And in spite of the fact that the film clocks in just under two hours, it also feels like we don’t spend enough time with Tom Hiddleston’s Loki. There’s no doubting that Christopher Eccleston is an excellent actor, but here he’s buried under mountains of prosthetics, and the audience spends so little time with the character that we never get a true sense of who he is or what his motives are. It doesn’t help that Malekith is a pretty weak antagonist, with much of the misery that drives the film’s villain seemingly brought on himself.
And as worlds align and portals open, the action traverses between these realms and several others on an all-too-regular basis, making for a somewhat schizophrenic viewing experience that at times confuses. And then Jane on Asgard and Thor on earth. The event coincides with Malekith waking from his slumber and going after the Aether, putting him on a collision course with Thor on Asgard and Jane on earth. And don’t worry if you don’t understand this aspect of the plot, as it’s explained over-and-over again throughout the film. Praise Odin’s beard then that the Convergence is approaching, a beautiful but dangerous cosmic event in which all of the Realms align. And standing around with his top off for no apparent reason. But the Warriors soon complete their task, bringing peace to the Realms so that early on in proceedings, The Dark World is suffering from a severe lack of drama and conflict beyond Thor arguing with his Dad about the differences between a king and a man.
Taylor has a more naturalistic approach than Kenneth Branagh employed on the previous flick, thrusting his camera into the heart of battle so that the fight scenes have a grittiness and muscularity that serve the story well. It’s in these scenes that we first get an inkling as to why Marvel charged Alan Taylor with the task of helming the picture, his ability to stage and shoot a battle – honed while working on Game of Thrones – meaning that Thor: The Dark World has some of the best action sequences yet seen in a superhero movie. Yet while it’s nice to learn about Asgard’s back-story and heritage, time waits for no God, and so we immediately jump forward to the present-day, where Thor’s brother Loki is imprisoned on Asgard following the events of The Avengers, his girlfriend Jane Foster is stuck on earth and wondering where he’s gone and why he didn’t call while said events were taking place, and Thor himself is travelling through the Nine Realms kicking ass and taking names with Lady Sif and the Warriors Three. Of course, it's found in the first 30 minutes. Thor’s Gramps meanwhile, on realising that he can’t actually destroy the Aether, instead buries it where no one will be able to find it.
He fails in his efforts however, but not before sacrificing the majority of his people and sticking himself and a few survivors into hibernation. His plan revolves around harnessing the power of ‘The Aether’, which is one of those mysterious destructive forces that films like this need in order to further their plot but never properly explain. The film kicks off with a prologue that finds Thor’s grandfather doing battle with an army of ‘Dark Elves’, led by the menacing Malekith, a seriously angry elf who is hellbent on plunging the world into darkness.