Thor: The Dark World (Alan Taylor, 2013)

Branagh steps aside after his bizarre directorial decision to helm the first instalment, making way for someone who is primarily a TV director, and predictably this brings no improvement. Instead of any greater depth to the characters or storyline we get the typical fallback position of sequels, namely even bigger explosions and faster cuts, as if that were any compensation. It's like Lord of the Rings as the George Lucas of recent decades would have butchered it, and very boring at that. The plot is some nonsense about Dark Elves seeking to exploit the alignment of the worlds for power, the frowning beefcake demi-god hero still no more than a blank space on the screen, and when the film is briefly livened up by the reappearance of Tom Hiddleston as Thor's Machiavellian half-brother, it's only a false dawn as he is given nothing of interest to do. And yes, they are going to force out yet another one too.

4/10