Thor: Ragnarok (2017)

[The Shadow]

That's interesting about the post-movie footage, I didn't know that but it makes sense Marvel would start doing that with at least some of the movies.

[Benjamin Haines]

[Jinzo Ningen]

Went with wife to 7pm sneak preview showing.

Enjoyable enough time-killer but not one of my faves, not by a long shot. Waaay too jokey. I enjoyed Guardians of the Galaxy and its sequel as they were so fresh and such a nice change from the other, somewhat more formulaic MCU stuff. Thor: Ragnarok is much too close in tone to GotG for me. (Though at least the humor in T:R wasn't as crude as the GotG flicks, especially vol.2) Being based on the apocalyptic end of Asgard, this movie should have been more somber, with real game-changing gravity to it. There were occasional moments of dramatic weight, but the constant jokes and overall feeling of levity throughout the film ...even those handful of "serious" moments just felt hollow. In the end I felt like the director was 'making fun of' the MCU, instead of just 'having fun with' - especially in the first 1/3 of the film.

Hela was good but should have had more to do. Skurge was a throw away character. Heimdal was better than I've seen him in the previous entries, despite him limited screen time. Surtur was cool, but basically comes off like a giant version of the Filmation version of Skeletor. Loki was alright, but Hiddleston's performance felt rather phoned in (and WTF is with his makeup and hair in this film??? Hiddleston's skin is practically alabaster and his hair & eyebrows look like they were colored with a puck of shoe polish - unnatural and, frankly, just awful-looking). Thor is still pretty much Thor, although they really dumb him down here and it does no justice to the character, especially in comparison to Hemsworth's noble-ish portrayal in the first film. Here, he's basically the dumb guy from the Ghostbusters reboot dressed in Norse togs. My wife said (and I agree) that in the previous MCU films she thought Thor said some pretty funny stuff, but those seemed genuine and unintentional because of his 'fish out of water' naiveté, whereas in this film he's just a clueless bonehead. Grandmaster was just Jeff Goldblum being Jeff Goldblum and Goldblumming his way through the whole flick. Valkyrie was solid but nothing special, and the ridiculous behind-the-scenes focus on making her an LBGT-whatever character was absurd and felt totally forced, in order to make things more PC and topically relevant. ( )

Best thing about this film, for me, was finally seeing the Hulk as close to classic Savage Hulk as he's ever been portrayed on film. Looks, attitude and strength levels were PERFECT. Banner had some gravitas, but again it was mostly snatched away by Ruffalo's light-hearted somewhat clueless-sounding delivery. I get that part of that was intentional, as he's 'coming back' after not having been Banner for two years, but a lot of it felt like the director saying "Remember, Mark, keep it goofy and funny, this is a going to be a funny Thor film!" (nudge-nudge, wink-wink)

Overall I give it 6.5 out of 10 stars. (Oh and not worth sticking around for the two post-credits clips, IMHO, especially the 2nd clip. Neither did much in the way of significantly wrapping things up for this film, nor of really giving any important clues as to the next installment, etc., etc. And that's the first time I've ever felt that way about the post-credit stuff, either.)

[lhb412]

[O.Supreme]

Kind of sad...Most of these changes will no doubt bring in more $$$, and have audiences cheering, but will ultimately keep me away from the film. I wasn't even expecting Korg to be in it at all, but when they "Mike Tyson" him in the TV spot, I face palmed. It may in fact be his only line or scene in the whole film...I don't know....It just seems things are getting a little too disrespectful of the source material in the name of goofiness.

[Kaiju_Ultra_Fan]

I honestly wish I could be excited for this movie, but I guess I'm just completely burned out on the Marvel films.

I'm kind of looking forward to Justice League,..and Black Panther looks like a change of pace,..and The Punisher on Netflix I'm excited about. But that's it.

The speculation was that Thor:Ragnarok was going to be a 'jokey comedy' and it's looking like that's exactly what it's turned out to be.

I'll get to it eventually I guess just to see The Hulk.

[Jinzo Ningen]

[Kaiju_Ultra_Fan]

I wouldn't mind seeing smart/grey/Mr.Fixit style Hulk fighting along with The Avengers.

The Avengers movies I don't mind. I pretty much expect 90 minutes of semi-brainless action and just lots of fighting out of those. I figure it's the nature of a large cast that they can't really do much other than action showcases.

[Dr Kain]

A shame that in a year that started with a phenomenal masterpiece like Logan, continued on with Guardians, WW, Spider-Man, and now Thor, is going to be tainted by ending with Justice League in 2 weeks. Too bad as this should have been the bookend for comic movies.

[Kaiju_Ultra_Fan]

no hope that Justice League will be any good, huh?

[lhb412]

Immigrant Song was, like, so thematically appropriate for this movie it's crazy! That's some terrific popular music use.

Anyway, thought Thor: Ragnarok was pretty great - it may not comport exactly with previous Thor movies, but taken as it's own movie it's pretty solid: looks great, moves great, it's funny but anchors itself with a few big ideas about imperialism and whatnot. A lot of these movies don't feel like they're about anything, and that's not a problem here.

[Ultraseven]

Scene stealers: Goldblum's Grandmaster (or should i say Goldblum's Goldblum?) and movie director's Korg. Really, i go to the movies to have a good time and the Marvel ones mostly deliver, with the exception of Ironman 2.

