A Big Pile of Nothing

Rating: 2/10 (5 June 2020)

A while ago I watched all the marvel movies in the MCU. For the most part, the films range from mediocre to actually pretty good. Thor 2 might be the only one that I disliked. To be clear, I don't have strong feelings towards this movie at all. It's just dull to watch.
The acting isn't bad, but none of the actors add anything to their roles. Natalie Portman has proven that she can be great, but in this movie she is just annoying. Her character is the stereotypical love interest who's there because studios think you have to have a girlfriend in every superhero movie. No wonder Natalie Portman decided to skip out on Thor 3.
Chris Hemsworth himself has said that he does not like this movie, and it's easy to see why. Thor has no arc in this film at all, and nothing unique or interesting that makes a character gripping. The only thing in this movie that could have been emotional was his mother's death. The problem is, Thor has never had a proper relationship with his mother, and the audience is never given a reason to care about her death. Even Thor does not seem to care that his mother died. He's a bit sad but gets over it in a couple of minutes.
The film tries to give the side characters some personality, but I still struggle to remember their names. Most of them are the comic relief sidekicks, and that's the extent of their role in the film. The main villain, Maliketh, is about as bad as a villain you can get in a superhero movie. He want's to take over the universe for no reason, check. He is after some MacGuffin, check. He has a completely uninteresting design and voice, check. The actor who played Maliketh said that he hated the role, and had no idea what his character was supposed to be.
Then there's the other two side characters. Kat Dennings and Stellen Skarsguard. Kat Dennning's character is another annoying comic relief. Eric Selvig went from wise old man to crazy old man in between the films. The first shot of him in the film is him naked in front of live TV, which I guess is supposed to be a joke.
The plot is also extremely by the numbers. Nine planets will align and the bad guy will use the MacGufffin to destroy the world, blah blah blah. Then Thor shows up just in the nick of time to save the world with the help of Natalie Portman and then learns some lesson. The end. It's also utterly pointless in the story of the MCU. Just read the Wikipedia plot summary and you'll get about the same amount of enjoyment as you would if you actually watched the film.