‘Thor: The Dark World’ is solid addition to Marvel universe

Have you noticed that heroes and former villains almost always need to band together and fight even worse villains in movie sequels. In Thor: The Dark World, Thor (Chris Hemsworth) needs to ally with his bad bro Loki (Tom Hiddleston) to fight off a menacing threat from Malekith (Christopher Eccleston), a dark elf who wants to destroy Thor’s people and all light within the universe. Jane (Natalie Portman), Thor’s girlfriend, helps to save Asgard and the cosmos, while Odin (Anthony Hopkins) tries to keep his two sons from killing each other.

The plot behind Thor: The Dark World is fairly bare bones. There’s these dark elves, and then there’s everyone else. The history of Malekith is only mentioned briefly; instead, the sequel becomes a sci-fi, special-effects extravaganza, comfortable in its ability to blow stuff up.

In the special-effects department, Thor: The Dark World excels tremendously. This is  solid space epic with most of the action taking place in the intergalactic realm, unlike the original film. The CGI artistic design is stellar, even Oscar worthy. Pending destruction never looked more beautiful.

Director Alan Taylor has a background in TV work, and his clarity and coherence for quick storytelling is evident. The movie is gargantuan in scope, and yet it clocks in at less than two hours. What’s lost is any kind of exposition, and although purists may cry foul for the emphasis on pure action, Thor: The Dark World knows how to put the super in superhero. This movie rocks and rolls.

The acting is somewhat uneven, and that is due to the screenplay by Christopher Yost, Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely. Because Thor, as a character, is a god from another universe, the stilted dialogue somehow works in his one-sided conversations. The audience has come to expect this muscled man to speak in slogans and battle cries. The same goes for Odin.

Loki, on the other hand, is a sly dog, one needing to sell his lines with a hint of madness. The screenwriters run out of adequate material for the character; however, Hiddleston, who is the best part of the Thor franchise, still knows how to sell the scenes with a masterful cunning

Then there’s Jane. Too often superhero movies forget about the vital female roles. The spotlight is always on the title character, and sometimes romantic entanglements are forgotten or trivialized. So it goes with Portman’s Jane. There’s nothing remotely interesting about her character, especially in comparison to the other roles in The Dark World. (Admittedly, the odds are against Jane from the beginning. As one of the only humans in the mix, how can she compete with gods and dark elves?). Worse yet is that Portman doesn’t excel with the generic dialogue. There are some scenes that feel ripped from the Star Wars reboot, and audiences probably remember how rough those were for the Oscar-winning actress.

Thor: The Dark World still makes good on its superhero promises. From the special effects to Hiddleston’s spot-on portrayal, the sequel scores enough points — just enough.

By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com

• Thor: The Dark World

• 2013

• Directed by Alan Taylor

• Written by Christopher Yost, Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely

• Starring Chris Hemsworth, Natalie Portman, Tom Hiddleston, Anthony Hopkins and Christopher Eccleston

• Running time: 120 minutes

• Rated PG-13 for sequences of intense sci-fi action and violence, and some suggestive content

• Rating: