As with the first Thor movie, I found myself pleasantly surprised by Thor: The Dark World. The usual suspects from the first movie are back- Thor (Chris Hemsworth), Jane Foster (Natalie Portman), Odin (Anthony Hopkins), Darcy (Kat Dennings), Erik Selvig (Stellan Skarsgard) with Loki (Tom Hiddleston), Frigga (Renee Russo), Heimdall (Idris Elba) and The Warrior Three (Ray Stevenson, Zachary Levi and Tadanobu Asano) along with Lady Sif (Jamie Alexander.)
This time they're up against Malekith (Christopher Eccleston) and the mysterious Dark Elves, who were destroyed long ago by Odin's father, Bor and the source of their power the Aether safely contained. Some of them survived, however and now with the Nine Realms beginning to align once more the portals between worlds are thin and they are awakened when Jane Foster, investigating anomalies caused by the alignment, stumbles across the hiding place of the Aether and absorbs some of it.
Thor has been busy since the events of Thor and The Avengers- with the rainbow bridge between realms (the Bifrost) repaired, Thor has been fighting to bring peace back to the nine realms that have been thrown into chaos due to the broken Bifrost and the tumult stirred up by The Avengers. His heart belongs to Jane Foster, despite urgings of his family to consider a longer-lived Asgardian alternative (Lady Sif) he continues to have Heimdall watch over her. When she vanishes (when she stumbles across the Aether) Thor returns to check on her and the two are reunited. With the Aether infecting her, Thor takes her back to Asgard to see if Asgardian technology can give them answers.
After some awkward introductions (Odin is all like 'lose the mortal chick, dude!') the Asgardians realize what has infected Jane and that it heralds the return of the Dark Elves and sure enough, sensing it's re-emergence, they come after it, attacking Asgard in the process, trying to find Jane. Thor's mother, Frigga is killed protecting her and the Dark Elves are forced to retreat. With Odin out for revenge and Asgard defenseless, Thor joins up with Loki and his friends to sneak Jane off world to lure Malekith and the Dark Elves into going after the Aether- where they will draw it out of her and be vulnerable enough that Thor might be able to destroy it.
Thor is unable to destroy the Aether and Loki is seemingly killed in the process- but Thor and Jane figure out that Malekith is planning to set off the Aether and the center of the convergence of the Nine Realms in Greenwich and in doing so, destroy the universe to restore the Dark Elves to dominance. They make their way back to Earth and together with Jane's friends, they confront Malekith and Thor eventually transports him back to his world where he is crushed by his own ship.
Thor makes his way back to Asgard, where he tells Odin that he cannot be King and of Loki's sacrifice before returning to Earth to be reunited with Jane- as he leaves, Odin is proven to be none other than Loki in disguise. (In the bonus scene, Sif and Volstagg hand over one of the Infinity Stones to The Collector (Benicio Del Toro) who, after they leave says 'one down, five to go.')
Overall: An excellent sequel that builds on the foundations set down in the first movie (and The Avengers as well) Thor: The Dark World shows us more of Asgard and deepens and fleshes out characters like The Warriors Three, Heimdall, Sif and Frigga that might not have had the most to do in the first movie, but get more to do here- Frigga's confrontation with Malekith is especially badass- seriously awesome to see Rene Russo in this role, however relatively minor it might be- Heimdall as well gets more to do and as he's played by Idris Elba, it's well, awesome. If there are faults with this movie, it's that the Dark Elves seem curiously one-dimensional in a way that the Frost Giants of the first movie weren't- they seem sort of slapdash and 'meh' in a way and for the life of me I can't figure out why. The second possible fault is that the sequel is unapologetic about being a sequel. It assumes that you've seen the first movie and The Avengers and if you haven't, you might seem a little lost- I didn't see that as a fault though, but I could maybe see how people could. But was I entertained? Absolutely I was! ***1/2 out of ****
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