'Thor: The Dark World' review by Captain Raptor

'Thor: The Dark World' review by Captain Raptor

Swapping out theatrical luvvie Kenneth Branagh for the predominantly television based Alan Taylor (Game of Thrones, Boardwalk Empire and The Sopranos, so the man's clearly earned his stripes) to direct the second installment of Thor was a move that enticed me: Branagh's film was fantastic (although to me that seems more like excellent writing than direction) and he's a dab hand at the theatrics but I was surprised that his lack of expertise in anything remotely similar to Thor's genre didn't leave an impact on the first film, so I had my doubts about him being second time lucky. Coupling that with a plot reminiscent of X2 (long time frenemies teaming up to fight a greater evil), I was considerably excited to see Thor swinging back into action.

The Dark World takes a while to get started, but it's worth it once all the pieces are in place. The set-up period is far too long, because the spark in Thor's character is the amusing way in which he deals with mortals, and it's about 20-30 minutes before there's any crossover between the realms. Thor actually gets relatively few chances to interact with the human characters, which substantially weakens the comedy that elevated the first film to such a high level, and overall Chris Hemsworth's performance is neither as charismatic nor as nuanced as it has been in his previous two outings. Luckily, the supporting characters up the game, with Kat Dennings over-compensating for everybody in the comedy department, the always superb Idris Elba being wonderfully stoic and badass (he has the film's greatest moment in which he takes out a spaceship using a knife), and of course Tom Hiddlestone stealing every scene he's involved in. Hiddlestone is still undoubtedly the best thing about the franchise, and most parts of the film that don't have his presence noticeably drag. The biggest disappointment however is Christopher Ecclestone as major villain Malekith, who's just so bland and unremarkable from start to finish. Iron Man 3 played the 'generic and dull bad guy' but then flipped the switch and made things interesting with it halfway through, whereas Thor: The Dark World seems content to have one of the simplest and least interesting villains in the Marvel movie canon.

If Thor disappoints in the comedy department, then at least it keeps things running smoothly in the action department. Hammers fly and buildings crumble, and the Dark Elves have an awesome (in both senses of the word) weapon in their grenades that create miniature black holes. However, again, these elements aren't hugely prominent in the opening of the film. All the audience is given at the start is Thor and Jane both moping (although Thor deals with his in a more screen-friendly, smashing-stuff kind of way) and Anthony Hopkins continuing his surprisingly underwhelming performance as the not-even-close-to-likable Odin. Once all the elements of Thor blend together, it all starts to work significantly better, and by the end I was definitely enjoying myself a lot. With Branagh out of the way, the film can be more minimal and at times is much better for this, such as the various instances of Kat Dennings just messing about in southern England (admittedly her love interest/counterpart Ian the Intern is pretty dull), and a really brief and simple cameo by Captain America had me more entertained than almost all of the film's setpieces.

Thor: The Dark World is nothing to write home about, but it's still worth seeing. The latter half of the film is funny, fast-paced and thoroughly enjoyable, but a few errors throw it off kilter. The major issue is that the film just does not engage the audience from the start, predominantly due to issues with pacing, and underusing its finest cast members (namely Elba, Hiddlestone and to a lesser degree Dennings; Zachary Levi is also squandered in his role but given that he's taking the part over from a different actor I can understand why). If you can get past the opening dreariness (which is partially eleviated at points) then there's a lot of fun to be had, and even including everything Thor: The Dark World is still a solid film.