Thor: The Dark World

(Movie Review)

Why I Saw This Movie
This movie came out 5 years ago, so obviously I'm a bit late on this one.
Back in 2013, I wasn't entirely committed to the Marvel Cinematic Universe.  I would see the movies if they were convenient, but I would just as happily not see them.
Lately, though, I've been getting more and more sucked in.  (The Marvel movies have really been getting better and better lately.  All of the recent Marvel movies from the past couple years have been really good: Civil War, Guardians of the Galaxy 2, Spider-Man, Ragnarok, Black Panther, and Infinity War--all excellent.)

So, the more I get sucked into these newer movies, the more I want to go back and catch the ones I've missed so I can pick up on the continuity notes.  (Several of the Marvel movies since have referenced events in Thor: The Dark World.  For example Ragnarok, and Infinity War.)
I've been wanting to see this movie for the past couple years now, but kept waiting for it to be on T.V.  (I know in this day and age you can find everything off of the Internet, but I hate watching action movies on my small computer screen.  I preferred to watch it in style on the big television screen.)
For the past couple years I had bad luck.  I would always turn the TV on right in the middle of this movie, or right when it was ending.  But then, this morning, I was flipping channels, and I caught this movie right at the beginning.  So I watched it, and here I am with my review.

The Positives
* The coolest thing about these Thor movies is how they blend Norse mythology with comic books.  The 9 Realms.  The Rainbow Bridge.  Vanaheimr.  The Dark Elves.  When I'm watching these Thor movies, I keep thinking: "What kind of whacked out comic book writing is this?" Only to go to Wikipedia, and discover that most of this comes directly from the original Norse Mythology. 
I'm given to understand this was how Jack Kirby wrote the original comics way back in the 1960s, although--comic book geek though I am--I'm not well read in my Thor.
(I also mentioned this in my review of Ragnarok.)

* The interaction between Thor and Loki was good.

* In retrospect, you can see that even back in 2013 they were setting up a lot of the pieces for Infinity War.  It's kind of cool how intricately they had this all planned out.

Negatives
* Asgard was really visually appealing, but the dark world was really boring visually.

* The villains were really boring.

* I really liked Thor's three Warrior friends from the first movie.  They were played by delightfully quirky character-actors.  Plus I liked the idea of Thor having friends and teammates on Asgard, instead of just being a weird loner.
The good news is that they brought them all back for this sequel, but the bad news is that they were barely used.  (And what's worse is that they got killed of in Ragnarok, after again being barely used.  So... so much for those characters, I guess.)

* Natalie Portman wasn't really interesting in this movie.

The Review
You know, we had had so many really great Marvel movies lately, that I kind of forgot there was a period during phase 1 and phase 2 where a lot of these movies were pretty much just place-holders between the big event team-up movies.  But yeah, let's face it, some of these phase 2 movies were pretty forgettable.
This movie isn't bad.  It's competently done, and has a couple decent action scenes.
But it's not great either.  It's pretty meh.  The craziness of Asgard is under-utilized, and the new Dark World is just really boring.

Rating ;
4 out of 10 Stars.  (Maybe border-line 5 stars.)

Marvel Cinematic Universe Links:
1. Iron Man
2. The Incredible Hulk
3. Iron Man 2
4. Thor
5. Captain America: The First Avenger
6. The Avengers
7. Iron Man 3
8. Thor 2: Dark World
9. Captain America 2: Winter Soldier
10. Guardians of the Galaxy
11. Avengers: Age of Ultron
12. Ant-Man
13. Captain America 3: Civil War
14. Doctor Strange--Haven't seen yet
15. Guardians of the Galaxy 2
16. Spider-Man: Homecoming
17. Thor: Ragnarok
18. Black Panther
19. Avengers: Infinity War
20. Ant-Man and the Wasp

Video Review
Video review HERE and embedded below:



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