Thor: The Dark World - Film Review

*CAUTION: The following review contains spoilers of Thor: The Dark World. If you have yet to see the film and wish to do so, either proceed with caution or avoid reading.*

Comic book fans have always argued about the merits of Marvel and DC Comics, but in recent years, Marvel's film structure has given it an advantage in that world.

Beyond Batman, DC seem to struggle. Green Lantern was an absolute disaster, while Superman hasn't set the world alight with his two recent reboots and now needs Batman to enliven the upcoming sequel to Man of Steel.

While there is time to improve, Marvel has stolen a march. Commercially, the intertwined structure of individual Avengers movies leading into the central group films has created an entire world that people will be entranced to see.

2013 seems set to see a Marvel-Disney production again top the highest grossing films list, with Iron Man 3 in the lead.

The group are well into Phase Two, on how they attempt to follow up 2012's superhero bunfight Avengers Assemble.

Now comes the test - do they have more to their locker than Iron Man and superhero combo films?

The original Thor was a reasonable film, which saw Thor (Chris Hemsworth) and Loki (Tom Hiddleston) fight it out in the one New Mexico town yet to be visited by Roswell conspiracy theorists and Breaking Bad fans.

The sequel could work as a reasonable enough continuation to this without the story arc of the Avengers in the middle.

It certainly continues with the central Thor-v-Loki dynamic. Not that this is a bad thing - both are highly accomplished actors that play to their character's respective strengths, and Loki certainly remains a delightfully loose cannon.

Some critics weren't impressed additional Loki scenes were inserted, but there's worse things that could derail this film.

One of the problems is its happiness to hop between genres. At various points it could be a superhero-based rom-com between Thor and Jane Foster, at others standard superhero, while also throwing in sci-fi, fantasy, Norse literature, comedy, tragedy and a hell of a lot of other genres, and it is an odd one to try and make them stick.

One of the problems this film has is the intense amount of jargon, which can be confusion even for those following the thread through the various media. The start sees us introduced to the Dark Elves, the Aether and the battle at the last cosmic alignment of the Nine Realms.

To cut a long story short, the Dark Elves, led by Malakith (Christopher Eccleston), tried to use the Aether to bring the universe back to darkness, but was quashed in battle by the Asgardians and a troupe of them duly fled into suspended animation until the reactivation of the indestructible Aether.

As is seemingly custom with films like this, there are further spouts of information throughout the production. Though tiring, they do provide a funny moment when Stan Lee plays crochity grandpa at the scientist proud of his monologue. Plus they do ultimately explain the purpose I guess.

After the intro, we're introduced back to Loki, who is in trouble for his antics during the Avengers and is duly sent to the dungeons, while Thor goes darting off elsewhere to go win a battle he arrived late for.

Yet Thor is restless for his date for a reunion with Jane, who is trying the dating game with Richard (Chris O'Dowd) in London.

But there's a few interruptions to this date, when her colleagues point her to a strange scenario elsewhere in an industrial area of the city where the laws of physics appear to have gone on hiatus.

This leads to the main plot of the film, where we find the realms overlapping and Jane inadvertently crosses over to the specific area of the realm where the Aether has been stored for around 5,000 years.

The Aether's activation possesses her, which is evident when a concerned Thor - who hasn't called Jane in the 2 years since the original, hence a double slap in the face - arrives to see the Aether expel a black and red cloud from Jane outward to some Metropolitan Police officers.

Thor brings Jane back to Asgard so they can figure out what the hell is going on, but it has the unfortunate side-effect of (eventually) attracting the Dark Elves to Asgard, and with one of their number escaping the dungeons, the end result is not a pretty sight.

This leads to the covert and treasonous escape to the original dark world, an initial showdown there, a further escape back to London and then a further showdown in London.

The showdown sees the usual CGI thing of buildings going boom. Although London is spared the fate it got in GI Joe Retribution where the megaweapon flattened it, there is still pieces of destruction.

Greenwich Maritime Observatory gets the main spotlight of destruction - some leylines things meant the borough is the epicentre of the realms colliding.

But there's other scenes around the city, some of which standard, such as cars landing on the roof of St. Pauls' Cathedral, while some is amusing - Thor and Malekief sliding down the side of the Gherkin is quite something.

Of the most interesting - and hilarious - sequences seeing Thor land on the platform at Charing Cross tube station, and having to get the Northern Line back to the battle, with a woman even apologising for bumping into Thor on the train.

It would have been a typically British superhero movie if the universe had ended due to delays on the Tube.

Saying that, its not exactly a revolutionary superhero movie but that was par for the course. Its not setting out to change the way we think of films - its simply to entertain and to build the Marvel Film universe. For that, it does, and provides us another invitation to see these ever entertaining characters.

It's a good enough addition to the cannon for Marvel's increasing repertoire and its a decent continuation of the story so far. But it just so happens not to be the greatest installment so far - its merely serving its function to mildly entertain, and it does just enough for that.

Still, all this will be forgotten if Avengers: Age Of Ultron turns out to be a stonker...

3.5/5