Thor: The Dark World

It seems that despite Marvel's incredible execution of its cinematic universe, they still don't know what to do with Thor.  He's a great comic book character with several really fun stories.  There's the time that Thor got turned into a frog and had to use his powers to save the frogs of Central Park from New York City's rats.  There's the time Thor had to battle Beta Ray Bill (an alien with a horse skull head) for the right to wield Mjornil and Bill is found to be the only other creature worthy to carry the hammer.  Or even the "death" of Thor when Tony Stark creates a Thor clone/robot that goes on a rampage.  Those are weird stories, but not too weird compared to the Dungeons & Dragons-esque world that Thor inhabits.  Marvel's film team doesn't know how to handle a character with a world so strange.

Thor: The Dark World sees Thor team up with Loki in order to keep a handful of elves from unleashing a force that will plunge the Nine Realms into darkness and allow the elves to rule over all.

To take some of the oddity out of the Thor comics, Marvel keeps placing Thor firmly on Earth.  That provided the first film with a few good "fish out of water" gags, but it quickly wore out its welcome.  In this new film, Thor gets to spend much more time in Asgard and other parts of the Nine Realms.  But everything still keeps coming back to Earth.  It's as if Marvel cannot believe that we will be invested in the story if Earth is not under immediate threat.  They think that we cannot have an emotional connection to Asgard and its people or even accept that for Thor the stakes of losing his home are very high.  

Having Earth's fate be the driving factor of the movie is only a small part of the problem.  The big part is his relationship with Jane Foster.  Essentially, Thor only cares about the fate of Earth because Jane lives there.  So we have to deal with a romance that has still, after two movies, not been adequately fleshed out.  The first movie had some decent flirting between Thor and Foster, but they have never been shown to have any reason to be interested in each other.  Basically, they're just two attractive people and attractive people should be together (I guess?).  

Thor: The Dark World is not a bad movie though.  It's just underwhelming.  The look of the sequel is better than the original, but it still lacks any real excitement.  Thor needs to given big foes to fight.  He needs to have a film where the antagonist is a worthy opponent to a god.  This film tries in a couple of places, but then Thor never overcomes those obstacles.  Someone else does, which renders Thor useless in his own movie.

If you liked the first movie (which I did), you'll probably like this one too.  This review comes off a little complain-y, but I ultimately had fun with Thor: The Dark World.  Ladies, this movie knows you like Chris Hemsworth and takes plenty of opportunities to get his shirt off.  It was very interesting to watch a movie wherein a man is filmed with the same lingering camerawork that is usually reserved for scantily clad women.  And if ever there was an actor who should be filmed in that way, it's Chris Hemsworth.  

6.5 out of 10