Movie Review - Thor: The Dark World

Thor: The Dark World (2013)

Starring Chris Hemsworth, Natalie Portman, Tom Hiddleston, Anthony Hopkins, Christopher Eccleston, Kat Dennings, Stellan Skarsgård, and Rene Russo

Directed by Alan Taylor

I know this is an unpopular opinion, but 2011's Thor is my favorite Marvel comics movie (not including some X-Men co-productions...for some reason I don't think of them [or Spider-Man] when I think of "Marvel" movies).  There was something about the fun that director Kenneth Branagh brought to the flick that made the sheer ridiculousness of the title character and his hammer wielding an enjoyable summer romp.  Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for Thor: The Dark World which feels like a heavy burden to sit through lacking any modicum of the fun and excitement that was found in its predecessor.  Quite frankly, this one is probably the worst film to come out of the Marvel/Disney pipeline in part because of an awful screenplay and direction that can't really compare to Mr. Branagh's in the first Thor. 

What the sequel really boils down to is this:  Two species in space -- one of which is Thor's people and one of which is someone else -- fought with each other a long time ago.  Thor's people won and buried this other people's energy source (or something) deep in the earth.  Thanks to wormholes (which played a prominent role in The Avengers) this energy source has been found by Dr. Jane Foster (Natalie Portman) who has been sitting around in London depressed since Thor (Chris Hemsworth) left her at the end of the last film.  This magical energy source somehow gets transferred into Jane which causes the bad guys to chase after Jane only to have Thor help her.

It's all so ridiculous...even more ridiculous than a guy from space coming down to Earth and fighting people with a magic hammer.  Chris Hemsworth and Natalie Portman look bored out of their mind in this with Portman in particular a blank slate whenever she appears onscreen (and, unfortunately, she's onscreen a lot in this one).  Tom Hiddleston injects a little bit of pizzazz into the mix, but even his Loki isn't able to overcome the inanity of the plot.

The one advantage the Thor flicks have going for them is that they do seem to understand just how silly their plots truly are.  There are jabs here and there about how ridiculous the goings-on are and I do appreciate that.  However, Thor: The Dark World is such a huge step down from the original that I don't think I'll be looking forward to the next one at all.

The RyMickey Rating:  D