I rewatched Thor: The Dark World last night...

It's one of the lowest ranked for me. It feels like an mid-season episode from a CW show. The cast and some of the action saves the movie from being a complete bore. But the villains (Malekith and the Dark Elves) are a complete bore save some impressive makeup. I've nothing against Kat Dennings but goddman Darcy is a pain in the ass. Seeing Skarsgard running around naked is unnecessary.

What's missing in movies is same as in society: a good sense of work ethic and living up to ideals.

I think T:TDW suffers for being a bit underwhelming.
I didn't watch trailers or anything when it came out cause I wasn't a fan at the time, so I watched it without any outside influences or judgements. The first time I didn't think was too bad, though I really wanted to strangle Darcy by the end.

After repeat viewings, though, I really think they just didn't know how to get it to its full potential. One of my peeves was the focus on Earth. It made sense in the first Thor movie, but I just don't like Thor's human support cast. Darcy needs to die in a hole, Jane does not interest me at all, and Erik is alright but needed to be a bit better. Now him picking up Jane after the Aether possession (which I was rooting for to get rid of her. yes that sounds horrible, but it's how I feel) made some sense, but the cut scenes with Darcy greatly annoyed me. If they had focused less on Earth and explored more of Asgard or 'the Dark World' (can't remember the realm's name off the top of my head), then I could see some improvement.
Another nitpick is that the Asgardians didn't feel very fleshed out. The Warriors, Sif, and Heimdal did fight and I liked their interactions with Thor and Loki, but I really wanted to see them more in action defending their home. Heimdal's bit was awesome, but wish there was more to it or a satisfying closing. It also would have been neat to see how regular citizens view what's been happening. Like a conversation between two people bout their Thor's behavior, how they perceived Loki's betrayal and how much they knew about everything (either something like "knew he wasn't right" or a contrast of "I can't believe what he did, it does not seem like him") small moments like that. But no, instead we get Darcy and Ian (who I didn't mind and wish could replace Darcy) watching Erik streak naked on TV and Jane's awkward date. A waste of world building in my opinion.
Malekith could have also benefited from a lot more exposure and better development. His motives are sound to me, but he just wasn't displayed enough or given some good scenes to really stick out. He had a neat look and backstory that really could have been turned into something awesome, but it just didn't happen.

Now the parts that were good, were really good. The fight and battle scenes were quite unique and powerful (especially the portal fight at the end), the non-Midgard characters' interactions with each other felt natural and flowed really well, Asgard still appeared grand and majestic even while in ruins, great settings and backgrounds, and is decent story once you get past the dips.

As for rank, I'll always have a bit of a bias towards Thor since he's my MCU introduction. I may not re-watch this movie a lot or gush all day long about it, but I do enjoy this film for at least setting stuff outside Earth (GotG is awesome in that regard as well) and for strong character (not Earthlings) to audience engagement. If it had just a few more script polishes and tight up some loose ends, it probably would have been great.

Thor is my favorite MCU hero so I'm glad someone as yourself enjoyed TDW. I REALLY wanted to like this movie but for me there were more negatives than positives. You mentioned the intern but I'd throw in Darcy, Jane, and Erik as well. One of my biggest gripes with this film is that WAAY too much time was wasted on earth. That time could've been spent developing malikith, Sif and the W3, hell even the guy the movie is named after.

Jane did not need to be the main focal point of the plot, they could've done the aether without her being the reason for it. It just made it uninteresting (and Portman gave the most half-assed performance) The overuse of comedy kept taking me out of the movie. There were jokes coming from every angle it was. I don't know why they felt to overload it with humor. The writing was uneven too Loki was the only character that had any sort of development. Sif and the W3 were painfully wasted. The film as a whole suffered greatly from a short run time it felt rushed and crammed.

But I agree that this cast is the most impressive in the MCU. Hemsworth and Hiddleston always have great chemistry. Their parts were the best of the film I would rate this film slightly below average. What saves it are the Asgard cast.

