Review of Thor: The Dark World (2013) by Lasttimeisaw — 11 Nov 2013

A crammed cinema-going for the weekend is a belated diversion since not too much going on for the past month in the burgeoning Chinese market. The chapter one THOR (2011, 5/10) and the mega-amalgam THE AVENGERS (2012, 5/10) didn’t lure me into Thor’s fan base, but this sequel does boost the franchise’s morals by further intermingling the epic apocalypse between the vast Gods’ realm and the puny but ego-maniacal earth, saw it in its over-charged 3D version (nearly impossible to find a 2D screening nearby), THOR: THE DARK WORLD is a massive crowd-pleaser, terrific art production and the trappings of a Marvel vehicle, shrewdly fictionalizes the love-and-hatred bromance between Thor and Loki, which is much hyped as the dominant draw for this action-packed escapade.

There is darkness before the birth of the universe, so as to against the plot of Malekith (Eccleston) to utilize an amorphous weapon called Aether to set the universe back into pitch-blackness, Thor (Hemsworth) has to team up with Loki (Hiddleston) to rescue his earth girlfriend Jane (Portman) who has been infected by Aether and being pursed by Malekith and his toadies, notably, a mutated fiend Algrim (Akinnuoye-Agbaje).

Whiling the most entertaining part comes the polarized tenors of the Asgard kingdom and the contemporary earth, one is solemn, majestic, atavistic and Shakespearean (thanks to Kenneth Branagh for setting the tone in THOR 2011) and the other (this time the locale is an overcast London) is glossy, modern, farcical and doomed to be pulverized. The spectacles are generally gratifying and on a par with the earlier IRON MAN 3 (2013, 6/10) to say the least.

Wonderful comic relief from the earthbound trio, Dennings, Skarsgård and Howard plus a surprising cameo by O’Dowd. Hemsworth and Portman are predictably playing the hero and his fearless girlfriend-in-danger default while Hiddleston easily grabs all the attention by influencing meatier character development, more ambiguous in his stance and a timely twist in the end can suffice to ignite fans’ passion to the next installment, or maybe a Loki-based spin-off which will be more intriguing and anti-trend in its own way. By any means it is a solid sequel which inherits the merits from its predecessor and put more verve into its gods vs. mortals contradiction, director Alan Taylor has well handled a hot potato, next step, sit and wait for CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER (2014) coming this upcoming April.