Me Thor, you Jane

Rating: 7/10 (9 August 2014)

It sure was Dark all right, they weren't wrong there. It's as well to remember this is Marvel-Disney; so what if there's the odd mix of dark menace and light-hearted frivolity, it's only a motion picture after all. I enjoyed the first Thor but the second was even more stylish and enjoyable if weighed down by even more nonsense-science.
Er, basically primeval dark forces attack Asgard – and Greenwich, London – pretty obviously via gravity space-time wormholes, Thor's girlfriend Jane is accidentally invested with a sinister Mcguffin power that is chased after by the head baddie (whose physog reminded me of a young Davros from Dr Who), Thor doesn't trust Loki and Loki doesn't blame him, and cartoon bones and concrete are crunched remorselessly from the off. On the way to the crackers climax Thor obediently hangs his hammer up on a handy coat rack and decides to catch a handy tube to get to the final battle in time. Light comedic touches like those always go down well with me, I love panache when trying sell a ridiculous plot or watching a film revelling in brazen brainlessness. It's also the first film I've ever seen to contain a last minute killer twist, then a sinister teaser for the next film, and finally a droll comedy moment to end on but one that would definitely have dire implications for anyone happening to be walking by at that moment! As with the first film I thought Tom Hiddleston stole the show, and Idris Elba had a marvellously enigmatic character to portray. And again, the serious reason for some of the warring sides to fight with swords and some with guns escapes me, as it did at 11 years old reading Edgar Rice Burroughs' Martian series. The cgi cartoonery seemed perfect to me, capturing flawless vistas of other worlds and impressive violence alike to these old eyes.
The kids would probably make much more sense of it all than I could, and maybe even follow the swift impenetrably dark battles successfully – me, I went along with it in the right spirit and thoroughly enjoyed it. I mean why bother giving it a chance at all unless you want it to work?