Thor Ragnarok*

Hulk looked a bit off in spots, like his head was too small for his body and his general movements in the scene in his room. His transformation back to Banner was also iffy.

 

Spoiler

Just as funny, to me anyway, was that "Thor" was portrayed by Luke Hemsworth, Chris's older brother. And "Odin" was Sam Neill, who was in Taika Waititi's previous film, "Hunt for the Wilderpeople" (as was Rachel House, who plays the Grandmaster's assistant in "Thor").

 

I know right?

 

Yeah, I have to kind of agree with you on that. Visually he was a downgrade from the Avengers films and even the Norton film, which I thought had a really cool looking Hulk.

 

Spoiler

Wasn't the joke with Matt Damon that he played a character named Loki in Kevin Smith's Dogma? That's what I thought of, and it gave me a chuckle.

 

Just came back from seeing this. Pretty entertaining, but I would have enjoyed the movie so much more if it had 75% less humor and no Led Zeppelin. Luckily, Cate Blanchett's character had very few moments where cheap laughs were required. She was perfect for the role and she looked amazing in it. It was also great to see that the character of an alcoholic woman can be portrayed as a heroic figure. It gives young women who might find Wonder Woman too clean someone to look up to, not that I think they should. I simply found it surprising that Marvel would want to project that image. What was really nice to see is Thor finally accepting his brother's penchant for double crossing and turning the cards on him.

Mark Mothersbaugh's score was pretty solid whilst fitting the movie very well and it was nice to see Brian Tyler get a little respect with the elegant use of some of his Dark World musical passages.

 

The bigger surprise is:

Spoiler: Cameo

Liam Hemsworth, Chris' brother, is playing the fake "Thor" in the play, Matt Damon plays "Loki" in the play, and Sam Neill (whom you'll remember from Jurassic Park) plays "Odin."

I forgot to mention that I thought the music was among the worst things in the film. I really detested it -- just heavy handed, cliched, and boring throughout. Not my thing at all. Too many synths. I totally concede this is a subjective area.

On the plus side, I really liked the appearance of Dr. Strange, who was often played off against Thor in the comics.

What shocked me is that the easy stuff -- like Thor, Loki, and Odin standing against a cliff looking out at the sky and the ocean -- looked like cheap, ragged green-screen composites. Really gnarly. I know a guy who worked on the show, and my guess is because there were 16 VFX companies in the credits, there was a giant last-minute rush to hit a deadline and tons and tons of shots fell through the cracks. As an old Cinesite pal of mine used to say, "eh, what you saw was a lot of 'take 1s' and 'take 2s' in the film -- we didn't get a chance to fix them because we ran out of time."

Our opinions almost don't matter: the movie has every sign of going well past $800M worldwide, making it one of the biggest Marvel movies ever.

 

I saw it in Cinemark XD and loved it.

Much better than Thor 2.

Nice balance of humor/action..

 

I see what you mean but I felt that the more, whilst entertaining, did have a bit of a "everything but the kitchen sink" feel to it with the junkyard planet and I thought the music expressed that.

My favourite part of the film.

The thing that bothered me so much about the humor was that a good level had been achieved in both The Guardians of the Galaxy films and I did not mind it. In Ragnarok, that level was brought too much to the front. Maybe I wasn't the intended market for this one. It's still better than Iron Man 2, but not by much.

 

Like I said before I loved the film but what really peeved me off was Hela destroying Mjolnir. She couldn't have done that and never did in the comics.

What pissed me off ABOUT that happening was that's the coolest part of THOR when he makes Mjolnir spin a million miles an hour kicking ass and taking names like the opening sequence.

 

My impression, Thor: Ragnarok is a mixed bag of tricks & treats, ...too good to pick apart based on the fun-ride, acting and clever dialogue, but not quite satisfying enough for the content to stand out as a top tier Marvel Studios film. Although I may be in the minority here, I liked the prior Thor franchise films a wee bit better than this one overall, strengths notwithstanding.

