As with Iron Man 3, it definitely helps to have seen "The Avengers" before you see Thor: The Dark World, and you must have seen the original Thor. This movie is part of Marvel's "Phase 2" which furthers the universe and existing characters and is beginning to setup for Phase 3 which will kick off with the Avengers sequel in 2015. This review will therefore unavoidably contain spoilers for "The Avengers" and "Thor 1" so stop reading now if you haven't seen those.
The Dark World opens up immediately after the events of The Avengers, with Thor back on his home planet of Asgard celebrating his newfound maturity and victory over the Chitauri to save Earth. Loki is to be dealt with by the Allfather Odin after his transgressions. While Thor's mind should be turning to his future as ruler of the Asgardians, instead he cannot stop thinking of his paramour Jane Foster (Natalie Portman) whom he left on Earth at the end of the first movie and didn't even have the decency to stop by and say "hi" to during the (admittedly more important) events occurring in The Avengers. So with Odin's okay if not his blessing, Thor heads down to Earth to reacquaint himself with Jane. But Jane has been having an interesting adventure of her own...
Jane and her super cool assistant Darcy (2 Broke Girls' Kat Dennings) have discovered a glitch in the universe in their new base of London, where things dropped in to the vacuum mysteriously disappear. Thanks to an Anthony Hopkins voiceover in the prologue, we know this will be the location of an object called the "Aether" which was hidden by the Asgardians a long time ago after getting it off the Dark Elves who were going to use it to return the entire universe to darkness and rule us all. Instead of destroying the Dark Elves and their evil leader Malekith (former Dr Who Christopher Eccleston), Odin only banished them and now with Jane's discovery and interaction with the Aether awakens them all to try and obtain it once more. Thor takes Jane back to Asgard but this brings the Dark Elves attention so Thor turns to Loki for help to find the Dark Elves and stop their universe destroying plan.
This film has a very different feel to the first one, definitely following the typical 'darker' path of many superhero sequels and losing some of the humour (with the exception of comedy sidekick Darcy who cracks me up near the end with her name for Mjolnir {Thor's hammer} from the first movie). The stakes are a lot higher in this movie and there is a deeper exploration of the conflicted relationship between Thor and Loki. There is plenty of drama for all the actors to get their teeth into, but Tom Hiddlestone again proves to be the best thing about the franchise with his portrayal of Loki.
The action is well choreographed and particularly the climactic battle between good and evil is exciting and well executed. The movie is pure entertainment and manages to keep the pace perfect without overstaying the welcome. Don't forget to stay for the now-standard post-credits scenes, although they key one for future Marvel properties is only a few seconds after the credits roll, whereas the one right at the end of 10 minutes of technical credits is less essential.
I'm giving this four hammers out of five, and maybe I'll add an extra half for the girls for the scene of Chris Hemsworth shirtless as he washes his face after the victory celebration!
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