New Release Review: 'Thor: The Dark World'

The unimaginatively titled Thor: The Dark World opens thusly: the coming Convergence (also known as: plot convenience) allows the Dark Elves - the sworn enemy of Odin and his brethren - to travel where they like. They intend to use the Aether (also known as: the MacGuffin) to make themselves invulnerable and convert the dark matter of the universe into, um, darker matter? Or something. Honestly I'm not sure. Anthony Hopkins' Odin seemed as bored giving the exposition as I was on hearing it. The main thing to take away is that the Dark Elves should be kept away from the Aether, which has found its way into the bloodstream of Natalie Portman's astrophysicist (because if it didn't then Portman would have nothing to do). Whilst all this is going on Tom Hiddleston's Loki sits in a cell, stealing the film whilst going nowhere and doing nothing, having misbehaved a tad during the events of Avengers Assemble.

MacGuffins are a given in action films, and even more so in comic book ones. They're not always a bad thing. They can be used well. The first film had a MacGuffin of its own, The Tesseract, but it was smartly deployed. In Thor: TDW there's no sense of weight or history to the barrage of MacGuffins we're told about. The Marvel comic books might have a long history involving the Dark Elves, the Aether, and the rather handy Convergence, but in the film they feel conjured from thin air. They're handy plot devices and little else. Somewhere out there is a cut of the film that shows why Malekith (Christopher Eccleston), leader of the Dark elves, has such a bee in his bonnet about Asgard; but after test screenings Aaron Taylor, the director, decided to cut them in favour of more Loki scenes. Now I'm all for more Hiddleston, but the scenes that have been added in - 'jammed in' as even Taylor admits - are fairly obvious. They're fun enough, but they slow things right down and tell us zero, zilch, and nada, about Malekith.

The film mostly focuses on getting Thor (Chris Hemsworth) - probably the least interesting character in the film after Kat Denning's intern Darcy - from one punch-up to another; which is a problem because Thor is just Superman with a hammer. He's an indestructible titan. At one point he gets punched in the face, repeatedly, by a demonic looking Dark Elf who is imbued with the power of something-something-blah-blah. After taking a beating that ought to have liquidated his organs and crushed every bone in his body, Hemsworth sits up with a couple of a slight scuff mark on one cheek. Yes, he's a superhero, and ought to be able to take the hits reasonably well - but there's no danger here. The only reason the final action sequence is even remotely entertaining is because of a fun distortion of time and space that means the battle rages through the air, atop skyscrapers, over mountains, and on different planets; but at no point is there any reason to fret over Thor's safety. He's a god. He'll be just fine.

That said, it is fun. And funny. Very funny in fact. None of the moments rival the first film's Thor-in-a-pet-shop moment, but Marvel still understand that Thor (and his brethren) are a little hard to swallow, even in a world full of men and women wearing capes and tights, and instead of ignoring that fact they highlight it, make fun of it, and in doing so the gods of Asgard almost seem to fit in.

Overall: 6/10