Countdown to Avengers 3: Thor Ragnarok review
It’s hard to believe it’s been ten years since the Marvel Cinematic Universe began. And here we are, along with Robert from To the Escape Hatch and CT on Nerd Lunch doing a third “Countdown to Avengers” series. AND, we are joined by a new blogger, Jay from Life vs. Film. You can check out the start of this series with Robert’s post about Avengers: Age of Ultron. Robert, Jay, CT and I are all splitting the films up in anticipation of May’s Avengers: Infinity War. With this film and next year’s Avengers 4, the expectation is that we will be done on some level with this iteration of the MCU. But I doubt it’ll go away completely. If you want to check out my last review in this series, it was for Captain America: Civil War. Now, let’s turn to my next review, Thor Ragnarok.
Like last time, let’s start off with my quick takes on the first two Thor movies. First off, I read comics in the 80s and 90s. I never really liked Thor as a character. He just never honestly seemed to click with me. That being said, I really like that first movie. There’s not really a lot going on, but Hemsworth is great as Thor. Hiddlesworth is good as Loki (he doesn’t become *great* until Avengers). Portman is good as Jane and Kat Dennings is almost a show stealer as Darcy. It’s fun to see Hemsworth playing “fish out of water” on Earth but we get precious little of Asgard. The movie is mostly enjoyable and a good intro to MCU Thor. If nothing else, the movie got me reading the Thor comics right about the time Jason Aaron started writing them and *that* has made me a huge fan of Thor. Check out my full review of Thor for the very first Countdown to Avengers back in 2012.
Thor: The Dark World has its flaws. It tries to do too much and in the process squanders one of Thor’s best villains, Malekith the Accursed. Hemsworth is still great as Thor. We see Hiddleston in his post-Avengers awesomeness. Portman is a problem and obviously doesn’t really even want to be there. Kat Dennings brings more Darcy and she’s a delight. There’s a lot more humor in this movie than I remember whenever I see it, but ultimately the movie is cluttered, hard to follow and doesn’t really seem to go anywhere. So while I was okay with the Thor movies they had put out so far, I was ready for them to try something new. This Thor has lots of potential as he’s great in the team up movies, but his solo efforts have been only okay.
When announcements started coming out about Thor Raganarok it was clear they were going in a different direction. A New Zealand director, Cate Blanchett as the villain, a bright color palate and a humorous tone that seemed to have been clearly inspired by the success of the Guardians of the Galaxy movies. I was okay with all of this. Chris Hemsworth has proven he can be funny. He has the timing. And Thor can be funny. The aforementioned Jason Aaron’s run on Thor is infused with lots of humor and takes Thor in a more cosmic direction which it looks like this movie wants to do. So I was all on board with what they were trying to do. And that first trailer just ROCKED.
The movie 100% delivers. They *nailed* the tone perfectly for me. I know many people said there was too much humor, but I don’t agree. The humor was great and *everyone* got to have their moments. Not just Thor. Hulk was funny, Valkyrie, Loki, hell, a brand new character, Korg, practically stole the movie. I loved every bit of this lightened up Thor.
Loki returns and is awesome once again. We even get some really nice scenes between on screen brothers, Thor and Loki. Hemsworth and Hiddleston really work well together. I’ll be sad if/when this particular pairing ends.
What about the big bad, Hela? She is as awesome as I wanted her to be. Cate is the best anyway, so to see her really chew up the scenery here I loved it. Actually, I could have done with *more* Hela. Like, this movie maybe could have been split into two movies, with the Grandmaster/Hulk parts in one movie and the Hela parts in another. But that’s a minor quibble. We get so much awesomeness throughout this movie….The Grandmaster! What can I say about how awesomely weird Jeff Goldblum is as Grandmaster? So good. And I like *this* Hulk. He can talk and have a bit of a conversation. And he’s funny. I can’t say enough how on point I think the tone of this movie was. I think I liked it better than the Guardians movies.
Wrapping up the movie, we see the Asgardians leaving to start New Asgard. Thor is king and ready to lead his people, sans hammer. I’m hoping we get to see Thor wield his battle axe, Jarnbjorn, in Infinity War. Even if only for a little bit. Loki has made off with the cosmic cube again and it looks like Thor may be the first hero to actually have an interaction with Thanos, or Thanos’ people. I can’t wait to see this Thor meet up with the Guardians. So much fun potential coming up in Infinity War. I can’t wait.
But I’m not the only one who had thoughts on this movie. Here are some quick thoughts from CT:
This movie was for Thor and Hulk what Civil War was for the rest of the MCU characters (sans GotG). It further alters the status quo and makes big shocking changes for Thor that will have to affect him in some way moving forward.
If this movie did anything wrong, it was how it wiped out the Warriors Three so effortlessly. It would have been nice to see them get a few more moments to shine. Hopefully Lady Sif’s absence means she’s still out there able to play a role in a future MCU installment someday.
Hulk finally advances to a level I’ve always wanted to see on screen–that of the talking brute who doesn’t want to become Banner. The TV show and previous movies have made a point of playing up that Banner doesn’t want to be the Hulk, but until now, we’ve really not seen that Hulk doesn’t want to be Banner.
Loki promises to be a big player in Infinity War having clearly saved the Cosmic Cube. This movie ends with a clear set up for an early encounter between Thanos and New Asgard. Hopefully these refugees don’t have worse luck after this meeting with the Mad Titan.
Cavalcade of Awesome 
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