Thor: The Dark World (2013)

Man, I am really harsh on Marvel movies.  Yikes.  As is usually the case, I am much more tolerant on a second viewing.  This is still not in my top five favorites, but I'm not going to pretend it doesn't exist.  Tonally, it struggles, but that's okay.  Not everything can be perfect.  And it was nice to see Natalie Portman in the MCU again.  Originally posted 10 Nov 2013.    Let me start by saying that I liked the movie.  I had a good time while I was watching it and owning it is pretty much a given.

However.

Of all the Marvel movies thus far, this is my least favorite, moving Captain America up a notch.  I know!  No one wants to hear that.  But I'm saying it anyway.  My biggest problem with this film was the lack of consistency.  Parts of it were hilarious, parts were exciting, and parts were (at least trying to be) emotional.  None of it ever really came together in a coherent whole. 

Thor (Chris Hemsworth) has been busy since New York, putting the nine realms back into order.  However, his heart still pines for Jane Foster (Natalie Portman).  Odin (Anthony Hopkins) thinks he should forget about the pesky mortal and marry someone his own species, like Sif (Jamie Alexander).  But when Jane accidentally discovers an ancient artifact of destruction called the Aether, she awakens Asgard's old enemies the Dark Elves, led by Malekith (Christopher Eccleston).  Malekith wants to use the convergence of all nine realms to unleash the Aether and wipe out the entire universe because he doesn't like sunlight.  Hey, we've all been there.  Thor and Odin disagree on the best method of handling Malekith, so Thor and his friends decide to go behind the All-Father's back since that worked out so well the first time.  The first step is to break Loki (Tom Hiddleston) out of jail and convince him to show them the back way out of Asgard. 

It's clear that someone spent a great deal of time and effort trying to tie all the elements from previous films into this one.  It just feels a little forced, like someone trying to copy Joss Whedon's style of character-building and falling flat.  The actors are all great, but they're great separately.  Case in point, Tom Hiddleston is amazing just being Loki.  Like he doesn't have to do anything, just being Loki is enough.  But I really think Stellan Skarsgaard stole this film.  Dr. Erik Selvig was utterly traumatized by having Loki take over his brain in The Avengers and he is still recovering from that. 

There is a mid-credit scene that sets up the villain for next summer's Guardians of the Galaxy.  I'm sure I read it at some point but I totally forgot who they had cast in that role, and I was completely overjoyed to see him.    There is also a little clip at the very end of the credits that shows that you can be practically god-like and still miss a few tiny details in the heat of battle.  I'm wondering if that is what will be handled in the crossover episode of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.