The long/short review: an enjoyable romp with very little substance.
One can definitely tell the change in director between these films as in the first Thor there was a Shakespeare undertone, dry humor and smirking wit along with some masterful turns at character development and story telling. Thor 2 is put together more like an action flick where it’s all about the explosions and one-liners.
Do I like action flicks all about explosions and one-liners? Yes, I enjoyed Avengers, didn’t I. But that was the purpose of that film, to bring together characters who were already individually explored and see them work together. In Avengers, character development, save a few key scenes, is pretty much left to be explored in their individual movies where a more direct focus would serve the characters better. We see this in Iron Man 3 where not only does Tony get his own villain but he battles his personal demons and fears as well. That’s what Thor 2 should have been about, continuing to grow Thor as a character through an actual plot arc rather than the typical action style of laying it all down at the end for a quick wrap up.
This really is an example of how bad it can be to ‘just give the audience more of what they want’ rather than ‘making a movie that their audience will love’.
Here is my breakdown, spoilers ahead.
Thor – I always thought that he got the shorter end of the stick in the first film when it came to character development. His motivations were just a bit more petty and his sudden shift to not being such a douche was too quick and unearned. There isn’t so much of a problem like that in Thor 2 because there is no character development, at all. From the beginning he’s just this guy who is trying to be a good son while pining over the woman he loves. At the end of the film, he’s still trying to be the good son while pining over a woman. The only thing that changes is that he has the guts to tell his dad that he doesn’t want to be king and instead continue to hit things with hammers and love a Midgardian. While the argument can be made that this is indeed character development in that he chooses to accept that he doesn’t want to be king, etc, it feels very lazy and simple. After losing his mother and brother, there isn’t any true thought to how this personally effected him or his decisions. As stated before, there is a quick wrap up at the end to say ‘yep, I haven’t changed, this is what I want to do’ and that’s it.
Jane – I didn’t care much for her in the first film because I thought Portman, who is a great actress, just kinda walked through the role and there was no chemistry between her and Hemsworth. As a character though, she was pretty cool. She was this super smart scientist who was trying to awesome things because she was a scientist trying to do awesome things. In Thor 2, she’s reduced to a woman who has apparently been moping around because Thor never called her back. Sure, she was doing sciencey things, but not because “hey, science!” but because she was looking for Thor. Then when Thor snubbed her, she stopped with the science. Huh? I’m sure it hurt to see him come to Earth in Avengers and not bother to call her or even drop a note, but why the hell did she decide to stop doing science because of this? She was a scientist before Thor, she can continue to be a scientist now. Hell, if she was that mad that he never called her, why isn’t she trying harder to find a way to Asgard just so she can slap him? But nope, her entire reason for doing anything worthwhile in life (or I would assume seeing how dedicated she was in the first film) ceased to be because Thor never called her back. Even at the end of the film, she’s moping because he hasn’t come back in two days. And for a lot of the film, she’s just standing there doing nothing because the focus is on Thor/Loki (which I’ll get to in a minute) and she’s almost forgotten about in many scenes. She does have a few moments of her being a freaking scientist and thinking as such, but it’s all framed by the fact that she now exists solely as a love interest to Thor. (But at least we were spared any horrible cat-fighting between her and Sif.)
Loki – He stole the show in the first movie where he got some perfected paced and designed character development, and in Thor 2, pretty much every awesome moment can be attributed to him. He was much more jokey in this film, spilling out one-liners like the class clown who is hiding just how sad he is in. He also had a stronger reaction to Frigga’s death. It puts him in a lot of pain, pain he even tries to hide from Thor through illusions. But, much like Thor, there is no development. Loki is stuck, he’s played his hand as the ‘would be king’ who is rightly pissed about his parentage issue… and he continues to do so because he believes he needs to save face. Then he fakes his death (which, let’s be honest, we all saw coming) and somehow takes Odin’s place (which, okay, that was an awesome twist). There is no development, he’s still the same person he was at the beginning of the film, just in a different place. Throughout the film, though it is very hilarious, he’s just there to crack one-liners and play off Thor. It’s the few moments he’s not doing this that he truly saves this film.
Thor/Loki – The Thor/Loki dynamic is an interesting one and there are a lot of fans both of this as a non-romantic pairing and as a romantic pairing. Loki is also a fan favorite with a movement to get him his own movie. This is where the ‘giving fans more of what they want’ turns sour because this film is pretty much just two hours of Loki and Thor banter, sometimes serious, often for laughs. You know that moment in Avengers where Thor says “listen well brother,” gets knocked down by Iron Man, and Loki goes “I’m listening”… yeah, imagine that for two hours. While yes, it’s really funny and I laughed a lot, I did often find myself going “where is Jane?” or “what about the Elves?” Literally, Jane disappears from view for a good ten minutes at two different times just so that Thor and Loki can banter with each other. It’s not like she’s not around, she’s literally in the same ten square feet radius, but is removed from frame and nearly forgotten about. As much as the Thor/Loki stuff can be fun or even emotionally dramatic, here is was played not like Shakespeare, but like Michael Bay.
Frigga – What the heck? Thor takes repeated poundings from the Hulk. Loki gets stabbed in the chest (maybe, sorta, not sure where the illusion started there). But Frigga gets a dagger in her and dies almost instantly? Gah! I know she was going to die but did they have to make it so easy? Esp after she put the smack down on the Dark Elf? This part pissed me off the most… but mostly cause Frigga is awesome and played by an underrated but also awesome actress. I really hope a future movie is Loki going to Valhalla to get her back… I really do… I any case, she was both soft mother and badass warrior and all in a very small space of time. Writers, take note.
Odin – Worst. Father. Ever. But what else is new? The fact that he was actually being reasonable there at the end should have been our first clue that he wasn’t actually himself.
Darcy – Almost makes up for Jane. She’s sassy, knows her level of intelligence in comparison to Jane, and where she falls in the hierarchy of the film, and she owns it.
Erik – The only character that truly seemed to have any kind of real development from the Avengers film. Basically, after what Loki did to him, and with him being just a person and not a trained S.H.I.E.L.D. agent, he’s pretty much off his rocker. This is totally legit and I applaud that they actually went there and showed that everything is not all happy smiles after events like what happened in Avengers.
Malekith – Our villain of the weekmovie. Eccelston is a great actor but he, like many others in this film, has little to work with. Again, he’s just a device to allow for the Thor/Loki banter.
Overall – It was a fun romp of a film but it was more of a filler episode than a film in its own right. I laughed, I smiled, I got pissed at a character death, but in the end I felt like I hadn’t actually gained anything from the experience regarding the characters. I’ve heard that a good 20-ish minutes where cut and that truely could have made all the difference in giving us more of the depth we needed rather than the silly one-liners.
In conclusion: Was it enjoyable? Yes. Was it disappointing? Yes
Funny how that works out sometimes.
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