A wasted opportunity

Rating: 6/10 (9 March 2014)

Thor's character, motivation and relationship to his brother Loki and with a mortal young woman has been the focus of the first Thor movie and extended into the Avengers. Yet not much was ever revealed. I went into this movie, thinking that we would learn much more about Thor, his home world, his relationship with the young woman he loves, and the consequences Loki's actions have had for Thor's family. Only a very small portion of that is ever fulfilled in this movie.
Sadly, we don't see much character development, and not much consequence is given to the conflict that involves forgettable villains and schemes. The main characters are not given any time to reflect or show emotional attachment, even when one seemingly important character is killed. Furthermore the action scenes tend to be overdone, and lose interest as they go through the motions.
The movie is filled with humor, and in my opinion it goes too far. There is no investment to be made for the characters. I can understand when a movie does not want to take itself too serious, but this was bordering on comedy, where I thought that lines that were delivered didn't fit the intended mood of the scenes in any way.
The performances were very bland, and Loki's character seemed to be the only one believing he was in a science-fiction/fantasy world, whereas the rest of the cast were pretty much dialing it in.
So a missed opportunity, not even a big budget can save it from feeling perfunctory, with too many shallow underdeveloped characters and a boring conflict that doesn't seem to carry any real depth for us to care about.