[kidnicky]

[Dai]

Thor Ragnarok was good fun; pretty much a 180-turn from the tedium of The Dark World. Colourful, fast-paced, likeable, with a decent villain, and a soundtrack that doesn't just blend into the background for once. It does suffer the same problem as almost every post-Whedon Marvel movie though, where the humour sometimes crosses the line into self-parody, and moments of drama or emotion are often hijacked by cheap gags. It's ironic that a multi-billion dollar franchise built around superheroes is so nervous about depicting heroism.

[Dr Kain]

I don't see anything wrong with what they are doing. I'm glad they know these movies should be as fun as they are dark and serious because that is hwo the comics were.

[Jinzo Ningen]

[O.Supreme]

^ Dan Murrell from SJ news expressed similar concern. He, like most people, liked the film well enough, but expressed disappointment at the lack of empathy towards total destruction. I agree wholeheartedly. Having fun in a movie is great, but from all accounts (as I have not seen the film myself), it went too far this time, almost making light of what it was. In TDW, Thor, and the entirety of Asgard mourn the loss of Frigga. Now in Ragnarok, if the loss of Odin, all Thor's closest friends, and the entirety of Asgard are dismissed with a joke & a *meh*, I really cant respect that.

I don't think it's lazy necessarily as much as, for all the praise Taika Waititi gets, he truly did not research the source material. If TDW was criticized for being too dark, then Ragnarok seems to have gone too far in the opposite direction. I think actually the first Avengers film has just about the right amount of balance of seriousness and humor. Civil War is a close second. I have faith in the Russo Brothers to bring it all back around, but its just sad that so much that was established in previous films was just wasted, and tossed out like yesterdays garbage for the sake of a few jokes. Also I hear a lot of people praising the "Kirby-esque" look of the film, which is fine. I love jack Kirby's art style. But 1. Hela is not Thor/Loki's sibling, she is Loki's daughter. From everything I've seen this character should just have been Enchantress instead (though she was not related to any of them IIRC) 2. The Planet Hulk Story (or the elements of it used in this film) came out in 2006, and has nothing to do with Jack Kirby's artistic styling's. It is a VERY DARK, and depressing story. Lionsgate did an animated adaptation in 2010 which was just as dark. Now...that being said, would this story need to be lightened up to appeal to mass audiences...Absoutley, I could not imagine what a faithful 1:1 PLANET HULK straight up film's reaction would be. Probably a lot of angry parents writing letters to Disney or some such thing...but anyway...there are ways to make things more light and appealing without making a total mockery of them is basically what I am trying to convey.

[klen7]

I had a lot of fun with this flick. It was like a GotG movie with more likable characters. A+ for me.

[Jinzo Ningen]

O.Supreme,

That's another bone of contention with me. If there were, let's say, 100 story points in the PLANET HULK storyline, RAGNAROK uses maybe 3! A complete waste of the source material and it smells to high heaven of Marvel just throwing a limpdick bone to Hulk/P:H fans. Disney's obviously too cheap & greedy to buy back Hulk's rights from Universal for solo stuff, and equally skinflinty with regards to sharing the moolah for a solo film co-production/release. This P:H thread shoehorned into RAGNAROK's already overstuffed narrative stinks of Marvel (Kevin Feige) & Disney's flaccid attempt at tossing out "something" to tide fans over until... most likely never. The source material IS pretty gritty-dark stuff, as you said, and so I can understand - somewhat - the backing away and lightening up of said adaption. But they jettison some great bits; the least of which was Hulk siring a son! I was so hoping we've get a scene in the post credits with a woman carrying a baby (or better yet, leading a little child behind her), with green skin & blonde hair who points up and says something along the lines of "Where's Daddy going?!?" That would've been a kickass "Holy F!" moment for casual Marvelites and non-fans to chew on for a year or two. But... nahhh. Let's vomit up a throwaway bit with Grandmaster that does absolutely NOTHING to move ANYTHING forward and is just an excuse for Goldblum to do his mumbly thing, stretching for a cheap laugh (and a really strained one at that) to close out the flick.

So much potential, so little success. If Branaugh, (or any of several other talent directors), had done this it could have been the epic capstone to Thor's films - instead of a shenanigan-filled knee-slapper that flies itself straight into the ground in order to skew to the lowest common denominator all in the name of B.O. If they wanted to go with a farcical comedy then why not pick another obscure 4th tier property, like DEVIL DINOSAUR? (No offense to DD fans!) Or give Watiti HOWARD THE DUCK.

[Dai]

I wonder if part of the reason why this movie was allowed to make light of the apocalypse to such a ridiculous extent is a scheduling issue. Ragnarok is the last MCU movie on the slate before they finally get to Infinity War, ie. they're doing two universe-wide apocalypses back-to-back. If Ragnarok had been played straight, how would they one-up it in Infinity War? Frankly, I think putting those two movies next to each other is the biggest scheduling error that the MCU has made to date.

I can live with a lot of the humour in Ragnarok, but there are some scenes that feel like they belong in Spaceballs 2.

[Dr Kain]

[Jinzo Ningen]

[lhb412]

[Dr Kain]

[Dai]