Thor fights to restore order across the cosmos… but an ancient race led by the vengeful Malekith returns to plunge the universe back into darkness. Faced with an enemy that even Odin and Asgard cannot withstand, Thor must embark on his most perilous and personal journey yet, one that will reunite him with Jane Foster and force him to sacrifice everything to save us all.
Most of the characters from the first Thor film stayed the way they were - one-dimensional. With exception to Loki, everyone else played subpar.
Although it was not as fun and light as the Avengers films, there were still some points that were great. One was how they depicted Asgard - it was plain beautiful. Another was how they wrote the script and the way Asgardian people talked.
I loved it more than the first! The action scenes and plot was better. The acting was fantastic and there was enough banter to keep it from getting too dark.
I'm just gonna go ahead say it: this is a waste of time.
It's a good thing they did great on the first Thor film because this one sucked! At least they'll get one more chance to redeem themselves.
I'm a big Marvel fan but even I can't deny the fact that this film is absolute garbage.
Now I know why no one is talking about this film - it's plain garbage.
I didn't love this movie but I didn't hate it either. Still decent but Marvel can definitely do better than this.
One of the first Marvel movies I've seen so I wouldn't know a lot but I definitely liked the first one better than this.
It's too bad they weren't able to replicate the success they had with both the Iron Man and Captain America films. Thor had so much potential!
Sure it's funny but now it feels like Thor is aimed to please kids. It's understandable though because that's the biggest audience right now and a studio has to make money.
The movie pacing was too fast. I wasn't able to fully comprehend what was going on. Then the story became totally predictable at one point. I am disappointed.
Marvel has produced a lot of films that are watch-worthy, but not this one.
Marvel should not have tried so hard to give Thor a darker tone. That's DC's job, not theirs.
It would've been better if they gave us more information about the bad guy. Sure he's just another villain but a back story would've still been great.
If you took out the other main characters, like Jane for example, this film would've still made sense. Everything was a mess!
One of my favourites from the MCU's opening eight releases. Judging by that average rating: Shows what I know, eh?
I seriously enjoyed 'Thor: The Dark World', with it not only surpassing its predessceor from 2011 but all bar 'Captain America: The First Avenger' in the MCU thus far also. Each to their own, as always, but I found it great.
Loved the score, one of the more memorable ones from the Marvel Cinematic Universe at this point. I also found the pacing to be near perfect, while the humour fits very well. The plot is entertaining.
Chris Hemsworth is great as Thor, while Natalie Portman gives a performance worth noting - unlike in the original. I admit I wasn't overly happy to see Tom Hiddleston appear again, given his character isn't good enough to be in three MCU films, but he is satisfactory here. The rest of the cast are solid, too.
I thoroughly enjoyed it, what can I say?
Alan Taylor picks up where Sir Kenneth Branagh left off and delivers a dark, more menacing, action adventure with "Thor" (Chris Hemsworth) having to thwart the aspirations of the dark elves led by "Malekith" (Christopher Eccleston). The elves are desperate to obtain the "Aether" - a source of unspeakable power. Meantime, "Jane" (Natalie Portman) and an increasingly off the rails "Selvig" (Stellan Skarsgård) are on Earth continuing their search for a way to communicate with Asgard again. When she accidentally gets sucked into a wormhole, she becomes a target for the evil elf, and after he conquers Asgard, all nine worlds are at risk of being subsumed into perpetual darkness. As with the first film, there is humour here - there is chemistry on screen between Tom Hiddleston's untrustworthy "Loki" and Hemsworth, as between him and Portman. Skarsgård seems to spend a fair amount of the film in his underpants, and it all happens under the sparingly delivered gaze of Sir Anthony Hopkins. The story is good, and forgetting for a moment that Eccleston is not (remotely), this makes for an enjoyable to watch film that remains completely detached from the Marvel/SHIELD series and it should be appreciated for that too.
Thor: The Dark World may not have been perfect, but it captured a unique blend of myth, magic, and Marvel charm that feels nostalgic now. Watching it reminds me of a time when the MCU had heart, humor, and a sense of wonder. I miss the days when Marvel felt fresh and genuinely fun.
Rewatched for the Once Upon a Franchise podcast. Listen to the full episode here: https://open.spotify.com/episode/685I7rKWu6MYlAJlQOg3xG?si=c90ac84e8f62472b
Revisiting THOR: THE DARK WORLD, it's impossible to ignore its reputation as one of the MCU's lowest points. My experience, however, was that of a film less outright bad and more profoundly uninteresting, with moments of genuine brilliance that are quickly smothered by a haze of confused ideas. The opening sequence, for instance, is surprisingly effective, establishing the threat of the Dark Elves with competent fight sequences and a score by Brian Tyler (IRON MAN 3) that injects a real sense of adventure. The subsequent invasion of Asgard and Frigga's funeral are the movie's true highlights: the former is a tense and consequential action set piece, while the latter is arguably the most beautiful and emotional moment in the entire film. However, it's here that it begins to fall apart. The villain, Malekith, is a generic and forgettable figure with bland motivations, and the movie never truly decides on its central story. It tries to be a romance between Thor and Jane, a family drama about the succession to Asgard's throne, and a cosmic epic about the threat of the Aether, but it fails to weave these threads together cohesively, resulting in a tonally confused and narratively unfocused experience.
The film's biggest problem lies in its treatment of its characters and the lack of a cohesive arc. Jane Foster, who was a clever and proactive scientist in the first movie, is reduced here to a damsel in distress and a mere vessel for the Aether, becoming a plot device instead of a character. Thor himself lacks any meaningful development; his final declaration about preferring to be a good man rather than a great king feels like an afterthought, as his desire for the throne is never truly explored throughout the film. This lack of depth extends to the climax, a dull and VFX-heavy battle that relies on a gigantic plot coincidence to function. In the end, THOR: THE DARK WORLD isn't as terrible as collective memory has painted it, but it remains hopelessly unmemorable. It's almost a "filler" movie, an entry that could be skipped entirely without losing many important pieces of the grand MCU puzzle.
Rating: C
