THOR THE DARK WORLD

SYNOPSIS –With the universe threatened by a new evil, Thor must form an uneasy alliance with his treacherous brother in order to defeat it. The first Thor film was out long before this blog began so I think it’s only fair that, before moving on to the sequel, to give some brief thoughts on the first film. I have to admit that I was not entirely wowed by the god of thunder’s first outing, it certainly wasn’t a bad film but it set things up for the Avengers movie as well. I just felt that out of the entire pre-Avenger Assemble movies it felt a little by-the-book and flat. Of course, cinema is a tricky thing and when I caught a double screening of both films last night I found myself enjoying and appreciating the first film much more. So with all the hype over the sequel can it possibly live up to the expectations? The short answer is yes. We pick up the movie a little after the end of the Avengers and the transition works well. Asgard feels like a connected piece of the larger Marvel universe as we see the chaos unleashed by Loki (Tom Hiddleston). New director Alan Taylor shows us more of the nine realms and expands Thor’s universe, as well as giving a fuller look at Asgard, which we did not get to see a great deal last time, The core of the film is the relationship between Thor (Chris Hemsworth) and Loki, both actors show great skill in mixing the fraternal bickering with the deeper emotional scenes. Both characters progress and grow in the film and we get to see new sides of them (one of the biggest curses of franchise movies for me is this lack of development). In a nice irony we get to see Thor, who started out as a brash warmonger, be the voice of moderation to his father Odin (Sir Anthony Hopkins) which marks him out as a leader of men rather than simply a muscled bruiser. Loki meanwhile gets his own journey which, whilst giving the character new ground, feels like there is more to tell (the director has signed on for a possible third film so it’s possible things are being held back for that). Whilst our heroes (well hero and anti-hero) are well developed, the villain of the piece, Malekeith (Christopher Eccleston) is a lot more ‘by the numbers’ and a bit dull. This is not Eccelston’s fault, he does his best to give the role real menace but he is hampered by clichéd dialogue and a lack of screen time. Thor’s loyal warrior companions, the warriors three, feel underused, this is a shame because as a group they have strong dynamics and it would have been nice to see more of them in action. Much more comedy has been put into this instalment and though it is very effective it sometimes can be a little jarring when we suddenly jump from laughter to serious mode. Now, of course, there was a good deal of tongue in cheek humour in the first film but some of this feels a bit out of place. FINAL VERDICT 8/10 This is how you keep a fan base interested, excited and ready for more