Thor: The Dark World Trailer. Someone’s trying to destroy the world and blah blah.

For the first Thor, Marvel chose Kenneth Branagh to direct, who’s known more for directing Shakespeare adaptations than action movies, and the result was an atypical superhero movie that was enjoyably small-scale. It was half Space Viking-out-of-water comedy, half family Viking drama. Thor: The Dark World has Alan Taylor directing, who’s more of an unknown quantity, known mostly for directing HBO serieses, which aren’t generally considered director-driven. From the looks of it, we’re back to upping the stakes (STAKES!), where Thor has to call in Loki’s help to stop some malevolent force whose evil plans could “tear apart the very fabric of reality!”

As a writer, I imagine the easy part is coming up with a high-stakes, practically existential threat. “What’s higher stakes than a bad guy trying destroy Earth?! A BAD GUY TRYING TO DESTROY REALITY ITSELF!”

And then the hard part is figuring out how Thor is going to solve it with a big hammer.

The Loki character and the fact that it’s really well cast is the only thing that keeps Thor from being totally generic. Take away that, and you’ve got a portal to another world, someone trying to destroy Earth, and BRAAAHM sounds.

I just hope that when the bad guy tears apart the fabric of reality, Kat Denning’s boobs pop out of it.

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