Thor - The Dark World (2013) **1/2

U.S. Release Date: November 8, 2013

Running Length: 1:52

Rated: PG-13 (Violence, Profanity)

Cast: Chris Hemsworth, Natalie Portman, Tom Hiddleston, Anthony Hopkins, Christopher Eccleston, Stellan Skarsgard, Kat Dennings, Rene Russo, Idris Elba, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje

Director: Alan Taylor

Screenplay: Christopher L. Yost and Christopher Markus & Stephen McFeely

2013 marks the beginning of the second round of films leading up to The Avengers 2. While that film is highly anticipated it is not nearly as much as that of the first one. The problem isn't in the idea of the followup or even the concept of a sequel to that massive hit of last year. The problem so far lies squarely in the films that are bridging them. Earlier this year we had Iron Man 3. While it wasn't the train wreck that was the second Iron Man film it still was a far cry from the original and failed to even hint at why none of the other Avengers could have helped out a little in Tony Stark's plight. Thor 2 also fails to cash in on this although to be fair it takes place mostly on Asgard and thus out of the reach of SHIELD.

The film starts out with a brief history lesson about our new villain Malekith (Christopher Eccleston) which tries to compensate for a complete lack of dimensionality to his character. We are spoon fed his plan and how he intends to do it and that's all we get about him. He is by far the weakest villain in the entire Marvel movie franchise. This is only made more obvious by the inclusion of so many better characters scattered throughout this film, chief of which is Loki (Tom Hiddleston), returning for the third time. Loki started out as a generic character baddie in the first Thor movie before being more elegantly handled in The Avengers. Here is is even better fleshed out showing just how juicy his character can be given the right material. If only Malekith had been had been handled this well.

But the main villain is not the only roll that gets short-shifted in this film. Anthony Hopkins and Idris Elba, two fine actors in their own rights, also are poorly handled. They are given little screen time but still manage to excel with that meager allotment. Stellan Skarsgard gets it even worse being relegated to the bumbling fool running around in his underwear or at times even less. His character is better than this and would have been better served left out of the film than used in this way. Rene Russo makes a return as Frigga, wife of Odin, and, aside from being used primarily as a vehicle to drive the heroes into action in the second half of the film, gets in a few touching moments with Loki that further strengthen his motivations and set him up for later adventures. 

There is plenty of eye candy in this film, as to be expected, but not a whole lot of excitement. For the most part the action is par at best leaving little to no emotional resonance. The exceptions are during the team up with Loki and Thor and the final battle which manages to breach worlds and come across as a bit more epic than the run of the mill climatic fight. Both end too quickly though and only further the feeling that this isn't really a full fledged movie but a branch between the two Avengers movies. It has the feel of one of those graphic novel prequels that seem to show up shortly before big sci-fi or superhero films these days. To a degree it is not this films fault it comes across this way but there are things that could have aided in helping us forget that that is just what it is. Hopefully next years Captain America - The Winter Soldier can clear this hurdle better than Thor 2 has. 

Thor is not a bad movie. It is actually quite watchable and is a relatively breezy film. It's just short enough to keep us from getting bored but too generic to really resonate. As with the other Marvel films there are some pre-credits scenes that hint at what is to come in The Avengers 2 and 3, as well as Guardians of the Galaxy. One gets the feeling that Marvel is more focused on what they're building up to and not focused enough on the stepping stones that lead to it. We'll see if that thought holds up over the next few years with the remainder of the second phase.