Can Lightning strike twice? Yes. Thor: The Dark World was as good as the original film.

Rating: 7/10 (11 November 2013)

Thor: the Dark World was action pack to the point that indeed it was the God of Thunder. My ears hurts after this movie. Louds of exploding sounds. Unlike the first movie, where Thor lost his power, Thor (Chris Hemsworth) in this film is more God-like, and mature. Thor isn't learning anything new as a human being, or being taught a lesson in this movie. It just Thor trying to stop an alien invasion, yet again like 2012's Avengers. Indeed, comic book fans would like to see Thor do more Thor things and they got it. In my opinion, I like character development, and this movie lacks that. The movie plot is bit too confusing and silly for me. The aliens trying to conquer the Universe with a weapon known as Aether seem one-dimension villains who just happen to be just evil. After all they are call Dark Elves. Malekith (Christopher Eccleston) played a competent bad guy and I was really disappointed by his performance. I really wanted him to stand out more. Even with me, reading some of the Thor comic books, knowing a few Norse mythology, and watching the previous films, I did find myself, coming in lost. I can only guess, what first time people were thinking coming into the film, they must be asking themselves, what in the hell are we watching? The movie does an OK job, telling the backstory of the plot, and then to repeat it time after time just to make sure, but even with that, as a first time Thor watcher, you might find yourself confused. Unlike the original film that takes place mostly on Earth, in this film, most of scenes take place in the CGI world-building nine realms worlds of Norse mythology. The worlds is a lot better, than the first movie as I thought Asgard look so fake in the CGI due to all the shine crap. Asgard is supposed to look old, grittier and dirty like Vikings. It been there for thousands of years. Glad to see the film, wasn't in Dutch angle that much this time. In this film, it remind me of bit of Lord of the Rings, as more details are added to the mixed. After all, there was even a language created for the Dark Elves. Still, the Shakespeare dialogue got to the point, I was not only getting lost, but tune out. Hard to relate to the main characters, when nothing about them, is even relates to the real world. I found myself, trying to escape this world, but the dialogue is so bland. Yes, the film did had lot of humor. Mostly the same fish-out-of-water jokes from the first film. It was a hit or miss. They even made Thor look more like a meatball than the previous films. They did give Loki (Tom Hiddleston) most of the best lines in the film. I have to say that when Thor has to team up with Loki against his newest threat, it was some of the best scenes in the film. They had this buddy cop thing going for them. I think Marvel really did hit the gold mine with the actor because he does bring some really need charm, and humor to a really out of place world. I think the ladies in the room even like his presence. Most of the humor, came in the form of a side-character that fans of the first movie kinda didn't like which is Darcy Lewis (Kat Denning). In this movie, she is given more annoying scenes, but at less she kinda has a reason to be in the film. I'm sorry, but I'm not a huge fan of the character as her scenes feel like filler scenes that has nothing to do with the main plot. The female leads seems really weak in this film. In my opinion, I thought Thor and Loki had more screen connection, than Foster and Thor. Natalie Portman as the love-interest to Thor, Jane Foster, seem really to be phoning in her performance, here. I really doubt, Portman really gave much of herself in acting for this role. She really seem like she didn't want to act in this picture. It was no surprised that on screen, her performance was mediocre. She nearly backed out, when Director Patty Jenkins was replace by director Alan Taylor. She refused to return for the sequel but she was forced to return due to her contract. I did like the surprise secrets cameos: look out for somebody a certain American to make his brief presence, creator Stan Lee and if you stay after the credits, a certain character from the 2014's Guardians of the Galaxy movie. There was some things, I didn't like. I didn't like the awful plot recycle similar to the Avengers film with Aether sounding like the same thing as the Tesseract AKA Cosmic Cube. Without spoiling too much, look out for a lot of recycle fake out deaths like the first movie, 'Thor'. So annoying as hell. I did like the action in the film. I like the portal action scene in the end. It was pretty interesting and funny seeing Thor's beloved supercharged hammer "Molinjor" trying to find him. Watch it in 2D, the 3D added little of worth. Overall: The movie is a little far fetch even for a comic book movie as Thor has always been a hard character to get people into liking him, but it works here to a point. At least, if they cut like 30 minutes of the film. This deeply cheesy cartoonish, extremely noisy action movie that's drowning in CGI was not the worst comic book film, in my opinion. It was a feel good fun fantasy escape movie. It work as a good filler film before the next Avengers film.