I was invited to a marathon today where I saw 3 movies in 3D. The first was the original Thor which I found I enjoyed even more on a second viewing and I'm gonna continue rating as a solid B. The second was Avengers which I was delighted to find still rocks the house, the block and the whole fucking city (as you might guess I rated the Avengers an A). Thor: Dark World, while entangled in the fall out of those movies (Loki, LOKI, LOKI!) is telling it's own story, that said that story is in many ways the result of the last two stories (and in many ways... not).
Basically this movie grabs you and says "You saw Avengers, you saw Thor, you know what's happening, get in the car!" and moves!
That said my alternate title (I STEAL WHAT I WANT!) for this movie? Asgard should stop storing all their shit on our planet.
No seriously guys, we're smart enough now to start fucking with this shit and crazy enough to do it just to find out how it works.
Moving on, the bad guys as you may have heard are the Dark Elves. A bunch of crazy fantasy aliens who want to turn off all the lights. Seriously, they want to extinguish all the stars in the universe because they first came into being in a time before there was light and they see this whole life based off the energy provide by a giant glowing fusion reactor to be just one big mistake and besides it's not even sustainable bro totally not enough heavy elements in the universe to keep this going past a few billion trillion years (I may be making the hippie angle up)...
The Asgardians, being guardians of people who depend on said giant glowing fusion reactors (although honestly do they need natural sunlight? I mean their whole world is a damn giant artifact of fuck you physics) decided this was bad and exercised their Veto power. When I say Veto power, I may mean the power of ass kicking applied to entire civilizations (this is the 2nd civilization we've seen that is utterly wrecked by Asgardian military action, these guys do not fuck around). The Dark Elves were unhappy about that and after lying low for 5000 years, they're back for round 2 and it's gonna be all out and that's the story of the movie. It's the Dark Elves attempt to destroy a universe they see as poisonous and a mistake, while our heroes battle it out to maintain the very forces that make our existence possible.
Honestly? This is more like what I want from a Thor movie. The comics are best when they embrace the screaming fantasy of it all, alien worlds, fantastical magic/super science thingies and thrown down, knock out fights that bring the Lightening!
That said... Marvel movies seem to really like being about magical Macguffins, we had the cube in Captain America and Avengers and in Thor II we got the ether that I'm not telling you about. They also continue their awful Crusade to wrap up Kat Dennings in as much cloth as humanly possible, possibly to keep us focused on Natalie Portman, who doesn't really need the help (okay I'm being a guy here). I think we need less fetch quests here guys, I mean there are other stories you can tell other then "get the thing!" Also while the Dark Elves give us a bit about their motivation and desires, I really wish we had spent more time with them and less with Dr. Erik (who has some consequences from Loki knocking about in his head) and
Don't Read This Unless You Like Spoilers
Spoiler: show