Thor: the Dark World (dir. Alan Taylor 2013)

[I've been asked to add this: SPOILERS! So now you know]

So, there are Nine Worlds, each one a different planet orbiting in an alternative dimension and all ruled by the pseudo-Viking Asgardians. Because clearly the people you want in charge of an executive and judiciary overseeing the lives of trillions  are Aryan warrior proto-fascist hereditary-monarchical Vikings.* But the Dark Elves attack Asgard, led by Christopher Ecclestone in inch-thick death-pale facial prosthetics and long braided blond hair that make him look like Benedict Cumberbatch playing a panto version of Julian Assange. The plot (about a mysterious energy called Aether that swirls about in the air like cranberry juice poured into water) is mostly garbled, and the tension is repeatedly let down by the deployment of metaphorical get-out-of-jail-free cards: viz., there is NO WAY OUT OF ASGARD! except this one secret way we never told you about. THOR'S HAND IS OFF! CHOPPED CLEAN OFF! oh no, there it is, back on his wrist. LOKI IS DEAD, WEEP MORTALS, WEEP! except he's still alive, it seems. THERE EXISTS NO WEAPON THAT CAN DEFEAT THE DARK-ELVES' MONSTER WARRIOR! except this one we didn't mention before. The effect of all this was not a series of cool twist-and-turn plot surprises, but instead a deflating sense of plot leakage and the sacrifice of drama to the needs of a continuing franchise in which only the non-marketable characters, like Rene Russo's Frigga, can die. The comedy inserts were pretty lame, the lack of chemistry between Chris Hemsworth and Natalie Portman borders on the embarrassing, and the whole thing was too long. The special effects were nifty, though; and I liked the design of Asgard, not because it was cool but precisely because it was so naff, the sort of kitsch Heavy Metal Album Cover faux-grandeur that inspired Saddam Hussein to decorate his palaces the way he did.

So, yes, I was more-or-less bored until a twofer between Thor and Anthony Hopkins' Odin about halfway though the movie, when it dawned on me that Hopkins alone of all the cast was pronouncing 'Asgardian' as 'Arse-Guardian', the sly Welshman ('we shall fight to the last Arse-Guardian breath!') After that things perked up, since I was able to make-believe the battle between Thor and Ecclestone's Maleninthdoctor was actually all about protecting the Cosmic Arse.

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*I know what you're going to say. You're going to say, 'actually, Vikings were mostly farmers, thoroughly civilised and artistic and not at all like the raping-and-pillaging figures of popular myth'. To which I will say: which of those two things, dull history or colourful myth, do you think informs this movie?