★★½ 

Watched 15 May, 2020

In some ways, The Dark World is better than I remember it being, but in many ways, it’s much worse. What makes this MCU film so different is how bland everything is. The look, the direction, the lighting, the script, the exploration of themes and relationships and the villain, all of them are so lifeless and devoid of the energy MCU films usually have that it makes it boring to watch. An MCU film which is boring is definitely a rare occurrence. It’s not ALL bad. Some of the humour does work, Loki is amazing as usual and Chris Hemsworth and Natalie Portman prove their chops yet again. However, there’s a reason Thor needed to be revamped in Ragnarok and that reason is this film. It made him so boring and uninteresting. Most of the plot of this film revolves around Jane, who is absent from the rest of the MCU making this even more irrelevant. I don’t like The Dark World, but it had to happen for us to get what we eventually did under Watiti and then the Russo Brothers.