Thor: The Dark World

Thor: The Dark World is a sequel to Thor. It is the eighth main installment in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and second installment for Phase Two. It was first released on October 30, 2013.

Synopsis
Exploring Thor's relationship with the Asgardian All-Father Odin, as well Earthbound companion Jane Foster, “Thor: The Dark World” follows the God of Thunder to The Nine Realms beyond Asgard and Earth. And as his evil adoptive brother, Loki, returns for Asgardian justice, a new threat rises. Also rejoining Thor are his fellow Asgardians, Lady Sif, gatekeeper Heimdall, and Warriors Three, as they encounter mythical Norse creatures among the evildoers.

Plot
The story begins with Odin telling the story of how his father, Bor, fought against the Dark Elves. Every 5000 years there's a cosmic event causing the Nine Realms to be in line and Melekith, the leader of the Dark Elves, is planning to release a relic from before the universe, called the Aether, into the Nine Realms. But the Asgardians came, starting a battle for the Aeather. Fighting off Malekith's enhanced warriors the Kursed, Bor contains the Aether within a stone column. While the Assgardians believe that the Dark Elves are now extinct, Malekith, his lieutenant Algrim, and others, actually escape into suspended animation. Back in 2013 in Asgard, Loki stands before Odin in shackles. The Allfather gives Loki life-sentence in prison for his crimes. Meanwhile, in Vanaheim, home of his comrade Hogun, Thor, alongside warriors Fandral, Volstagg and Sif, fights against the Marauders. That’s the final battle in a two-year war. After the battle is won Thor tells Hogun to stay there with his people as the rest of them go back to Asgard via the Bifrost Bridge, which was repaired with the power of the Tesseract. A party is held for Thor, for restoring the peace in the Nine Realms but he leaves quickly. He wants to ask Heimdall how Jane Foster is doing. The next day Odin tells Thor that he should not hold on to Jane too much since she will die long before Thor. Back on Earth, Jane Foster is in London on a date with a man called Richard. But then Darcy Lewis interrupts, saying that Jane's device is beeping a lot. It hasn’t done that since the events in New Mexico. They get in the car where Darcy's intern, Ian Boothby is waiting for them. They drive to where the signal is the highest and end up at some storage house. There some kids show them what's going on. The Cosmic event happening every 5000 year is soon to happen again and some time before that there will be flaws in the laws of physics, like random objects not affected by gravity and portals into the other realms. The find a portal place and start to throw things in there. Sometimes they come back and sometimes they don't. Ian throws his car keys in there but they don’t come back. While Darcy, Ian and the kids continue to play around with the portal Jane goes to a dark entrance and is sucked in. This appears to have been a portal as well. It takes Jane to the vault where the Aether is and she accidentally releases it. The Aether then gets absorbed by Jane against her will and five hours later she wakes up at the storage house. She walks outside where Darcy and Ian had been waiting. The police had been called there by Darcy and when a policeman tries to touch Jane the Aether sends him away. Jane notices a circle of rain around her and then Thor gets beamed down. Jane slaps him in the face to check if he was real then one more time for taking two years to visit her even though he was on Earth during the battle of New York. He then grabs her and they get beamed up to Asgard. Once there, Heimdall greats them, but she is quickly taken to the healing chambers so that they could find out what's wrong with her. They find the Aether in her body but they don't know what it is. A physicians called Eir tries to remove the Aether from Foster but fails. Odin comes and orders for Foster to be taken back to Earth but when a guard touches her wrist he is also sent away, like the police, and Odin starts to understand what he's dealing with. He tells Jane that there are relics from before the universe usually resembling stones but the Aether is more like a liquid. She asks if the Dark Elves are truly dead and Odin insists that they are. Frigga — Odin's wife, Thor's mother and Loki's adoptive mother — takes Foster under her wing. In holographic form, Frigga visits Loki in his cell to convey her love and disappointment. Meanwhile, alarmed by the activation of the Aether, Malekith and his forces awake from their long sleep. His lieutenant Algrim allows himself to be captured by the Asgardians. Later, in his cell, he turns into an enhanced warrior called "the last of the Kursed." He frees all the prisoners except Loki and they start a riot. At the same time Melekith sends away some ships in to Asgard and invades the main palace. A battle takes place. Frigga creates an illusion of Jane but when Algrim learns that Jane isn't there he grabs Frigga in a headlock and stabs her in the back, killing her. Thor sees his mother fall down bleeding on the ground so he burns half of Melekith's face with a lightning ball and throws his hammer, Mjølnir, into Algrim and Melekith, sending them back to their ship.

