Thor: The Dark World (2013)

Overall: B+

Cast: A+
Plot: C+
Special Effects/Stunts: A+
Similarity to Comic: A
Director: Alan Taylor
Comic Company: Marvel
Stars: Chris Hemsworth, Natalie Portman, Tom Hiddleston
Rating: PG-13
See the IMDB page
See the Rotten Tomatoes page

The Thor movies are incredibly consistent.  They have great actors, mesmerizing special effects, and questionable lines.  This one was just as good and just as ridiculous as the first.

The Good: One thing I appreciate about the Thor movies is that they kept the cast exactly the same.  Not a single character was replaced by a different actor or killed off unnecessarily.  On top the that, the cast itself is top notch.  Chris Hemsworth is the perfect Thor, Natalie Portman was spectacular as usual, and even all of the supporting characters were there and did fantastic jobs.

The idea of Thor is very abstract and unrealistic.  It is a hard story to sell to fans who like realistic superhero movies (if there is such a thing) such as 'The Dark Knight' trilogy or 'Man of Steel'.  The writers of Thor have had to come up with ways to keep people engaged in what truly is a ridiculous movie series.  The best way they have found to do this is to make the movies funny.  The first Thor movie was hilarious, but 'Thor: The Dark World' takes it to another level.  At times it almost feels as though you're watching a comedy instead of an action movie.  This is by far the funniest movie Marvel has put out to date, and I approve.

The Bad: The problem with the Thor movies is that while they can cover up some of the obnoxious themes with comedy, they cannot cover up the weird plot lines that way.  What we have here is a movie that is set in a complicated, enormous, unfathomable universe that's made up of nine realms and contains countless creatures, worlds, and scientific ideas that we cannot understand.  There is no possible way to explain all of that in one single movie and have it make sense.  The writers then chose to dumb down the universe base the main plot on a single Asgardian bedtime story (similar to what happens in the Hellboy movies).  As a result everything we see is fantastic but also doesn't make a whole lot of sense.  The viewer can follow the movie, but is left asking a lot of questions and doesn't quite "get it".

My only other complaint is that Thor himself seems like kind of a lame superhero.  He just kind of flies around and throws his hammer at things, he doesn't have any other powers, he's not particularly clever, and his hammer is what seems to do most of the work anyway.  I just think Marvel could have put a little more thought into this particular Avenger.

The Interesting: I was surprised they didn't have some kind of plot line going between Thor and Sif.  They used her in all of the previews and built up the early scenes like she was interested in being with Thor, and made viewers think she was jealous of Jane, but then nothing ever happened.  Maybe they're just saving that drama for the next Thor movie, but it didn't make a whole lot of sense in this one.

I think this movie had a lot of plot holes on the scientific level.  The most frustrating was how they talked throughout the entire movie how the realms were going to align and it was going to destroy Earth and this and that.  I have a couple questions; If the realms align and Earth is at risk, shouldn't Asgard be at risk too?  Or all of the other realms?  How come the characters are only concerned about Earth here?  And on top of that, how can all of that alignment be stopped simply by putting up little energy pillars around a couple square blocks?  Call me stupid, but absolutely all of the science in this movie seemed impossible.

Conclusion: Despite the plot issues I found this to be an absolutely fantastic movie.  Marvel has done a good job transitioning all of it's heroes to the big screen, but perhaps they have done the best with Thor.