4 out of 5

Directed by: Alan Taylor

This is more accurately a slightly better-than-average film, but it deserves an extra notice for being such an improvement over the first, and credit to the writers / directors / editors for handling a pretty hefty amount of plot in under two hours without the flick feeling either over-stuffed or rushed.  There’s the sense that, had director Taylor handled our first film, this one could’ve been even stronger, as a visual language could’ve been established previously that could’ve suffused ‘Dark World’ with some better synchronicity through its occasional bumps.

Before we touch on the plot, let’s speak to the overall improvement: Asgard comes alive.  The garish sets and costumes from the first flick are re-woven into – somehow – a more grounded setting, despite all of the fantastic details.  The rainbow bridge, Odin’s court, the prisons – they feel like they take up actual space and aren’t just CG’d sets that’ll be taken down when the scene is over.  This was a purposeful move on the behalf of Taylor (according to wiki), and effects team Double Negative helped realize that desire, very, very much to the film’s benefit.  Similarly, the wackadoo outfits of Asgardians (and new-to-the-film Dark Elves) now work.  Where they looked a little ill-fitting and silly and ‘Thor,’ here I didn’t question them.  The best example of this is Idris Elba’s Baldur, with his gold contacts and madly designed helmet a pretty hefty burden for any actor to shine through, but in ‘Dark World,’ his role being more integral (true for all of the side characters – excepting the humans, who are included more out of necessity than plotting need), it was important to humanize him a bit, and whatever tweaks were made to the shooting style / costumes to accommodate this are a blessing.  While a hundred names from the cast would go into this, we’ll thank ringleader Taylor’s experience from the wide world of television (and more recently ‘Game of Thrones’) for making the entirety of Thor 2 more seamless.

And Hemsworth.  Perfect casting.  Marvel has really struck gold with most of their principles, but Chris has grown (as an actor and in muscle mass…) since the original.  The burden Thor carries of trying to keep his people and lands safe are well expressed by Hemsworth, exuding the proper boastful confidence of a god but properly tempered by the Marvel Cinematic Universe of experiences his character has gone through.  When he shirks off parties and wishes for quick resolutions to battles, it doesn’t just seem like cliched scripting: we believe it.

After all that, the plot’s just sort of a blurb: ancient evil power being abused by an ancient evil race, led by ancient evil king Malekith, played with typical elan by Christopher Eccleston.  The role doesn’t demand much but keeping a straight face and speaking Elven, but on a positive note, you never feel like you’re looking at the actor: it’s Malekith, as one-dimensional as he is.  This reminds me of Bana’s baddie from the 2009 Star Trek reboot – not really much to the character itself, but suffices as a placeholder for the hero/es to rally against.  Anyhow, Odin’s daddy banished all of this evil… OR SO WE THOUGHT BLAH BLAH until Natalie Portman science-stumbles into the ancient evil and reawakens Malekith.  Typical Eve role, and the weakest part of the script.  I’m not a particular fan of Portman, but I thought she was well cast in the original, and provided a believable ‘factual’ counterpoint to all the gods and magic.  But here her role seems vacant, going doe-eyed dumb over Thor and truly not having any part except to screw things up.  Her interaction with the ‘ancient evil’ is also one of the flick’s few design flaws: it’s such a hefty pre-history to the flick that to never say much more of the mysterious rock in which said evil is sealed, and/or its vague setting, seems like a glaring void in the script, exposing it as the partial MacGuffin it is (to motivate Thor and Loki’s involvement, to bring about a bad guy).

But that’s all fine and well.  The setting, the fights, the acting (of most), the effects, the direction, the cinematography: ‘Thor: The Dark World’ is so much more of a complete picture than ‘Thor’ – more exciting, more involving – that we should be thankful Marvel is doing well enough with these flicks to merit sequels, as long as the opportunities will be taken to add to and improve the experiences where necessary.