Review of Thor: Ragnarok (2017) by Christo A — 22 Feb 2018

Never thought Thor could actually be funny on purpose. Even though his appearances in the Avengers films did showcase a sense of humor, in his first two solo MCU films he was a lot more serious. It's like he adopted Tony Stark's sense of humor after the events of Age Of Ultron. Even though it's destruction is pretty epic, not seeing Thor's hammer Mjolnir by his side is not a very good look. That hammer is as much a part of Thor as his long blonde hair (red hair in the original mythology), the look is just so iconic that it seems wrong to change it. The memory-sequence featuring the squadron of Valkyries on their pegasus in battle was so epic it made me yearn for more Valkyries to appear in the main storyline, plus it would've been really epic if the background score featured an opera-singer (due to the Valkyrie's association with the operatic "singing fat Lady"). We finally got to see a softer side of Hulk, though it slightly takes away the intimidation factor of his rage-induced rampages, and his broken English is both funny and adorable. Cate Blanchette was magnificent as she channeled.

Angelina Jolie's Maleficent. Marvel really stepped up their game after Civil War, since Spider-Man: Homecoming, Ragnarok and Black Panther broke the box-office. The only thing that this colourful and brilliantly integrated franchise is sorely lacking at this point is an Oscar. Time for the Academy to get those sticks out of their butts, cuz Lord of the Rings is the only Action/Fantasy film series that actually won an Oscar.