Thor: Ragnarok (2017)

Film: Thor: Ragnarok (2017)
Stars: Chris Hemsworth, Tom Hiddleston, Cate Blanchett, Idris Elba, Jeff Goldblum, Tessa Thompson, Karl Urban, Mark Ruffalo, Anthony Hopkins
Director: Taika Waititi
Oscar History: Marvel's not their favorite, so I'm guessing no even if VFX is theoretically a possibility.
Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

Movies are supposed to be fun.  Like, genuinely a good time at the cinema, and I think that comic book movies have by-and-large forgotten that.  Think of the nauseating seriousness of some of the more recent Batman entries, with Christopher Nolan getting too bloated and with his inventiveness gone, the DC universe going largely to shit.  The Marvel movies have also struggled on this front, creating lighter heroes but ones still burdened by the world around them.  This occasionally can make for fine movies (Captain America: Winter Soldier still being the high-point of the Marvel universe), but it's also why people have responded so ferociously to Guardians of the Galaxy, a comic book franchise that doesn't take itself too seriously.  That was clearly what Taika Waititi had in mind with the latest installment in the Thor franchise, though I'm not entirely sold on the end result.

(Spoilers Ahead) The Thor franchise is arguably the least artistically interesting one of Marvel's universe.  One could argue that had Thor not been one of the original hits that eventually led to the Avengers movie taking over the globe, he probably wouldn't still be getting these stand-alone movies, but since he was and since Marvel essentially can print money with the Avengers franchise at this point, it's not hard to see why he's still getting his due.  Still, though, Thor as a solo character doesn't really work unless you can juxtapose him against other characters to show how preposterous he is, and Waititi certainly does that in this picture.

The film starts off with Thor (Hemsworth) returning to his home of Asgard after unsuccessfully searching for the Infinity Stones that have constantly peppered this franchise for the better part of a decade now.  We see that he no longer is with Jane, and that shockingly his brother Loki (Hiddleston) is still alive (albeit his father Odin (Hopkins) isn't long for this world).  He soon learns of Hela (Blanchett), his Goddess of Death sister, who destroys his hammer with her bare hands early in the film and slowly we watch as Thor is stripped off all of his iconography, with the hair and one eye soon to follow.   He inevitably ends up in a showdown with Hela, and proving that he has learned some humility, finally realizes that he cannot destroy her, only another demon can do so, and flees rather than stand to fight her.

The movie, though, will focus less on the fight for Asgard and more on the silly side distractions of Thor on Sakaar, a garbage dump of a planet (literally), where the Grandmaster (Goldblum) puts on massive battles that pit his Grand Champion, later revealed to be the Hulk (Ruffalo) against fighters such as Thor.  The movie stays extremely light and frothy in these parts, but I honestly wasn't feeling it.  Whereas Guardians was meant to be light, Thor has some very serious issues going on, and the Hulk in particular is played mostly for laughs but this is a deeply tragic figure.  Plus, Goldblum has used this schtick for so many years it's hard not to assume he's just playing himself onscreen.  Blanchett is better at delivering the camp as a woman who sports antlers for ears and can throw off a deadly bon mot better than pretty much anyone, but she's not central to the story-Goldblum is.  The entire movie is predicated on you just enjoying all of the silliness of Thor's compatriots, but it feels excessive.  Combined with unnecessary cameos (of course we see Benedict Cumberbatch's Doctor Strange, because that reminds people he's still around) and shocking, but then eye-rolling cameos (Matt Damon as Loki in a play...at some point we need to address that Damon has largely graduated from movie star to celebrity thanks to his string of middling movies & over-reliance on Jimmy Kimmel), the movie is reliant on societal pressure for you to love the Marvel brand so much that you're willing to dismiss the fact that the plotting here is bordering on garbage.  Chris Hemsworth has graduated into a movie star through these pictures, something we should be thankful for, and is arguably giving the best performance (give-or-take Blanchett), but movie star charisma and the face/body of an alien creature (seriously-how is it that one human being can be that attractive?) can't save this movie from being just, well, dull and pointless.  Marvel can have fun, but they need a plot and a point too.

Those are my (admittedly unpopular) thoughts on Thor: Ragnarok.  How about yours?  Anyone else find the movie to be over dull and forcing the fun, rather than seeming at ease?  Or am I just the spoil sport?  Share your thoughts in the comments!