I didn't hate the film, but being a huge Marvel fan and even bigger Thor fan simply raises my expectations. Main storyline was great on paper. Oh I wanted a villain better than Malekith. Still the story was there. Unfortunately the overall execution just wasn't that great. The earth stuff simply wasn't needed and distracted from the main storyline. Most of Malekith's scenes barely last longer than 1 minute. Main villain has very little menace or purpose if he's rarely shown. Would have been nice if he spoke English. Not crazy about subtitles in films like these, plus the phoney alien language took away from what little effectiveness he may have had. Frigga gives her life for Jane's without barely having a conversation with her. Action, what little there was of it, simply sucked. Thor is barely involved in any of it. Fights Kurse for like 1 minute, totally getting his butt kicked and having to be saved by Loki. The finale fight with Malekith wasn't bad, but could have been much better. The interpretation of the Aether's powers were vague and not that interesting. Plus it was marred by the stupid earthers having to be involved, ruining Thor's only true big moment.

Same for me, I really enjoyed Dark World. I didn't see any of the plot twists coming, I throughly enjoyed the amount of screen time given to all of the characters (who cares if Thor's friends were short changed, why commit the entire film to developing them??? I still don't see why this is such a huge gripe among hardcore fans), the movie actually succeeded in making me care about Loki again, Thor was fantastically in character, Jane was sweet and her scenes with Thor were great, I actually think that Darcy is hilarious, the only thing I would change is I'd give the villain a bit of time and development, otherwise it's my favorite Thor movie and in my top five.

I think Jane and her gang and the main villain were pretty much the downfall of the movie. The rest was good. As long as Thor stayed in Asgard the movie was good - even with Jane around. This movie has one of my favorite scenes in the entire MCU, which is Loki's reaction to his mother's death (and the music in this scene is really moving).

I agree, it's not bad, but it could have been a lot better. Here's hoping Ragnarok shows what the first Thor almost did. They don't have Jane this time, so it's a start.

I once told a man to go screw himself! Can you even imagine?! - Kilgrave

I say it's probably one of the weakest MCU movies in my list. Not completely terrible, but still dissapointing. In addition to the villain, pointless Darcy, pointless intern, and naked Selvig:

The thing with the portals was very contrived (the cave scene was a complete deus-ex-machina!)

And the final battle had silly and unnecesary moments of humor, which is a shame since I liked seeing how Thor and Malekith fought while being transported through different worlds. In fact, the film didn't balance humor and seriousness well: Yes, we have Frigga's death and funeral... then after that, a funny scene with Selvig in a mental hospital (with the obligated Stan Lee cameo). We have Loki's "death", and a serious conversation between Thor and Jane... suddenly interrupted by her silly ringtone.

Also, having the shortest runtime in a MCU movie didn't help. It felt very rushed sometimes. As you say, a few minutes more could've made the film a bit better.

The Dark World is number 9 on my MCU list, above The Incredible Hulk, Iron Man 2 and Thor, but yeah, whatever hope it has against Avengers: AoU, "Ultron took that hope from it first" #UltronVoice.

The same "hate" you're giving Ultron, is the same kind of "hate" people give The Dark World... And both, to some extent, are warranted... But, both movies are awesome, with Ultron being better in everything, for me, accept score perhaps.

The best thing about The Dark World is Brian Tyler's score... It's all kinds of EPIC. Tom also brings some proper hurt... But, Ultron... Ben Davis's cinematography, Scarlet Witch, Hulk vs Iron Man, the reunion of the team, AoU's finale battle vs TDW's... Everything about AoU is bigger and better, and Joss's narrative outclasses Alan's...

Sure, bigger and better doesn't mean the best... But, Aou is bigger than The Avengers, but it's not better, whereas, against TDW... it wins on both accounts... I think.

Where do you rank TDW in MCU?