Not the worst, but not the best either

Rating: 6/10 (30 December 2018)

For the most part I enjoyed this movie for what it was, but the biggest flaw with it is that it has a hard time justifying its existence beyond being a sequel for the sole purpose of having a sequel. The best parts are easily Loki's development, but he's honestly not in the film that much. The problem is that, beyond Loki, it just isn't very interesting and the plot is utterly uninspired and predictable.
While I actually rather enjoyed the cheesiness of Makekith and the Dark Elves, as characters they were still unimpressive. Another thing that did annoy me is how Asgard no longer looked gold and grand as it did in the first Thor movie by Branagh and instead it looked like your average Game of Thrones set (which is appropriate since the director was also involved with GoT). Without Loki around, Thor's character here honestly isn't very interesting and he just feels like a generic superhero. The score is good but it still isn't anywhere near as memorable as Patrick Doyle's score for the first film.
Overall it is just an OK movie and a fine watch when binging the other Marvel films. It is far from being Marvel's absolute worst film as many Marvel fans and nonfans alike proclaim, but it's still a massive step downward from what the first Thor movie was and it really didn't add much to the MCU as a whole other than the Reality Stone/Aether and Loki usurping the throne of Asgard.