Review of Thor: The Dark World (2013) by Geralt W — 09 May 2016

The eighth film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and the second Thor movie, Thor: Dark World has a very Tolkien/Lord of the Rings feel to it. An ancient object, called the aether, was the main weapon of some long-ago bad guys who wanted to destroy the universe, or the Nine Realms, or something. They were defeated, the aether was stored in some deep hole somewhere, and the chief bad guy went into suspended animation until the aether was found again. Sound familiar?

Anyway, Thor's girlfriend accidentally finds the aether, and a plot is born. It felt derivative to me, but it was entertaining enough to keep my interest.

Very good editing keeps this complicated, multi-location story from spiralling into utter nonsense. The special effects are, of course, state of the art and up to Marvel's usual standards. Tom Hiddleston is always entertaining as secondary villain (and Thor's brother) Loki. This film came out during the first season of the MCU TV show Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., and now I know what characters meant when they talked about the havoc caused in New York (by the Avengers movie) and London (this movie). Also, I realized that the actor playing Lady Sif, Jaimie Alexander, is the star of this year's TV show Blindspot, which I enjoy.