![]() The day Hemsworth puts the hammer down will be a shame. ![]() Getting back on the Norse here, the Australian actor comports himself with admirable ease, handling the comedic and dramatic aspects equally adroitly, as a rapidly maturing Thor is forced to rebel against his stubborn father in order to save Asgard (and the rest of the Nine Realms). And yet Chris Hemsworth managed to make it work from the get-go, bringing charm and power to the role. In the wrong hands, Thor could have been an utterly ridiculous character - an abbed-up demigod who looks like he’s on a gap year just finding himself, man, and who speaks with a Ye Olde English twang. For the most part, Marvel has an uncanny knack for casting just the right person to make their comic book characters flesh. Structurally, it begins in the same way, with a slightly clunky prologue - complete with portentous voice-over from Anthony Hopkins as Odin exposition - that sets up both the film’s main villains, the Dark Elves, and the Aether, an all-powerful source of dark matter that might as well be called the MacGuffin.įrom there, though, it hits the ground running, deftly reintroducing the key players, from Odin to Tom Hiddleston’s Loki, bound for the dungeons after that kerfuffle in New York, and Natalie Portman’s Jane Foster, now living in London and going on an extremely awkward blind date with a potential new boyfriend (a fun cameo from Chris O’Dowd), who doesn’t stand a chance of living up to her previous boyfriend, the God Of Thunder. First and foremost, though, this is laid out as a sequel to Thor. It also feels very different from last year’s Avengers Assemble, even though there are occasional callbacks to that movie, including a lovely riff on the shawarma scene and a nice cameo from. The one thing it doesn’t feel like, even though its lead character can fly and is virtually indestructible, is a superhero movie. ![]() At times it even feels like a sci-fi war movie. So, where Kenneth Branagh’s introduction to Thor was a charming, cheesy, even campy fish-out-of-water comedy, Alan Taylor’s The Dark World is - tonally, visually, thematically - a different kettle of bilgesnipe, on a much bigger scale than the relatively low-key first instalment. Acutely aware of the dangers of audience fatigue - case in point: The Dark World is Thor’s third big-screen appearance in as many years - Kevin Feige, who produces all the studio’s films, appears determined never to make the same film twice. Come for the stings, stick around for the previous 100 minutes of people talking and fighting and whatnot, and you’ll be rewarded with a thrilling, and often surprisingly funny, reminder that, following Avengers Assemble and Iron Man 3, nobody is better than Marvel at this blockbuster business right now. However, we don’t recommend that you show up right at the end. For Thor: The Dark World boasts not one, not three, but *two *of the suckers, with one coming right at the end, so you even have time to nip out for a loo break before rushing back to catch it.
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