Thor: The Dark World

On paper, evil alien elves in spaceships vs. space vikings with lasers might sound like one of the coolest things ever, yet on screen, it looks like a deleted Star Trek sequence. Unfortunately, that is what a lot of Thor: The Dark World feels like. Unoriginal, unimaginative, and unnecessary. And honestly, it's sort of disappointing.

After The Avengers, Tony Stark carried on in Iron Man 3 with severe PTSD and a threat to those closest to him. Tony, while still being that same "genius billionaire playboy philanthropist" everybody knows and loves, developed over time, and there was a lot more at stake than he would have expected. People wrote the film off as garbage because of how a beloved villain was handled. Well, you know what? That film handled everything else infinitely better than Thor does here. He's still a charming, yet arrogant super-god that lives in the dazzling realm of Asgard while still pining for his dull and one-dimensional Earth girlfriend Jane Foster. Suddenly, a Saturday morning cartoon villain named Malekith emerges to take control of a force to plunge the universe into eternal darkness. And then, pretty much every scene from other blockbusters (death of a loved one, god-awful comic relief characters, awkwardly-handled action scenes, etc.) begins to unfold.

So, if you couldn't tell by now, Thor isn't the most interesting Avenger. Tony Stark is a smarmy rich guy with inner demons, Steve Rogers is a true patriot stricken with culture shock, and Bruce Banner is unable to escape the monster he created for himself. What does Thor do? He's got a powerful hammer...and some other super-god friends who are so much cooler...and he's got a lady on Earth who knows a thing or two about astrophysics and not much else...and people love him for that. Really, as cliche as it is to say, Loki remains the one true really cool thing about this franchise. Although he went into the whole power-hungry madman mode in The Avengers, there are shades of the tragic villain seen in the previous Thor film that made him somewhat accessible. He has his shot at redemption or the chance to totally betray Thor. What does he choose? Well, it'd probably be unfair to spoil it, but it would be less fair to suggest that you pay to see what happens.

Thor should be entertaining and improved on the first film, but it is nothing more than a cut-and-paste rehash of other superior films with totally boring characters (save for Loki) and a bunch of stupid jokes that no sane human being should find funny. Watching Thor return in the Avengers sequel is gonna be like that awkward reunion with that relative you don't really wanna see but is there anyway, and even though you want them to go away, everybody else wants them there, so you're forced to sit there and sulk.