MOVIE REVIEWS: THOR: THE DARK WORLD

It’s a good thing that Thor: The Dark World is the kind of movie that’s considered critic-proof, because the nation’s leading newspaper critics are giving it an awful hammering. The movie, writes Kyle Smith in the New York Post, “is low-stakes, low-emotion, low brow.” Joe Morgenstern in the Wall Street Journal considers it “so dumb and 3D-murky that it hurts.” Rafer Guzmán in Newsday remarks that “Thor is turning out to be [Disney/Marvel’s] least amusing franchise.” Jeannette Catsoulis in the New York Times complains about the film’s “multiple idiocies.” With Thor, Michael Phillips does double duty as critic for the Chicago Tribune and the Los Angeles Times. “At times the film appears to have been directed by the Hulk, in a snit,” he writes. But a few critics are willing to let it all slide. “Abundant laughter saves the picture from thudding like the Thunder God’s hammer,” comments Peter Howell in the Toronto Star. And Joe Neumaier in the New York Daily News concludes, “It has its faults, but this is solidly in the upper sphere of superhero sequels.”