Thor: The Dark World
Summary: Sometime after the Battle of New York (and presumably Iron Man 3), Jane Foster is still looking for Thor and her search has lead her to London where she's finding strange things (including her former science partner, now not being over-shadowed by Loki, to be crazy-pants, or crazy-pants-less most of the time). And it seems she's chosen the right, or possibly wrong, time to be looking for Thor, strange events are happening and with the villains plotting how to use them and it's going to take Jane and Thor and all of their friends from Midegard and Asgard to keep the world's safe.
The Good: I had fun with this film, like the first Thor film there's just something about it that doesn't quite hang together in the end but there's also something about the way it's done that keeps it amusing anyway. I did feel like the climax worked well though, everyone had an important part to play and while the first film felt like Thor's story, with Jane as a side character, this story really felt like Jane and Thor's story which I enjoyed (and also find interesting, Marvel was already courting the female fanbase a bit more with the first film and I wonder if this is them continuing it by having a superhero movie with a female co-lead).
The Bad: I feel like for the first film everyone was talking about how Jane was a rather flat character and then suddenly before the start of this film she was everyone's darling when really, she still is a bit oddly flat. I feel like the writers were going more for "eccentric" (since that's probably how I would have read a male version of the character) but she just feels a little off to me (but at least I can see why the fandom likes her, after this film I just have no idea why they like Loki, but I say that about every villain). I also found it a bit odd that Sif was being set up as a potential romantic rival in the first film and then here they shoot down that idea in what seemed like the first five minutes of the story, it seemed like the writers realized they had to scrap one sub-plot for the sake of time and just couldn't think of a better way to have it disappear.
The Production Values: This film looked and sounded like what a big budget superhero movie should and I was satisfied with it. I didn't see it in 3D, didn't want to spend the extra money, although I am curious what they did in the 3D movie to make it, well, 3D since I don't see how that would have added much. I did have a moment in the theater however where I thought "Dear god they've done it, they've convinced Americans, people everywhere actually, to turn out in droves multiple times a year for big budget fantasy/sci-fi films, yesssssss" which made me rather happy. I'd of course love to see more big budget fantasy and sci-fi films and tv shows (adapted and original properties) but for the moment this satisfies that itch for me quite nicely.
So I'm giving this a 3.5 out of 5 for being fun, would watch again with friends but I'm unlikely to buy. Oh and I'll warn people now, there are two after the credits scenes! The first one is during the credits (and according to other nerds is helping to set up the Guardians of the Galaxy film that's coming out in the next couple of years) and then the second one is actually after them, make sure to catch both!
