Dolby Atmos! The Sound System of the Future! Added to the Embassy's 3D offerings on its massive screen, and I ended up feeling as if I was swimming in a cinematic sight and sound experience, which is probably entirely the point.
And it was great to be able to appreciate this to Thor 2, or Thor The Dark World. Even just waiting outside in the cafe area, the explosions and music thumped and thudded through the walls and floors; within the hall itself, the sound was not overwhelming, but definitely hard to ignore.
And there are lots of explosions and hittings and violence and quite a bit of humour in this Thor as well. While it never reaches the levels of engagement of the first film, mainly as there is a disturbing lack of Loki (Tom Hiddleston), the film is nonetheless a lot of fun and action, a welcome combination considering the darker and more relentless offerings from movies from the Distinguished Competition comics. Thor (Chris Hemsworth) is as tall, buff and manly as ever, though his deep voice was occasionally quite hard to make out, possibly because of the extra bass in the Atmos, or as Hemsworth had a bit of difficulty maintaining his Asgardian accent.
Nathalie Portman as Jane Foster is as stunning as ever, and has a lot to do in this movie, though a lot of it is running around and chasing after her action man. Most of the other characters are mainly just decoration, though Anthony Hopkins and Rene Russo have a lot more presence than actual screen time, and Idris Elba is given a bit more to do than just look intimidating in the doorway. On the bad side of things, Christopher Eccleston is a bad-arse bad elf, scowling a lot and being as menacing as one would expect, though it is mildly surprising that the Asgardians hadn't advanced during the thousands of years that the Dark Elves were asleep.
But then, this film really does not stand up to a huge amount of logic. That's not what it is about. There are some mild attempts at technobabble to explain what is going on with the alignment of the worlds and the like, but these are kept short and sweet and really not discussed at length - explanations are accepted as good and true, and fact rather than conjecture.
However, the screen really comes alive when Loki comes to the fore. It is strange, but while Loki seems a lot more likeable (even if he is evil) in this film, Thor seems a bit more distant, not just because of the problems he has loving an earthling. While the film lingers over his well defined torso for one gratuitous scene, and the cheesy grin is whipped out a few times to very likeable effect, Thor doesn't really engage very much with the other characters in the film (well, excepting Jane) besides what seems necessary to forward the plot.
That is being quite harsh though, because, as much as Loki steals the film, Thor The Dark World is still a lot of fun and everyone puts on a good show. At times, the film does seem to drag a little, and it could have done with a good edit here and there (and perhaps a map of London; I have been told the Underground directions given by an Aussie traveller are completely incorrect), but that's a minor quibble (there is another bigger one, but I won't mention that here for spoiler reasons) and, while I probably won't see it again at the movies, I am looking forward to getting this on BluRay in a few months time.
Verdict: Thor The Dark World is a great sequel to the original, and keeps Avengers continuity in mind too. As much as Thor is the headliner though, it feels like Loki should be the lead character, and I hope we get to see more of him when Thor next returns. 7 hammers out of 10.
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