Lene Trunjer-Petersen
The Silhouette

I have to admit that I have been looking forward to Thor: The Dark World for quite some time now, maybe even since the Avengers crashed New York in 2012.

Thor is absolutely one of my favourite Norse gods, and when I was younger, I read all the albums of Valhalla, which is a Danish comic book series based on the stories and myth in the Elder Eddas. That being said, I was also a little concerned about how Chris Hemsworth would portray my hero from back then.

The Thor franchise is rather Americanized and does not resemble much of the original Norse stories, but it is based on the Marvel comic books. Thor is, with that in mind, an excellent addition to the Marvel superhero universe, and I found the sequel better than the original film.

The story picks up right after The Avengers, but two years after Thor. Loki (Tom Hiddleston) is being imprisoned for his crimes and Thor is out in the nine realms to re-establish peace. Back on Earth, Jane Foster (Natalie Portman) has given up on finding Thor again. Meanwhile, Erik Selvig (Stellan Skarsgård) is a loon and is, among other things, running naked around Stonehenge. Skarsgård does a marvelous job and he made the whole theater laugh when he, at “the end of the world,” blurted out, “there is nothing more reassuring then knowing the world is crazier than you.”

But there cannot be a superhero without evil lurking somewhere. This time the evil is represented by some more than 5000-year-old dark elves. Their leader Malekith wants to bring darkness into the nine realms. He tried five millennia ago, when the nine realms were aligning, but Odin’s father Bor stopped them. But Bor could not destroy a dark material referred to as the Aether, which Viagra 100mg also is the bringer of darkness. Instead Bor hid it where no one could find it, except for Jane Foster, who stumbles over it. The Aether seeks her as a host and drains her life force. Naturally, Thor comes to rescue her, but Malekith senses the Aether and travels to Asgard to remove it from Jane’s body, so he can try again to bring darkness into the nine realms.

After a gruesome fight between the Asgardians and the dark elves, Thor seeks Loki’s help. Tom Hiddleston plays up the trickster character with several good one-liners. “Evidently there will be a line,” he says, when everyone wants to kill him. Thor and Loki’s shared screen time provides some of the best moments in the film and together they set out to save the world.

With this kind of film there will always be critical reviews. Thor has so far scored 66 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, but it has done really well at the global box office throughout its first week.

I found the storyline good, even though Malekith and his quest to bring darkness to all the realms was a bit trivial. What I really loved was how the director Alan Taylor has developed Asgard with houses, mountains and even one of Odin’s ravens flying around. Taylor has possibly also picked up a few things from Joss Whedon (The Avengers) and his lust to smash his settings. These scenes are stunning and there are several new and very well orchestrated battle scenes.

Thor has definitely become the main character of the franchise and all my worries about Hemsworth have fallen silent. He does a really good job portraying Thor as this brave, but fool-headed, hero who is tricked by Loki again and again. Jane seems to be nothing more then a footnote, however, which I really hope will be removed for the promised third Thor adventure.