Thor: Ragnarok

RATING: B+

It's been nearly ten years now since the Marvel Cinematic Universe started. And given that fact, most of us should probably know what to expect from the average Marvel movie by now. You can generally expect a relatively light-hearted superhero movie with lots of humor, exciting action sequences, great characters and heroes that we all like, one-note villains that range from pretty great to very forgettable, and ultimately no matter how dark or serious things might appear to be... there are almost never any real long-term consequences and no one ever dies. Unless their actor's contract ended. (Oddly enough, a few minor characters actually do die in this movie... only thing is, if you aren't a mega-Marvel/Thor fan, you might not even remember who they are.) 

Granted, this is a formula that has generally worked pretty well. The only issue is some of those minor annoyances that come up which start to grate on you a little more after you've seen them happen multiple times. Every now and then a few movies in the series will kind of deviate from that formula in some way, but still, we've been given kind of the same thing enough that we're starting to catch on to it. Thor: Ragnarok really isn't that much different. If anything, it takes certain parts of the formula even further than before--for better or for worse. 

This particular Thor movie--which is *very* different in almost every way from its predecessors--centers around the goddess of death, Hela, being released from her "cage" back into the world and ultimately into Asgard. Thor is initially defeated by her and ends up stranded on a distant planet without his hammer (which the trailers actually revealed him losing, for some idiotic reason) where he has to fight as a gladiator against the Hulk, get back to Asgard and stop Hela from destroying everything. 

Let's start with the good. This movie is very, very funny. It's one of the funniest in the entire Marvel series, along with the original Avengers movie and the two Guardians of the Galaxy movies. The gladiator match between Thor and Hulk is as hilarious as it is exciting, and much of the interaction between Thor and Loki is also quite amusing. We're given plenty to laugh at in general for the majority of the movie. The action sequences are decent if not great, while the final act stands out a bit (until the final resolution, that is) due in part to being a bit more serious and not constantly relying on wisecracks to keep it going. 

The film still has a good cast. Chris Hemsworth steps it up a notch by showing his comedic talent, as does Tom Hiddleston. There actually aren't a lot of other returning actors, but Idris Elba and Mark Ruffalo still do fairly well. Anthony Hopkins oddly seems like he kind of phoned this one in. Newcomers include Cate Blanchett, Jeff Goldblum, Tessa Thompson and Karl Urban--all of whom do well, although Goldblum's goofiness makes him stand out. Benedict Cumberbatch's Doctor Strange also shows up... for about 3-4 minutes, but he makes good use of his time. 

Probably the biggest issue here is the ending. One can't say much without giving away spoilers (and I probably should still warn you of vague spoilers here), but in typical Marvel fashion, they use a cop out to avoid having the ending seem too dark. That kind of makes what could have been an impactful ending... not so. Almost makes you wonder what the point even was. Not enough to ruin the film, obviously--it's too much fun to do that--but it's a problem. Other issues include no explanation as to why Hulk can suddenly speak (among other things about him that have changed since his last appearance) and the fact that the film's lighthearted tone does seem on occasion a bit off due to the fact that that film is supposed to be about the doggone Asgardian apocalypse. 

Thor: Ragnarok is absolutely not bad by any means. It's difficult to not have a fun time watching it. It's not without issues, but at this point it's not unlike what some of us have come to expect out of a Marvel movie at this point. It's been made out to be one of the better movies in the series, which I don't entirely get. It's certainly one of the funnier ones, but that doesn't guarantee by default that it's a classic. Certain flaws keep it from being that. Nevertheless, in terms of humor, you probably won't find a whole lot better in the action/adventure department this year.