In late 2013, Marvel released the sequel to Thor and the second movie in Phase 2 timeline titled Thor: The Dark World. In the movie we would see the return of Thor played by Chris Hemsworth, Natalie Portman as Jane Foster, Tom Hiddleston as Loki, Anthony Hopkins as Odin, Idris Elba as Heimdall, Rene Russo as Frigga, Kat Dennings as Darcy and Stellan Skarsgård as Erik Selvig. New characters introduced were Christopher Eccleston who played the villain Malekith and Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje as Algrim/ Kurse. This time instead we got to see a bit more of Asgard as the film took place mostly on Asgard.

The movie starts out with a flash back showing Bor, Odin’s father, fighting with the Dark Elf Malekith who has control of the Aether. Bor defeats the Dark Elf’s and contains the Aether in a stone structure. Unbeknownst to Bor though, Malekith, his generals, and handful of his army escape.

In present day we see Thor, Lady Sif and the Warriors Three fighting on Hogan’s home world of Vanaheim where they soon learn of an event called the Convergence a rare alignment of the Nine Realms, is imminent; as the event approaches, portals linking the worlds appear at random. Back in London, Jane Foster and Darcy find themselves in a abandoned factory where portals have appeared. Jane soon finds herself teleported to another world where she is then infected by the Aether. Heimdall informs Thor that he can no longer see Jane, which sends Thor immediately to Earth where he takes her back to Asgard. Odin recognizes the power of the Aether and informs Thor and Jane that it will not kill her but its return is a sign of a bad prophecy.

Malekith awakes when the Aether is activated and attacks Asgard. During the battle, Malekith finds Jane and Frigga, Thor’s mother, and murders her while she protects Jane but has to flee upon Odin and Thor’s return. Odin commands Thor not to leave but Thor and Loki sneak off through a portal to Svartalfheim, where they use Jane to lure Malekith away from Asgard. Once there Loki tricks Malekith into drawing the Aether out of Jane, only for Malekith to merge with the Aether. A battle ensues and Loki is stabbed
by Malekith’s general Algrim seemingly killing them both. Thor and Jane escape in a nearby portal sending them back to London reuniting them with Darcy and Dr. Selvig. They learn that Malekith plans to restore the Dark Elves to dominance by unleashing the Aether at the center of the Convergence in Greenwich. Thor and Malekith fight through different worlds/portals only for Thor’s friends to create a trap where they use their scientific equipment to transport Malekith to Svartalfheim, where he is crushed by his own damaged ship. Thor returns to Asgard where Odin offers him the throne, but declines and instead tells Odin of Loki’s heroic sacrifice. As he walks away we see that Loki is infact impersonating Odin.

The after credit scene shows us that Lady Sif and and Volstagg take the Aether to The Collector, where they say having the Tesseract and the Aether both on Asgard is not safe because that would be two Infinity Stones in one place. As they leave, The Collector states one down, five more to go.

Thor: The Dark World, to me personally provided a lot of what I was hoping for in the first movie which was more Asgard. For the most part the cast was exactly the same as the first movie, with the exception of the villains. I personally enjoyed this movie to a lot of peoples dismay. It was not one of my favorite movies but it was enjoyable I felt. The problem was that all the other movies in the MCU were just more enjoyable and a lot better made. Thor has had it a little rough in the beginning when it came to his first two
movies, trying to balance all his content. Luckily by the third movie they seemed to really figure it out. As far as this movie though it unfortunately just had to compete with a lot of good movies which pushed it too the bottom of the list.

So what do you guys think? Does Thor: The Dark World deserve to be #15 on our list? Should it be higher or maybe lower? Let us know what you think in the comments below!