Thor: The Dark World — ★★★★½

WARNING: This review contains spoilers.

Thor’s second solo outing is 112 minutes of Game of Thrones’ Alan Taylor successfully undoing all the garbage Kenneth Branagh created, whilst creating a more real-feeling place for the Asgardian in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

This review will be different from the usual format in that it won’t carry a synopsis with following analysis, but rather the highlights, which are so good, they serve as reason alone to buy a ticket.

1. A new Asgard

Alan Taylor does away with Kenneth Branagh’s cartoony, shiny crappy excuse for Asgard in favor for an actual civilian-looking, Game-of-Thrones-influenced setting that shows Thor’s home might comprise of more than just blue and green screens. The CGI focus here is on elements supernatural and unexpected of our everyday physics, such as unbreakable prison cells (unless you’re a Cursed dark elf *wink wink*), and not making the architecture look like it defies our understanding.

2. Frigga’s a badass

Normally, I wouldn’t care for minor characters who don’t do much to drive the story forward, but Kenneth Branagh went overboard with making Thor’s mommy look absolutely useless; however, Alan Taylor clearly doesn’t feel the same in using her unconditional love, for Loki in particular, to inspire the two brothers. Also, it’s great to see she’s a woman who doesn’t cower in shock, as Branagh had her do, but rather gets quite a few good scratches in on Malekith that, really, no one else could. This makes it all the more heart-wrenching to see her die protecting the mortal her husband so detests, even more so when Loki shows a hint of anger at his adoptive mother’s death.

3. Loki is irresistible

It’s always a worry when a character gets too big, or an actor admired, because what if the producer cash-hungry execs decide to milk the idol dry, pulling out the same cheesy stops over and over? However, Alan Taylor and Tom Hiddleston keep Loki as playfully malevolent as ever, while finally giving the character some heart and pride that appears genuine, as opposed to being “burdened with glorious purpose” (WTF kinda wording…). Of course, Loki being Loki, this is followed by some sneaky deception that encompasses mind-blowing reveals, including, but not limited to, cutting off Thor’s hand (fake! No, really, it was fake), faking his own death, and (maybe?!) killing Odin.

4. The most patriotic cameo

About a third of the way through the movie, once Thor hatches his ingenuous plan to get out of Asgard, he busts Loki out of jail, where the latter mocks his older brother with his deception trick: he portrays an Asgardian guard before taunting Thor about his more “recent companions” and then changing into…Captain America! As Steve Rogers, played by Chris Evans, Loki mocks The First Avenger’s patriotism, asking Thor if they should talk about respect and honor — all in all, it’s the coolest cameo yet to be portrayed in the MCU since Tony Stark post-Incredible Hulk.

5. The signature MCU post(mid)-credits scene

You would think since the next Marvel movie to be released will be Captain America: The Winter Soldier, we’d get a tease for that mid-credits, but it’s safe to assume since Marvel has already introduced us to the character, it’s more fun if we get our first glance at the next new Marvel movie: Guardians of the Galaxy. Director of said film, James Gunn, has established obsessively clearly that his film has very little connection to the universe thus far, although a slip-up has made reference to Thanos being somehow connected — aside from that, however, there’s nothing else going on, according to Gunn. Well, apparently that wasn’t entirely true, because this mid-credits scene begs to differ.

In the scene, Volstagg and Sif are sent to deliver the Aether for safe-keeping, and thus we get our first look at Benicio del Toro’s The Collector — when The Collector asks why they didn’t just keep it on Asgard, Volstagg replies it wouldn’t be smart to keep two Infinity Stones in the same place. Once the Asgardians leave, The Collector darkly comments in a very teasing-for-a-new-Marvel-movie way, “One down, five to go” — dun dun DUN.

Now, that all being said, there are three minor flaws with the movie:

• Jane Foster: she does just about nothing in the film besides screw things up for Thor over and over, and then she messes around with the Dark Elves by making them vanish into other worlds instead of Earth — well aren’t you thoughtful, Jane?
• Hogun: at the very beginning of the film, Thor leaves one of his Warriors Three to take care of his people after they win a battle, and the next (and only) time we see him again is in a two second shot during the final fight. Why bother then?
• Comedy: everyone loves comedy, especially when done right, but it’s noticeable when it’s being overdone because one could hypothesize someone who’s directed Game of Thrones probably had a much darker idea in mind before Marvel told them to lighten the mood.

All in all, Thor: The Dark World doesn’t just undo the damage of the first film, but writes in a new world where Thor is cool and more grounded. It’ll be hard to explain and see how Thor is in The Avengers: Age of Ultron without noticing the repercussions of the final shot of his own sequel (hint: Loki always lies!), but Marvel’s quite on track with delivering sturdy, fun stories (excusing the entirety of Thor and the idiocy behind “The Mandarin” in Iron Man 3).