Thor: The Dark World

MY RATING: RECOMMENDED

Thor: The Dark World is one of my most anticipated films of 2013 and I am glad that it did not disappoint me. It is decent, exciting and humorous - qualities I look for in a good superhero film. Marvel has been doing really great with its cinematic universe and I hope they can maintain or even improve their standards with their future films.

The ancient dark elves have awaken and are planning to plunge the entire universe back into darkness using a dark force. Thor must reluctantly seek the help of his untrustworthy step-brother Loki in order to vanquish them. The battle rages across few the 9 different realigning realms, involving Jane Foster in the process and Thor ultimately has to defeat the Dark Elf ruler Malekith or risk the destruction of the whole universe.

To begin with, Thor: The Dark World has to be one of the humorous Marvel films yet. I particularly enjoyed how almost every character managed to bring some humour into the film. My favourites have to be Darcy's and Loki's commentaries, both Kat Dennings and Tom Hiddleston played their roles extremely well. There was also a cameo from another Marvel character that made me crack up. That being said I feel that Phase 2 of the Marvel Cinematic Universe has a more humorous vibe than the first phase. Iron Man 3 was also a unexpectedly funny film. One parallel I can draw is from both films is that they really know how to seek humour in circumstances when the heroes' tools fails them.

I am glad that the film is well paced and scripted and that the writers really made an effort to explain the comic-book jargon to the audience. The film was also pretty intense at certain times especially when the battles alternate between the different realms. It has great visual effects and I was surprised that there were scenes that hit me rather emotionally.

In all Thor: The Dark World is an exciting sequel to the first film as well as The Avengers. I genuinely enjoyed watching it and in my opinion am glad that it improves upon its predecessor with more action and humour.

SPOILER ALERT FOR THE CONTENTS BELOW

As with every Marvel film, one of the greatest highlights have to its mid-credits/post-credits scene where they tease future film projects. In the case of Thor: The Dark World, we get both.

The mid-credits scene could possibly be a teaser for Marvel's next instalment in its Cinematic Universe, Guardians of the Galaxy coming in August 2014. It shows Volstagg and Sif, Thor's acquaintances, making a visit to The Collector, one of the key characters in Guardians of the Galaxy, in order to pass him the Aether that the Asgardians retrieved after defeating Malekith for safe-keeping. It is revealed that the Aether and Tesseract are in fact 2 of the 6 Infinity Gems. The Infinity Gems are basically few of the most power relics in the Marvel universe and when they are all fitted onto the Infinity Gauntlet, they grant the wearer infinite power. In the comics, it is the villain Thanos that is mainly after the Infinity Gauntlet and it is possibly why Thanos appears in the mid-credits scene in The Avengers. 

Some comic book fans were unhappy that the film adaptations have not been true to the comics by placing the Aether and the Tesseract as the infinity gems when they clearly were not in the comics. I, on the other hand, feel that this is a very interesting twist or idea made by the Marvel Studio. I also think that they had it planned out very long ago as there was validity in the Aether's and Tesseract's powers. The Aether is supposedly the Red "Power" Gem and its usage as a devastating weapon by the Malekith shows how much power it has over the universe. The Tesseract is possibly the Blue "Mind" Gem as in The Avengers it enabled Loki to have mind-control over Erik Selvig and Hawkeye. I am glad that Marvel is piecing everything together well and I hope that my hypothesis proves correct with the future films.

The post-credits scene does not tease any future projects but its provides a good subtle conclusion for the film when Thor finally decides to leaves Asgard for Earth to settle in with Jane Foster. Perhaps this could be a possible lead to The Avengers: Age of Ultron as him being on Earth makes it easier for S.H.I.E.L.D. to contact him when they need to reassemble the Avengers.