Thor is such a cardboard hero compared to the rest of the Marvel All-Stars that in a film like this, you might at least have fun rooting for the villain.
Too bad the main villain in this second Thor film is even more dull. I’m talking serious snores here. Think Darth Maul from that best-forgotten Star Wars prequel crossed with a bag of charcoal.
On the bright side, Tom Hiddleston returns as Loki and steals his every scene (not hard to do among these stiffs, granted). He’s the only character here who doesn’t act like a talking statue (e.g. the Norse gods) or like he stepped out of a bad sitcom (e.g. the humans). Hiddleston brings such charisma to the part—he’s a major fan favorite and the filmmakers know it—that he manages to survive even a few limp attempts to show Loki’s sentimental side. When he’s not onscreen, the film loses its pulse.
The climactic action sequence that blows up half of London also gets in a few good thrills and spills, but it’s not enough to save this from being all noise and no heart. Its “character moments” are pasted-on dreck and its story merely recycles The Avengers (another bad guy is after another mystical power source MacGuffin in an effort to rule the galaxy). It repeatedly aims for poignancy and fails every time because it pretends that Thor is an interesting character while it draws him out with nothing but the cheapest cliches. He’s in love with a woman of whom his family disapproves. He’s got a black sheep for a brother. He’s the most virtuous man in all the land and that’s a pretty big burden. Or not, especially for a hammer-wielding hunk of granite like him. After all, one reason why Loki is so popular is because he frequently rolls his eyes over what a bore Thor acts like.
And so do we.