Explosive action, minimal romance, a little comedy, and not enough Loki. “Thor: The Dark World” is worth checking out.

The nine realms are in chaos and to make matters worse, dark elves want revenge, and an ancient weapon of darkness reappears. With the universe on the line, I have to say, Thor always seems to be fighting with higher stakes than his Avenger counterparts.

Watching Chris Hemsworth as Thor, doing what he does best, and obliterating his enemies with a giant hammer, is a constant source of excitement in the movie. Chris Hemsworth’s always conquering and humorously charming Thor, reprises his role in the film as the simplistic good guy.

Tom Hiddleston’s Loki provides much of the movie’s personality. Marvel will have you rooting for the bad guy, or actually, I’m not sure if you can call him the bad guy this time around because throughout the film, Loki is being Loki and you can’t really tell which side he’s on. Any way you look at it, Loki has done some notoriously awful things in his past, and he is still the most likeable character in the movie. The uproar from the cheering crowd in the movie theater, when Loki made his first appearance, seem to agree with me on this one.

Dr. Jane Foster, played by Natalie Portman, never seems to be as important as she actually is to the story. No spoilers here, but let’s just say some things happen in the story that make Jane more important than she previously was. And instead of highlighting this new twist, the movie focuses on how Thor is going to handle the situation. Jane, like Thor, is a simplistic “good” character, and needs to be accompanied by a character with more personality, to keep things interesting.

What Loki adds to Thor, Darcy Lewis adds to Jane, although, in incredibly different ways. Intern Darcy Lewis, played by Kat Dennings, is rarely useful to Jane, but will she will make you laugh, as she and Erik Selvig played by Stellen Skarsgard, provide the much needed comic relief.

This is a character driven movie. Thor and Loki Junkies will sit on the edge of their seat and enjoy every second, while those in search of a deep and compelling storyline will probably fall asleep. There doesn’t seem to be any rising or falling in the story, the sad scenes were interesting, but failed to reach me on an emotional level, and the climax did its job in an underwhelming fashion, and failed to surpass any of the other action scenes in the film. Don’t get me wrong, none of the action scenes were bad; however, none seemed better than the rest. And for me, the climax should be better than the rest.

And remember, this is a Marvel Studios movie, so be sure to stick around after the credits for an extra scene, that will most likely excite and confuse you.