Review of Thor: Ragnarok (2017) by Tal G — 08 Apr 2018

Oh boy!

It was pretty cool of Marvel to let Taika do this one, although I don't know how I really feel about having such a fundamentally comedic director in charge of this movie.

Obviously it's a very simple movie, simple plot, simple beats, nothing really out of the ordinary. It felt like it had a lot more comedy in it than other Marvel movies, as surprising as it is to write this. A lot of the jokes and gags actually didn't work for me. After a certain point it just started piling on like a big lazy heap of trash. Made for a watchable flick though.

One of the big issues I noticed in this movie is how simple and childish all the characters appeared to be. It honestly felt like all the character interactions and motivations could've been in some kids show. Really. It felt like this movie should've been E rated. It was so incredibly inoffensive and devoid of any complexity of character. They were all paper thin. Nothing escapes you.

I know that a lot of people these days wish for comic book movies to be fun and a lot lighter, and this movie really managed to hit that mark. But in my opinion, this comes at the cost of comic book movies being anything more than that. Everybody knows that the comic book cliche designation is just "trash for kids", but it definitely has the potential to be much more than that.

The movie was really colourful, playful, a lot of times so playful that it completely pulled me out of the experience. I was just wondering if this is a Thor-themed comedy movie. The visuals were mostly fine, although kind of generic. The CGI fluctuated between competent and a bit unfinished. Some of the costumes looked really cheap, like something mass produced. The musical score was unnoticeable, but the song choices were actually great.

I did appreciate Thor having some bit of character movement at the end of this one. There was progression in the status quo.

The actors all just did the bare minimum required of anyone that acts in a Marvel project. I did like Jeff Goldblum a lot in his role though. He was probably the best here.

So yeah, it's just a very superficial kids movie. Inoffensive, fun, dumb, lacking any sort of depth or any kind of surprise.