Watch Thor 2 Online If the writers can be accused of making any misstep, it’s the fact that they once again fall back on the tiresome world-destroying-weapon-and-the-villain-who-covets-it scenario. Although, to be fair, Eccleston is genuinely chilling in the role of Malekith, and Taylor keeps the action moving at a satisfying pace that distracts from the comic-book cliches of the plot.

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Watch Thor 2 Online By the time Thor: The Dark World enters its climactic battle sequence, director Alan Taylor finally decides to abandon all pretence of narrative logic, teleporting characters and giant beasts willy-nilly across the nine worlds of Marvel’s co-opted Norse mythology. It, like the film as a whole, is a bit of a shambles, but also quite fun.

This sequel to Kenneth Branagh’s Thor, also to Avengers Assemble, may feature the word ‘dark’ in its title, but in reality takes itself only slightly more seriously than the first film did, and indeed goes for more outright comic tone. This is both a blessing and a curse, because although the film is frequently funny, it also never really musters up a sense of genuine peril or, crucially, interest in its story.

The story picks up a little while after the events of Avengers Assemble (which, like in Iron Man 3, are referred to only in little asides and throwaway japes). Thor (Chris Hemsworth) is busying tidying up the nine realms for his father, Odin (Anthony Hopkins), while Loki (Tom Hiddleston) has been confined to the castle dungeons on account of his trying to subjugate Earth and killing loads of people.

This film begins, as its predecessor did, with a contrived introduction to an ancient enemy – in Thor it was Frost Giants; here it’s Dark Elves – narrated with barely concealed indifference by Hopkins. And his indifference will quickly be mirrored by our own: the backstory to the Dark Elves here really is run of the mill stuff, and no matter how much Christopher Eccleston, (playing the leader of the Dark Elves, Malekith), walks around staring malevolently, he can’t invest any sense of interest in the character. That isn’t his fault: it’s just a severely underwritten and fundamentally uninteresting role, and the result is that the film struggles to create a compelling arc until the final third, when Thor and Loki must work alongside one another towards a mutual goal. The film’s most satisfying relationship is between these two, and the whole thing flickers into life whenever Hemsworth and Hiddleston get to riff off of each other.

Natalie Portman is fine as Thor’s love interest Jane, but the two share even less screen time than Thor and Loki, which does rather dilute our hero’s supposed undying passion for her.

Movies continue to provide colossal snapshots into worlds that stretch beyond the frame of imagination, and the realm of Asgard in the “Thor” movies is certainly one of the most inspired of recent times. Amidst vast open spaces that seem stirred by Greek mythology rise pillars and towers that jut from a planetary surface like protests to nature, and characters seem to wander through their polished spaces as if insects inside a boundless hive of overreaching hallways and arenas. No wonder, perhaps, that its citizens are immortal beings; for this kind of utopian empire to exist, those that created it must obviously command a power far greater than what man can wield, much less understand.

Observing “Thor: The Dark World” in which gods and demons adopt the primary roles of heroes and villains, I was struck not just by how fully realized the realm is, but also by the underlying notion that we as moviegoers have now seemingly exhausted what is palpable in our heads as creative environments to wander through in the movies. It is a fascinating paradox to find yourself in when the imaginative cityscapes of “Blade Runner” and “Dark City” now seem like half-forgotten relics in the celluloid scrapbook. Now what remains beyond the high pearly gates of the world of gods?

The movie is the sequel to “Thor,” a film which in itself was adapted from one of the more high-profile Marvel comic book series of the company’s golden age. By comparative standards, that film was misguided because it played like a mere dress rehearsal rather than an actual picture: little of it was staged for isolated affect, and every twist and turn seemed to originate from a place of setup rather than immediate payoff, suggesting the studio was simply motivated to prepare for the gargantuan “Avengers” film to follow. Having that out of the way, “Thor: The Dark World” works on its own set of merits; it is ambitious, focused, amusing and colorful, and though many of its events don’t quite match the realization of the high-reaching visuals, audiences will no doubt find themselves amused to no end for two hours of energetic action sequences that are as distinctive as they are well made.

