The rollout of the “true Marvel” movies during the last five years—of films made under the creative auspices of the company that spawned them—has been a pretty exciting time for comic book fans. (The billions in box office suggest it’s been pretty fun for the regular movie-going public, as well.) It’s tempting to conclude the people in charge of preserving and defining these characters actually know what they are doing.
Still, we’re a wary lot. The scars of Fantastic Fours bungled and Hulks Ang Lee’d fade slowly. As does the memory of good (or at least decent) franchises faltering, be they about mutants or a boy and his radioactive spider. Phase One of Marvel Studios’ master plan went swimmingly. Phase Two got off to a roaring start with Iron Man 3, but one could argue the real proof of the pudding will be found in the second installments featuring Marvel’s non-Downey Jr.-powered protagonists: Thor and Captain America. (Though in Hollywood, you’re only as good as your last pudding.)
In comic books, the Thor series has long been among the most otherworldly of Marvel titles. After all, its protagonist is a Norse god, basically immortal and mostly invulnerable. While so many of the other heroes of the Lee, Ditko and Kirby era were compelling in the way they mixed in the mundane and angsty with the heroic—the Fantastic Four bickered, Peter Parker struggled to pay rent, the X-Men just wanted to belong!—Thor always outshone his lame alter ego, Donald Blake. In Thor: The Dark World director Alan Taylor and Marvel Studios embrace the extra-dimensional grandeur of it all. The result is an Asgardian space opera the enjoyment of which is consistently buoyed by its grade A cast—and occasionally dragged down by “plot incidentals” best ignored by the viewer.
The Dark World opens with a big load of threat prefacing. (Dark Elves bad. Super weapon bad. I sure hope they don’t resurface!) Meanwhile, Thor (Chris Hemsworth) is hammering around cleaning up pesky uprisings made possible by events of the first film and pining for Jane Foster (Natalie Portman). He gets updates on his favorite human from Heimdall (Idris Elba), the patron god of stalkers. (He sees you when you’re sleeping. He sees when you’re awake. He sees you.)