Thor: The Dark World

Thor 2 delves deeper into the sci-fi Norse mythology as Thor must try to stop the dark elves from getting their hands on an evil substance called ether, which will cause the end of the universe somehow. What results is a lot of off-Earth time in this new film, which I’m not so sure is a good thing. To be honest, this movie felt very slow to get going, and I was relieved once we finally saw the skyline of London.

Throughout the majority of The Dark World, it certainly felt the least like a Marvel film than all the previous installments in the series thus far. Some may say its a good thing, but in actuality it just felt more alien. While in Thor 1 the Asgard scenes were interesting and fun to watch, in this movie they just felt awkward. Anthony Hopkins as Odin felt out of character especially. Loki meanwhile seemed to be working within a different movie entirely, cracking quips despite his more seriously toned surroundings. He also uses his “trickster” act far too much.

Visually, Thor 2 was a strange mix of Star Trek and Lord of the Rings. The enemies especially were reminiscent of Star Trek. And Asgard, though seen in more detail this time, still felt likely nothing more than a CGI model, and not a real lived in place, unlike something like Minas Tirith in the LOTR trilogy which very much did.

But even though the movie starts out rather boring and never seems tonally on the same page as the scene before it, it does get better. The story starts to pick up a little once Thor and company decide to travel to the dark world, and continues picking up steam from there.

I particularly liked the climax of the movie. It could have very much been a basic hack and slash final fight, but they used the gravity/wormhole effects to great use to make a more interesting battle scene. It reminded me a little of the door chase in Monsters Inc, but till had its own flavour. I appreciated this, as it was a rather unique fight scene, which we dont see much anymore.

I was pretty disappointed in the second Thor installment, especially after really enjoying the first film. This one just felt too foreign with the Asgard half and not enough to the Earth scenes. But it does get better as it goes on.
6/10