The story has some equally intriguing ideas. Set in the present day following the events of both the first “Thor” film and “The Avengers,” the citizens of Asgard face a threat from an ancient civilization of dark elves, which has come out of exile as knowledge of the whereabouts of an ancient weapon known as the “Aether” is discovered. This weapon – an ancient fluid-like substance that apparently carries very dark energy – is a dangerous finding in the hands of any who seek to destroy worlds, and on the eve of an event referred to as the “Convergence” (in which all nine realms will align and portals will open between all of them), it may potentially herald the coming of a complete universal catastrophe, especially in the hands of pale demonic monsters hell-bent on overthrowing the empire of their sworn enemies.

Tony Stark may be brilliant, but Thor of Asgard earns his rightful status as Marvel’s mightiest Avenger by smashing through the Shakespearean stuffiness of Kenneth Branagh’s misguided origin story to deliver a genuinely satisfying sequel. Sweeping, smartly paced, and frequently laugh-out-loud funny, Thor: The Dark World feels much more in tune with the playful tone of The Avengers than its own predecessor, thanks in large part to dedicated performances by a supremely talented cast and director Alan Taylor’s talent for seamlessly blending awe-inspiring action with lighthearted comedy.

Having recently defended Earth from a massive interdimensional threat as part of the Avengers, Thor (Chris Hemsworth) returns home to restore the balance of peace to the Nine Realms as his brother Loki (Tom Hiddleston) is sentenced to an eternity in an Asgard prison. Meanwhile in London, Jane Foster (Natalie Portman) is doing her best to move on when her eager assistant Darcy (Kat Dennings) discovers an anomaly that defies the laws of physics. Upon further investigation, Jane is transported to the place where Odin’s father Bor had once hidden a powerful, formless weapon -- known as the Aether -- after defeating the Dark Elves and preventing their malevolent leader Malekith (Christopher Eccleston) from using it to spread darkness throughout the universe.

Now infected with the Aether, Jane soon reunites with Thor, who transports her back to Asgard in the hope of healing her. But he’s already too late, because Malekith has awoken from his centuries-long slumber and knows that Jane is the key to his plot.

With an important cosmic event known as the Convergence drawing near, Malekith wants to use the Aether to accomplish what Bor had once prevented. Using his evil assistant Algrim (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje) to gain access to Asgard, Malekith launches an all-out invasion of the kingdom in a determined bid to recover his weapon. But Thor has other plans, and with the help of his allies on Asgard and Earth, he must destroy the Aether and make sure that Malekith is defeated once and for all.

In 2011’s Thor, Kenneth Branagh endeavored to instill an air of nobility in a film genre typically known for featuring chiseled heroes in spandex suits. But despite his best efforts, the movie suffered from lackluster action, a muddled script, and awkward attempts at comic relief. Two short years and one wildly popular blockbuster (The Avengers) later, however, prolific television director Alan Taylor (Boardwalk Empire, Mad Men, The Sopranos, Deadwood) and screenwriters Christopher Yost, Christopher Markus, and Stephen McFeely prove that you can teach an old god new tricks with a crowd-pleaser that succeeds at widening the scope of the first film while simultaneously giving the sibling-rivalry subplot real gravity. Somewhat unexpectedly, the massive melee that kicks off Thor: The Dark World feels more like Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy than anything out of the Marvel universe.

It’s a smart move that not only plunges the audience right into the action, but also offers Taylor the chance to immediately display his comfort working on a larger canvas. And as the movie returns to Asgard, the writers shift their focus to the seismic tensions between Thor and his renegade sibling Loki, allowing the charismatic Hiddleston to once again steal virtually every scene he appears in.

In Thor: The Dark World, nothing less than the entire universe is at stake, which ups the ante considerably from the titular thunder god’s last appearance in The Avengers (2012), when it was only Earth that was in danger. Once again played by Chris Hemsworth, complete with bulging muscles and flowing golden mane (“Because Hemsworth It,” as a parody Pantene ad currently circulating the web amusingly suggests), our Asgardian warrior-hero has fully redeemed himself since his first appearance in Kenneth Branagh’s Thor (2011), where his arrogance got him banished by his father, King Odin (Anthony Hopkins), to Earth, where he met and fell in love with Jane Foster (Natalie Portman), a comely astrophysicist. His conniving brother Loki (Tim Hiddleston), who betrayed him in Thor and then tried to take over Earth in The Avengers, has been locked away in Asgard as punishment for his war crimes.