"Thor: Ragnarok" Review
This is the 17th movie in the Marvel movie thing that's been happening for the last nine years or so. We get the drill and we get the formula. We meet our heroes again and there's a new evil to fight. Blah blah blah. We get it. Director Taika Waititi is undoubtedly skilled at handling comedy and improv (btw, this movie was 80% improv, crazy, right?). He's great and this movie breathes personality. It's good. But it's still isn't really able to make me love the character.
Here's where I feel some mild dysphoria. Thor as a character is not the same character we've seen in the past. Nor was he a character that I liked at all but that's a whole other issue I have. Instead of the straight-man fish-out-of-water cool-guy, we get a wacky look-at-me-I'm-so-wacky-and-fun character. It basically threw away an entire personality but for the better. It's a weird tonal whiplash that took me a while to get used to. The characters it introduces are fun and way better than any of the characters in the other Thor movies but I honestly cannot remember the names or the scenes that they were in. I saw this movie ten hours ago before this review and I remembered liking it but at the same time, I don't remember much of it. Sure, there was Loki, which I never really liked but is objectively the most complex antagonist in the MCU. Hulk was in it which was also cool, I love the Hulk but that character really left a sour taste in my mouth after Avengers 2. There was synth music which is, in my opinion, just as forgettable as most MCU movie scores. It still had the villain problem that Marvel is so notorious for with Cate Blanchett as Hela, the Goddess of Exposition (Blanchett is amazing in it though, of course). Anthony Hopkins' Odin was completely wasted and serves as mere plot convenience that hovers over a deep and interesting family dynamic that was mentioned but never explored. I could keep listing issues with characters, plot conveniences, underwhelming green screen and weird comedy/drama tonal shifts but I'll stop here before I sound like a negative Nancy.
Let me reiterate: this is a fun and good movie. People obviously like it a lot. It's objectively better than the first Guardians of the Galaxy movie from an antagonist, pacing, editing, and cinematography standpoint but it's not really a movie that I find myself enjoying as much as I thought I would. Maybe there's something that I'm missing or maybe I'm depressed or something. I don't know what it is but those are my thoughts. Maybe I'll like it more upon rewatching.