First Was Okay, This One Was Meh

Rating: 5/10 (8 November 2013)

This film was just okay. Maybe my expectations were too high for Thor 2. I was really hoping it would improve on the first one (which was good but had so much more potential.) I saw some good reviews for this one and some bad ones, so I tried not to have my expectations up TOO high whenever I saw it on my own.
Don't get me wrong--it was an enjoyable movie. It had its funny moments, many of them involving Tom Hiddleston. There was also more time spent on Asgard, and Jane finally got some more screen time. But overall, the film was average. Perhaps I was expecting more from it, but it fell down from my expectations (only slightly, as I did not love the first film but thought it was just decent). I really, really wanted to love it, but I didn't. So I guess I was disappointed in it.
SPOILER ALERT
The plot of the story was mediocre. We're given a back story about the main antagonist, Malekith, and a little about Asgard and his connection to it, but it's a little incoherent. Which isn't totally bad, I guess, but Malekith's reasons for wanting to destroy Asgard just seem flat to me. He feels like your atypical I-Wanna-Destroy-Your-World type of villain, which has been done many times before.
The way they make Jane get possessed by the evil source or whatever that Malekith needs felt like a forced way to have her in Asgard. She spends a lot of time passing out or cowering behind as battles wage on. It gets a little better near the end, where Jane helps Thor defeat Malekith, but overall she isn't given much to do. I don't expect her to be superman or whatever, given that she has no powers, but I wished she had been given more to do as opposed to being the victim of an evil entity. She also doesn't have enough chemistry with Thor to make me feel like they really love each other.
Darcy was funny in the first film, and still was to an extent in this one, but there was times when she was annoying. She got too much screen time, and I believe that a comic relief needs less so that they remain funny and not get annoying. Her sidekick, or intern, also feels useless and is used to temporally replace Eric Selvig, who, thanks to Loki, has gone insane and does crazy antics for comic relief.
As I mentioned earlier, Loki was fabulous in this film, having very funny one-lines and making smart remarks. However, his motives get a little messy in this film. It makes since that he would be a sort of shades of gray character, but when (and there's a HUGE spoiler coming up here) he is supposedly killed to sacrifice himself for Thor and then appears to be alive and wanting the throne is Asgard as Thor leaves to Earth, I'm left confused. What was the point of Loki "sacrificing" himself if he wanted the throne? Was he pretending to die so that no one would suspect he'd become king? Maybe that's just apart of the mystery of his plot, and I'll have to watch the next film to see. But, as a stand-alone, it's confusing.
Odin is reduced to being a jerk for the sake of the plot. He shows little to no concern for Jane when Thor brings her to Asgard until he discovers what she is possessed with. He also basically tells Thor that the only difference between him and Malekith is that he "will win" the battle. This seems a little out of character from the Odin we met in the first film, who wanted to be a fair and strong ruler. I know why they did it-- to give Thor a reason to want to stay on Earth--but by making Odin do something that seems so rude kind of turns the audience off from his behavior.
Once again, Thor's friends (Sif, Fandral, Volstagg, and Hogun) receive little screen time or anything character development in general. Fandral, Volstagg, and Hogun say little to no words in this film; a possible love triangle between Sif, Thor, and Jane is implied and then quickly gotten rid of. These characters are fun, and I really wish I got to see more of them.
Some of the comic relief felt odd. For instance, Selvig is glad when Thor tells him that Loki dies but quickly offers Thor some very awkward condolences. I completely understand why he would want Loki dead--this IS the man that possessed/made Selvig go crazy, after all-but the audience is led to believe that Loki really has died. Maybe they expected us to know that he hadn't? I know that I didn't believe his death, so maybe that's why. But there were other places where the comic relief felt odd, too, mostly exchanges taking place during the battle scenes. At least they were funny.
And finally, the film feels entirely too short. I get that they might not want to make it longer for budget reasons, but if that's the case then they shouldn't try and throw in character development. Some things just felt rushed, and some characters feel underdeveloped. Admittedly the length is not as bad as it was in the first film, but this is mostly because we've already gotten to know the characters and they are now being expanded on.
SPOILER END
So that's pretty much how I feel about Thor: The Dark World. I guess it sounds like I disliked it more than I liked it, and maybe I do, but it wasn't a bad film. I'd watch it again if someone asked me to, and I'd laugh at the comical parts and still enjoy the movie. It's just one of those instances where a film is okay, or even good, but could have been better.