A shoddy superhero sequel that may have been judged too harshly in hindsight powers up for a streaming resurgence

For a long time – almost a decade, in fact – Thor: The Dark World was held up as the worst movie in the history of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but time has a funny way of making the sands of time shift in the most unexpected of directions.

From its release in November of 2013, Alan Taylor’s sequel was tarred the unwanted distinction of being the franchise’s lowest-rated installment on Rotten Tomatoes, albeit one that was still above the Fresh threshold on 66 percent. It was a noose that hung around the film’s neck for eight whole years until Eternals came along, but the reappraisal has been underway for a little longer than that.

Thanks to the general sense of malaise surrounding the Multiverse Saga, as well as the MCU fans who remain adamant that Captain Marvel, Thor: Love and Thunder, Iron Man 2 and 3, The Incredible Hulk, and/or Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania are significantly inferior, you don’t have to try too hard to find somebody somewhere who believes The Dark World was treated far too harshly.

It’s no longer lingering at the bottom of the MCU’s aggregation barrel, nor is it the worst offender in terms of its audience approval rating, and the mini-resurgence has now carried over into a sustained push for streaming success. Per FlixPatrol, The Dark World has traveled through the Nine Realms to emerge on the other side as one of the Top 10 most popular features with Starz subscribers in both the United States and United Kingdom, as the unexpected resurgence and rehabilitation of its reputation continues.