A funeral is later held for the dead Asgardians and Frigga. Thor knows that Melekith will return for Jane, but blinded by hate and grief Odin won't let Thor move her. So Thor comes up with a plan to move her even if he would then commit treason and in the worst case get them killed. He asks if Heimdall could keep quiet. And since Loki managed to get three Frost Giants into Asgard, Thor hopes that he could take them to Svartalfheim. Thor, Jane and Loki then jump on to the Dark Elf ship. While Sif and Volstagg delay the guards Thor flies out beside the Bifrost Bridge, pushes out Loki and jumps out with a sick Jane in his arms. They all land on a smaller Asgardian ship that Fandrall has been driving. They get hunted by an Asgardian patrol but Fandrall swings over to their ship and knock out the soldiers. Loki then drives through the secret pass way that takes them to Svartalfheim. The trio lands in the wastelands of Svartalfheim and Jane regains her strength. Thor starts to talk about wanting to trust Loki. Then Loki says he can't and uses his dagger to cut Thor's hand off. Melekith has been there waiting for them and Loki tells him that all he wants in return for Jane, is a good spot where he can see Asgard burn. Algrim remembers seeing Loki in a prison cell so he tells Melekith Loki is an enemy of Asgard. Melekith then start to draw the Aether out of Jane but when still absorbing it Thor shouts Loki! and it turns out that Loki only created an illusion of cutting of Thor's arm and Thor calls for Mjolnir. He then shoots a lightning bolt on the Aether causing it to explode. Loki jumps on top of Jane to prevent the Aether explosion to hit her. Although, Melekith has already absorbed enough power and he leaves telling Algrim to take care of the rest. Algrim throws an implosion bomb in the air and Loki almost gets sucked in but Thor saves him. Algrim starts to beat up Thor but Loki then stabs him in the back with a sword. Algrim, being "the last of the Kursed", isn't injured and he grabs Loki and pushes him towards his chest. The blade sticking out of Algrim's chest then pierces Loki's solar plexus. Loki managed to press one of Algrim's implosion bombs and Algrim dies. Seemingly, does Loki in Thor's arms. Thor and Jane then enter a cave that seems to have all the objects that didn't come back when Ian, Darcy and the kids played at the storage house. Jane grabs Ian's car keys and as she and Thor continue in to the cave, they get transported back to the storage house in England. Later, an Asgardian guard rises up from the same place where Loki had died with a green light around him, hinting that Loki might still be alive. The guard comes back to Asgard to tell Odin that Loki's body has been found.

Meanwhile, on Earth, after fruitlessly trying to reach S.H.I.E.L.D., Darcy and Ian see on the news that Erik Selvig has been running around naked at Stonehenge. He has now been put in a retirement home. They go there to get him out, and he tells them he got crazy after having Loki in his head. He has studied the special cosmic event and developed a new machine, looking like spears, which can teleport things from one area to another. They meet up with Thor and Jane and Erik tells them that the people who lived in England 5000 years ago had built certain objects to create a secret map to where the cosmic event would happen next. And that place was Greenwich. When they got there the worlds were almost in line and Melekith had landed. Thor and Melekith start to fight and the fight takes them through many different worlds. The Dark Elf warriors start to invade Greenwich but Selvig's devices could teleport some of them away. Darcy and Ian were accidentally teleported away a few blocks, together with three Dark Elf Warriors. The warriors where going to attack Darcy but Ian saw a car not affected by gravity, so he took it up and smashed it on to the Dark Elves, saving Darcy's life. They kissed as Jane then teleported them back. Melekith, now back on Earth, starts to release the Aether. Thor caches up with Jane and Erik. They said neither of them could get close to Melekith. But Thor, being the son of the Allfather, could. He takes Erik's devices and throws them on to Melekith's arms teleporting them to Svartalfheim. Then he threw the last one in Melekith's chest teleporting him to Svartalfheim. But now Melekith's ship starts to fall down on to their heads. Luckily Erik's devices teleport the ship away and it crashes down on top of Melekith, killing him.

The movie ends with Thor talking to Odin about not wanting to take over the throne. When Thor walks away Odin starts to laugh, and with a flicker of green light Odin transforms into Loki. In the first Post-Credit scene Sif and Volstagg hand over the captured Aether to the Collector, saying it would be too dangerous to keep it so close to the Tesseract. In the second Post-Credit scene Thor gets beamed down on Earth with Jane embracing and kissing him.

Cast

 * Chris Hemsworth as Thor Odinson
 * Natalie Portman as Jane Foster
 * Christopher Eccleston as Malekith the Accursed
 * Tom Hiddleston as Loki
 * Idris Elba as Heimdall
 * Jaimie Alexander as Sif
 * Anthony Hopkins as Odin
 * Ray Stevenson as Volstagg
 * Zachary Levi as Fandral
 * Tadanobu Asano as Hogun
 * Rene Russo as Frigga
 * Stellan Skarsgård as Erik Selvig
 * Kat Dennings as Darcy Lewis
 * Alice Krige as Eir
 * Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje as Algrim the Strong/Kurse
 * Clive Russell as Tyr
 * Tony Curran as Bor
 * Chris O'Dowd as Richard
 * Richard Brake as a Captain in the Einherjar
 * Benicio del Toro as The Collector
 * Chris Evans as Steve Rogers/Captain America

Locations

 * Asgard
 * Earth
 * United Kingdom
 * England
 * London
 * United States of America

Items

 * Mjølnir