I found the best moments/acting to be the conversations between characters, which may be an indication of how jaded I've become to FX heavy superhero/supervillain battles. The clever dialogue between Mark Rufulo's Banner character and Chris Hemsworth's Thor was interesting because it superseded the slapstick elements of the Hulk/Thor interactions. Unfortunately, there were moments where the film reached back into Marvel's well established bag-o-tricks for cheap comic relief via FX (ergo Hulk smashing Thor like a rag doll in the same manner he did to Loki in the first Avengers film). Again, not picking the film apart, just pointing out how repeating a recognizable visual effect has a diminishing return. IMO, going back to the well rarely fills the bucket as full the second time around.

Personal biases notwithstanding, highlights of the film are still fair game for criticism. While amusing, Thor behaving out of character ...using snarky lingo more apropos to Tony Stark... is a bit disappointing. Also, Thor's anguish over losing his long locks ...part of his Viking heritage... seems more about updating his traditional character through a moment of forced comic relief than something to move the plot forward. Note: I'm not opposed to poking fun at superheroes, but a little goes a long way. It should be used sparingly, never losing sight of the overarching theme of the franchise and established motivations of the characters. One should be careful poking fun, you can lose an eye that way.

In my estimation, Thor: Ragnarok veered perilously close to camp. Jeff Goldblum's acting delivered, but his character was just too laid back and obnoxiously transparent to convincingly sell his cruelty as being utterly malevolent, morally bankrupt, callous and creepy. In fact, there may be a subtext to his character's showman-like ruthlessness, but in order to draw the obvious conclusion they'd have to recast Alec Baldwin in the role of Ragnarok.

In spite of these caveats, Thor: Ragnarok is a highly enjoyable, fast paced film ...far from my favorite storyline in the Marvel universe..., but fun nonetheless. Tom Hiddleston's ambiguous trickster Loki is spot on, which keeps the film from going too far astray, and the FX visuals, scripting and music choices are all first rate. If grading this in comparison of other well crafted Marvel Universe films, I'd probably give it three and a half bags of popcorn on a five bag scale. IOW, if you like Marvel's other entries in this series, you'll probably enjoy this'n every bit as much.


Cat

 

So where was Siff during all this?

 

(Yeah, I know Siff is a woman, but dammit, I LOVE that clip!)

 

Is Hela really dead? If so, does the death of the "Goddess Of Death" have any affect on beings ability to die?

 

It's a comic book movie - no one ever REALLY dies in those! Didn't they already "kill" Loki like 20 times?

 

Not that I recall. He's faked his death with illusion a few times, though.

 

But in the movie's terms, that counts as a "death". In "Ragnarok", Thor clearly believed Loki was dead...

 

AND, if you play "Thor: The Dark World" BACKWARDS,
it sounds, uncannily like, "Loki has been dead for ages, honestly!"

 

I'll put the Blu-ray on my turntable RIGHT NOW!!!

 

I don't follow. The audience knew the whole time. Loki tricks Thor at the end of The Dark World, but isn't it shown to the audience that Loki is alive and impersonating Odin? That's not really the same. Was there something in Ragnarok (other than this being a comic based series) that implied Hela wasn't killed?

 

No - my comment was just to indicate that comic books rarely "really" kill characters.

My Loki comment was partly a joke!

 

I gotcha.

 

Question about the end of the movie, that I can't believe I am asking as a middle-aged man:

Spoiler

When Asgard is destroyed, Thor decides he's going to fly the surviving Asgardians to Earth in the spaceship.... but isn't Asgard in a different dimension from Earth? Isn't that what they needed the "bifrost" for, to go from one "realm" to another? I thought the different realms were dimensions, not just different parts of the universe....

I also thought that in the MCU the Asgardians are not actually gods, but just worshipped as gods by the primitive Norwegians... and yet throughout it was "Thor, you are the God of Thunder" and "I am the Goddess of Death" etc... is that how it was in the other two movies? (The details of these movies don't stick to my brain very tightly.)

 

They aren't immortal. So if "God" means immortal to you, then they aren't actual "Gods", but were or are worshipped as such. As for your question about Earth and Asgard, maybe they're just really far apart and the bifrost is a quick way to get from one place to another distant one? Or maybe Heimdal was able to bring some part of the magic of the bifrost with them?

I'm curious to hear the explanation from others who actually know what they're talking about, as I'm just spitballing.

 

Yes, but did they keep referring to themselves as gods in the other movies?