Thor: The Dark World

When we last caught up with Tony Stark in Iron Man 3, the events of Avengers Assem­ble – the aliens, the worm­holes, the whole­sale prop­er­ty destruc­tion – had reduced him to a hot mess of neu­rot­ic self-absorb­tion and debil­i­tat­ing pan­ic attacks. For fel­low Avenger Thor, how­ev­er, trans-dimen­sion­al roguery and celes­tial car­nage are sim­ply anoth­er day at the office.

And so it is that his first appear­ance in this sequel to Ken­neth Branagh’s 2011 scene-set­ter sees him arrive into the midst of bat­tle on the back of a light­ning bolt, where he swift­ly kills a rock-mon­ster with one blow and busi­ly trades zingers with his com­padres before the dust has even set­tled. Why gaze into a navel when you can hit it with a very large hammer?

So com­mences Thor: The Dark World, a con­sis­tent­ly enjoy­able hunk of big, brash Fun that, like it’s epony­mous hero, scores heav­i­ly in the rau­cous adven­ture and row­dy mead-hall ban­ter depart­ments, but strug­gles when it comes to com­plex­i­ty, struc­ture or any real genius ideas of its own.

This time out the God of Thun­der is hot under the hauberk for Malekith (Christo­pher Eccle­ston), leader of the Dark Elves of Svar­talfheim who were once right­eous­ly wronged by Thor’s father Odin (Antho­ny Hop­kins) and are now back to pull down the cur­tain on all that’s good and clean and holy by return­ing the uni­verse to a pri­mor­dial state of star­less inky blackness.

To do so they need – much like Eric Bana’s venge­ful Romu­lan in 2009’s Star Trek – some all-pow­er­ful crim­son space goo called the Aether. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, in a turn of events that are just about fath­omable yet basi­cal­ly inex­plic­a­ble, Thor’s earth­ly para­mour Jane Fos­ter (Natal­ie Port­man) finds the Aether has become trapped with­in her body. The Norse lum­mox now has to save the girl and pro­tect the Nine Realms, all the while keep­ing more than half an eye on the fruity machi­na­tions of his schem­ing broth­er Loki (Tom Hiddleston).

The film’s pro­logue is com­pre­hen­sive­ly ripped from Fel­low­ship of the Ring – com­plete with elven war­riors, blast­ed waste­lands and the cap­ture of an invin­ci­ble (but unus­able) weapon. The spite­ful bad­dies could have been sprung from any Star Trek film, and Asgard is start­ing to look dis­con­cert­ing­ly like an out­growth of Princess Amidala’s palace in The Phan­tom Menace.

Norse swords ​’n’ sor­cery bumps uglies with laser can­nons and invis­i­ble space­ships in a mish-mash of fan­ta­sy ideas that some­times fail to gel. It might be futile to moan on about con­sis­ten­cy with­in a fan­tas­ti­cal realm, but the Mar­vel Uni­verse has always prid­ed itself on its unwa­ver­ing inter­nal log­ic, and some of this feels just a lit­tle off.

But despite the lack of any notable inven­tion and a chop­py, inor­gan­ic flow that smacks of fran­tic edit­ing and that results in a seem­ing­ly ditched sub­plot that lessens the impact of one of the climax’s big reveals, there’s still scads of fun to be had on The Dark World. For one, it’s extreme­ly fun­ny. There are more yuks here than you’ll find in most stu­dio come­dies, most of them too juicy to spoil.

Erst­while Game of Thrones direc­tor Alan Taylor’s deci­sion to root the visu­als in Old World greens and greys instead of the dusty blaze of Branagh’s New Mex­i­can desert is also wel­come, mak­ing for a pleas­ing con­trast between the wet Tues­day after­noon glum­ness of the earth­bound Lon­don scenes and the sweep­ing ethe­re­al beau­ty of the CGI starfields and an Asgar­dian Viking funer­al that will not only bring a lump to your throat but – if you’re watch­ing in 3D – remind you that when 3D works, it real­ly does work.

Then there’s Tom Hiddleston’s Loki. Whether the recent­ly moot­ed idea of a stand­alone Loki film has any real legs or not, there’s no doubt that Hiddleston’s sly wit, pen­chant for a gale-force hissy-fit and his apti­tude for wear­ing a thrilling tum­ble­down hair­piece have made Loki a bona fide star of the Mar­vel films. He might get off to a slow start in this instal­ment, but… well, you’ll see.