thor: The Dark World Review

• 1st Nov 2013

Thor returns once again, and we catch up with the Asgardian as he is literally coming to the end of cleaning up the mess left over from previous exploits and has brought harmony to the nine realms for the first time in a long time. Of course at his side are the warriors three and the Lady Sif, all presided over by his father Odin.

On Earth, long lost love (Girl he met for a few scenes in the first film) Jane has camped down in London to continue her research with her colleagues and by some miraculous script writing endeavour comes across a new kind of magic that happens to awake an aged old enemy of the universe (The dark elves, lead by Christopher Eccelston), and therefore presents the right opportunity for Thor to come say hello and rescue her.

It seems that Marvel took stock of what worked and what was missing from the first film and have done their best to levy the balance in the appropriate directions.  Jane had a rather flimsy role first time round – this time she pretty much becomes part of the maguffin. Loki went down an absolute storm – he’s back to steal screen time yet again.

The film does bounce around various locations, but spends the majority of its time in Asgard giving the filmmakers a great opportunity to explore the world more, whilst remaining true to the concept from the first film.

Alan Taylor directs as he might a certain show he is known for but on a bigger budget. The problem though is that sometimes the screen can look a little made for TV – especially when playing with the hues of the characters on screen to match the nasty grey CGI backgrounds.

There are issues. The problem with this film wanting to be a comedy – and literally everyone is given comedic beats to play is that they can’t all hit home. It may well come down to how much you appreciate certain types of humour.  If you like the Loki banter then the interplay will be screen gold. If however you find the lazy addendum comments made by Darcy in the first film annoying then  you may find Kat Dennings unbearable in this film as she is given more screen time and is ramping it up in every scene making her all the more two dimensional than ever.

Despite having a fairly short running time the film takes a long time to get doing with groundwork to lay and characters to reintroduce. But despite a bit of a dull intro, it’s the new big bad guy that suffers perhaps the most making the action all the more flimsy and care free.

This isn’t to say that Thor 2 is a disaster. it’s highly entertaining, and as we already stated, very funny. But it isn’t the so much a Step up for Thor movies as a side step. it’s different, but no better than the first.

Steven Hurst