Thor: The Dark World is great, and it’s the best sequel yet in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Not including The Avengers, of course.
Beware, this article is spoiler free, but the comment section is not.
It’s better than its predecessor
This is no knock on Thor. We loved it and the unsurprisingly Shakespearean feel of director Kenneth Branagh’s introduction of the character. But for reasons we’ll detail in the rest of this list, Thor: The Dark World raised the stakes and was an all around better movie than the first, something that had yet to be done in a MCU sequel that wasn’t The Avengers.
It’s surprising…
…and those surprises don’t feel cheap. Thor: The Dark World is unpredictable, and we guarantee that at least something will catch everyone off guard, especially THE surprise. If you’ve seen it, you know what we’re talking about.
It’s funny
Thor: The Dark World is packed full of jokes, and while some of them don’t work (it’s probably packed too full), the ones that do really do. It certainly isn’t quite as funny as The Avengers, but then again it wasn’t written by Joss Whedon. It’s probably the second funniest in the MCU.
It utilizes its supporting characters
Everybody in Thor: The Dark World has something to do. Granted, with the number of characters in the movie many of them don’t have something to do for long, but it’s very impressive how important so many characters ended up being. Even Frigga (wife of Oden) gets in on the action, and we can’t help but be happy that Heimdall has a bit more screen time than expected. It touches our Idris Elba loving hearts.
But really, it’s the Loki show, as it should be. Tom Hiddleston makes every scene he’s in his, and we’re certainly glad script rewrites were done to give him more screentime.
It’s full of action
This is no surprise given that Game of Thrones director Alan Taylor was brought in for the Thor sequel, but the action in this installment is more gritty and “realistic.” The multi-realm final battle sequence was really cool, and it sure beats the finale from Thor.
And it’s better than ‘Iron Man 2’ and ‘Iron Man 3’…
…but really, how hard was that?