Thor: The Dark World (2013) - Review

IMDb rating: 7.6/10
My rating: 7/10

Thor: The Dark World (2013)
IMDb Rating: 7.6My Rating: 7Director: Alan TaylorCast: Chris Hemsworth, Natalie Portman, Tom Hiddleston 
Thor: The Dark World is a decent action movie pegged down by inconsistent pacing, forced jokes and the feeling that it is more a prequel for Avengers 2 than anything else. Yet even then, there is enough in The Dark World to keep fans of the Marvel movies and action films happy and entertained. 
The movie kicks off looking more like Lord of the Rings than anything else with The Dark Elves, an evil ancient race, who want rolling blackouts (loadshedding) to be a permanent thing as their sole goal in life is to encompass the universe in darkness (or WAPDA for those of our readers in Pakistan), squaring up against the armies of Asgard. It’s a cool sequence that introduces the main villain and also a major plot element in the upcoming Avengers sequel.
The movie then moves on to Thor and how he still longs for Natalie Portman’s character despite uniting all the realms in peace and the advances of Lady Sif, who is hot-tatot-tatot. The aforementioned Avengers 2 plot element is a weapon that the Dark Elves need to complete their plan and for the sake of bringing Thor and Portman together, the former ends up finding it and absorbing it. This ends up in her slowly dying and Thor showing up a full bloodied smack on the face. 
From here on in, the movie finally picks up the pace and there’s a major fight scene, a major death and the best of the movie by far, Loki. Thor is forced to team up with his half-brother and go against the wishes of his father in order to save his girlfriend and the universe. Every single scene with Tom Hiddleston as Loki is brilliant and he steals the show.
There’s plenty of destruction, action and one-liners to keep everyone entertained. The ending is brilliant and there is a cameo from another Avenger, which was a nice touch as well. 
However, the movie suffers from poor pacing with the first half of the slow really dragging on too long before the action kicks in. It does expand on Thor’s universe in the Marvel landscape and the ending is the strongest in any Marvel movie to date. 
In the end, it is an enjoyable film, not worth a second viewing though, made more with the purpose of introducing a plotline for the second Avengers film them anything else.