The Dark World Review

In a post-Avengers world, it’s difficult to get excited about more solo adventures featuring individual superheroes, especially when it comes to Thor, who is arguably the silliest and least interesting of the bunch. However, he also offers something completely different from all of the others both in terms of visuals and backstory. Marvel understands this and they have taken another brave step towards fully embracing the fantasy setting in Thor: The Dark World.

Thor also happened to have one of the most memorable villains from the first batch of Marvel movies, which is clearly why they made Loki such an important part of The Avengers as well. Now that Chris Hemsworth and Tom Hiddleston are starring in their third movie together, they’ve really hit their stride with these characters. Their interactions are among the best reasons to see the new movie… if only everything else could measure up to those moments.

The story picks up with Thor and Loki returning to Asgard where Loki is imprisoned for his war crimes. Back on Earth, Jane Foster and her intern discover an abandoned factory in London where the laws of physics are being turned upside down. She is briefly transported to another dimension where she is infected by a dark energy known as Aether. This awakens the Dark Elf Malekith, who seeks to use the Aether to destroy the universe. While a cosmic event known as the Convergence starts randomly opening portals between the Nine Realms, Thor has no choice but to recruit Loki to help him defeat Malekith once and for all.

As you can tell, the plot of this movie is complete and utter nonsense, but fortunately it’s largely irrelevant. It’s somehow easier to swallow much of the goofy exposition when we are spending time in a fantastical place like Asgard, which, with the help of Game of Thrones director Alan Taylor, actually feels more grounded this time around. You get the sense that there are actual inhabitants outside of Thor, Odin and Loki, and it’s nice to see supporting characters like Heimdall (Idris Elba), Frigga (Rene Russo) and Sif (Jaimie Alexander) get a little more screen time.