Be Reel - Thor: Ragnarok

Thor: Ragnarok is the third movie in Thor’s series. I saw the first one a while ago and must’ve not left a strong impression on me, because I hardly remember it, so I didn’t really see the movie because I was particularly excited to see more movies featuring one of my favorite super heroes. I went in expecting a dumb action movie that would with influences from the 1980’s that would be more about the jokes and “badassery” than anything else while a lot of heavy synth and I left feeling that there was a lack of heavy synth.

The plot itself was pretty generic. An ancient evil awakens and easily defeats the hero, only for him to gain a new power that allows him to conquer it. That and some of the following may sound like spoilers, but it really isn't since unfortunately a lot of the better parts are in the trailer. Anyways, after his defeat he ends up in a gladiatorial fight against the Hulk, which was pretty cool, but so are super hero gladiator fights. I expected more of a Planet Hulk with Thor, but unfortunately there was only one fight that was rather early on, so it felt like the movie peaked a little early on as the rest was just jokes and generic fights. It feels like the entire Marvel cinematic universe is joining this archetype of super powerful hero that is mostly characterized by clever quips and commitment to some ideal.

Besides the plot the special effects (mostly CGI these days) and music were iffy. At some points when the Hulk was talking he seemed like he was actually made out of Play-Dough although at other, more important times he was done pretty well. The score for the movie seemed pretty lackluster most of the time. At a few parts when they weren’t actually using their in-house soundtrack the music was pretty good, but for the rest it didn’t really feel like anything special. A lot of the advertisements looked pretty 80’s themed, so I expected some good synth in there or maybe a bit more rock, but alas, the rock was sparse and there was nearly no synth, but that’s mostly a subjective thing depending on your taste in music.

All in all, Thor: Ragnarok is not much more than an addition to the formulaically made Marvel cinematic universe, nothing special. That’s not to say this movie sucks, just that it’s alright and not much more. I enjoyed more as a comedy than anything else.

Final Rating - Bad (Barely), Good