HEIMDALL!

Right.  Now that I’ve gotten my oddly compulsive enthusiasm for Heimdall out of the way, I can get on with reviewing this movie.

Thor 2 may be one of those cases of too much of a good thing; I love it so much that I’m really not sure where to start talking about it.  All I can tell you is that I cackled repeatedly in the theatre despite being surrounded by strangers, and that I would happily see it again soon (though preferably without paying through the nose for my tickets, thank you very much Loews Boston Common).

I haven’t had this much fun in a movie theatre since I went to see The Avengers.  Heck, I think Thor 2 might be even more fun than The Avengers, though they’re competing in different categories.  See, The Avengers is one of the serious episodes of the superhero series, while the Thor movies are the comedic relief.  They have their serious moments of course, but it seems like everyone involved recognized the first movie’s comedic potential and decided to run with it for Thor 2.  And holy shit did they ever succeed.

On that note, I, um, have to have another shout out:

Darcy sizes you up for her next laser-guided comedic strike.

Darcy is hilarious.  I don’t want to spoil anything, but do you recall how she totally stole the spotlight in the first movie?  I hardly paid any attention to poor Natalie Portman in the first Thor, despite the fact that I usually love her characters.  I think Natalie Portman’s Jane Foster got far more attention this time through, which was good, but you should still keep your eyes on Kat Denning’s Darcy.  Every scene that she was in became funnier, just by virtue her presence.  She was flat-out one of my favorite characters, and her simultaneously accepting and no-nonsense reactions to all of the truly ridiculous things going on around her only made her scenes better.

I’m a little worried to be talking too much about this movie.  I seriously don’t want to give anything away.  It’s everything that I had hoped for from a superhero movie, and it does it all with a particular attention to dramatic comedy that will leave you with a grin plastered to your face.  It is an unapologetic superhero flick in high form, and (as I’ve come to expect from Marvel’s tightly woven movie universe) sets up perfectly for more fun and excitement in the future.

Now, before I go on to talk about things that might be considered spoilers, I just have to say: stay for both of the post-credit sequences.  As with Avengers, there are two of them.  Oh, and if you want to read someone else’s excellent take on why Darcy is so cool, check this out.

Right, so here there be *SPOILERS*.

I’m not actually going to say very much.  What I really wanted to talk about was the fact that they managed to find an excuse that let them have a climactic set piece battle with callbacks to other previous challenges faced by Thor.  I thought that that was very cleverly done, and I was glowing with admiration from one storyteller to another for how they had managed it.  Could they have done more with it?  Probably.  Did they need to?  Not at all.  It was wonderfully done as it was.

Oh, also, my overweening enthusiasm for Heimdall was well and truly paid off in this film.  I liked him in the first film because I thought he was simply cool.  His actions in the the second movie cemented my impression of him, given his careful maneuvering of his obligations to simultaneously do what he saw as necessary and right while still maintaining his loyalty to Asgard.  Who would have thought that I would like someone so stoic and terse?  Oh, right, everyone who’s seen me watch a Spaghetti Western.

Watch this movie.  If you’ve ever been at all tempted by a superhero story, it’s truly a treat.