Thor: The Dark World

Let me get right to the bottom line, in case you're in a hurry: If you think you might like Thor: The Dark World, you're probably right, and you should go see it.  You'll have a pleasant time, though you will leave the theater less than fully satisfied.  This reaction is one that big-budget summer movies--and ignore the date of its release, because this is a summer movie--frequently cause, so you're probably already used to it.

You'll have a good enough time because plenty of shit blows up real good, as Joe Bob used to say, and the story takes exactly the sorts of twists and turns you expect it to.  A key character dies, another one appears to die, and good people find themselves regularly in bad situations.  Chris Hemsworth takes his shirt off for no good reason.  Etc. 

You'll exit with less than complete satisfaction, though, because there's not much real drama here--no one grows, no one truly changes--and because the story is less a story than a collection of scenes.  Taken individually, each scene is decent enough.  As a group, though, they feel disjointed, almost as if a completely different crew filmed each one and then clipped them together.

If you've read any reviews of this movie, you've probably seen that a lot of reviewers and critics are hating on Natalie Portman.  They're wrong.  She did as much with the cardboard character the writers gave her as anyone reasonably could.  Give Natalie a little love for being a trooper in the face of the sad role she had. 

In the credits, the movie delivers the Marvel Easter eggs we've come to expect, and the greater plot arc marches on toward the next Avengers movie.

So, yeah, I enjoyed it well enough, but it highlighted yet again how much less a film is when it has little heart and a weak story.  It's really a shame that Joss Whedon can't write and direct all the Marvel movies.