It has been 10 years since Marvel Studios produced their first Thor sequel. Now I absolutely loved the original Thor, directed by Kenneth Branagh in 2011 and introducing Marvel’s heroic God of Thunder to the big screen. The film wasn’t to everybody’s tastes, but I adored the rich theatrical tone, the larger-than-life characters and the wonderful seam of humour laced through it. The film was also a crucial step in developing Marvel’s massive 2012 hit The Avengers, since it also introduced that film’s immensely popular villain Loki (Tom Hiddleston) and really set forth the road to the so-called “Infinity Saga”.

Thor: The Dark World was released in 2013 with a new director (Alan Taylor) and a story that followed up elements of The Avengers while introducing a new villain: dark elf Malekith the Accursed (Christopher Eccleston). Pretty much the entire lead characters of the original film returned, including Thor (Chris Hemsworth), Odin (Anthony Hopkins), Sif (Jaimie Alexander), Jane (Natalie Portman) and Eric Selvig (Stellan Skarsgard). The Dark World sees Malekith’s lay siege to Asgard as a conjunction of the ‘nine realms’ allows them to enact a plan to destroy the universe and replace it with their own. Nothing like aiming big for your sequels. Thor saw the titular god fighting to save Asgard. The Avengers had him help save the Earth. Third time around he’s tasked with saving the universe. No pressure.

Compared to its predecessor, The Dark World suffers. It is little wonder: it plays in a different Marvel Universe, where a range of superheroes are aware of one another, and every individual film is working towards a common climax. Thor is a hard character to tackle as well. The archaic speech, the fantasy elements, and the aforementioned theatrical nature of the character do not interact easily with the likes of Iron Man and Captain America.

There is also more time spent in other places. After its first act, the majority of Thor took place in a very grounded, small-town environment. Here the bulk of the action takes place back on Asgard, and while it’s certainly very pretty – Thor has never suffered a lack of decent production design – it is also more difficult to draw engagement out of a general audience.

Christopher Eccleston is a wonderful actor, but in this on-screen version Malekith is a weak character. Unfortunately, with the immensely (and understandably) popular Loki still hanging around it’s difficult for Eccleston’s character to emerge from under his shadow. To makes worse, the script never really gives Malekith much screen time, and Eccleston not only has to emote from under a layer of prosthetic makeup but perform most of his lines in a fictional language as well.

Sadly this was Thor’s last hurrah in his original MCU form. Presumably noting the awkward fit between him and the parallel Marvel films, the choice was made to make the character purposefully comedic in Thor: Ragnarok. That film was a big hit, but it also abandoned everything that made the earlier films work. The Dark World does mark a downturn in quality compared to the films before it, but with the benefit of hindsight it is clear it is better than a lot of them that came after.