Thor: The Dark World may not have been a very good movie. As far as act structures, assemblage, pacing, and general flow, it may well be the least technically proficient film of the year, at least story-wise. As something quite else though, The Dark World stands up as possibly the most faithfully "comic"-esque comic book film ever made.
What the first Thor film had in passing, The Dark World has in spades. The magical realm of Asgard, seen as mere bookends for an Avengers-preparing second act, has been expanded into a gigantic, sprawling medieval-meets-sci-fi-meets-Wonderland kingdom. The technology is utterly bizarre, with stone spaceships and space guns and space bazookas (guh?) and all kinds of bizarre quasi-mythological imagery setting the stage for more hammy, classical over-acting from the likes of Chris Hemsworth, Tom Hiddleston, and Anthony Hopkins (who I frequently forget isn't Jeff Bridges when not talking. Oh, Jeff Bridges is in this fi- oh right it's Anthony Hopkins. I don't know why I think that. I also don't know why I thought Tom Hiddleston's name was Tom Middleton).
