Thor: Bad news for you Hemsworth-objectifiers out there: He takes his shirt off once and then spends most of the movie wearing this frumpy Asgardian poncho. If you want Hemsworth-flesh, go see Rush again, instead.
  • Thor: Bad news for you Hemsworth-objectifiers out there: He takes his shirt off once and then spends most of the movie wearing this frumpy Asgardian poncho. If you want Hemsworth-flesh, go see Rush again, instead.

You can’t explain the plot of Thor: The Dark World without getting trapped in a Tolkien-ish morass of ridiculous-sounding words. See, thousands of years ago, there was a dark elf named Malekith who used an unstoppable zombie warrior named Kurse and an evil, drippy CGI space-substance called Aether to battle Odin’s father Bor on the day when the nine realms of the world tree Yggdrasill aligned in something called the Convergence. Now,as the Convergence is beginning again, the Aether has infected Jane Foster, the earthly love interest of Odin’s son Thor, and Malekith has returned to destroy the nine worlds. See? It basically sounds like a garbage stew of words plucked from Norse mythology, a bad Dungeons & Dragons campaign, and the liner notes of a Led Zeppelin album.

But the good news is that there’s a lot of fun here, too. Besides the obvious joys of watching medieval battles between gleaming golden Asgardian soldiers and a bunch of goblins armed with rocket launchers, The Dark World is booby-trapped with funny gags, entertaining fights, and a pair of charming actors who add a human element to the fantasy trappings. Tom Hiddleston as Loki, imprisoned on Asgard after trying to take over the world in The Avengers, and Chris Hemsworth as the arrogant-but-caring Thor, have to team up to stop Malekith, and their half-brotherly rivalry is pointed enough to make us forget about the tremendous cast that’s otherwise wasted. (Tip to Hollywood: don’t cast Idris Elba and give him nothing to do, and also don’t cast Christopher Eccleston as the main bad guy if the Dark Elf in question doesn’t have a personality besides KILL EVERYTHING.)

This time around, Thor and company are led by frequent Game of Thrones director Alan Taylor, and for a first-time blockbuster film director, Taylor acquits himself admirably. He keeps his actors from looking goofy in their enormous, Kirbyesque headdresses; he's confident enough to pile joke on top of joke in expository scenes to help the bitter fantasy terminology go down smoothly; and he can keep track of a huge cast of characters spread across several different dimensions. But The Dark World has a serious pacing problem whenever it’s called upon to push the plot forward. The movie feels at times like it’s set to 1.5 speed, with dialogue and events happening way too fast to resemble anything resembling realistic pacing, but those sped-up scenes somehow feel like they’re slowing the movie down and getting in the way of the fun. There's too much stuff, and it's all happening all at once; a simpler, less universe-threatening plot would have given the characters some more room to breathe.

To indulge in a bit of score-keeping: The post-Avengers, so-called "Phase Two" of Marvel Comics' film adaptations have both improved on their previous outings. Iron Man 3 was immeasurably better than the staid Iron Man 2 in almost every way, mostly by keeping a sense of humor about itself and following one protagonist, rather than a huge cast of superheroes. Thor: The Dark World is a much better film than Thor: The effects are bigger, the humor is looser, and the general sense of can-you-believe-this-shit-I'm-telling-you-right-now is much more appealing than the stodgy world-building of the first outing. As long as you don't get too swept up in the dumb names and the convoluted plot, you'll probably have a good time.