Thor: Ragnarok (2017)

This review/recounting of a filmwatching experience hybrid was written about an hour after my friends and I got back from seeing Thor: Ragnarok in theatres right before the fall break of my junior year at college. My overall rating for the movie was 3 stars out of a possible 4. On my scale, 3 stars qualifies as "good."

What can I say? All of the Thor-led movies are enjoyable and worth someone’s time. Sure, I might be a little biased since Thor is my favorite superhero, but I genuinely have found each of his stand-alone movies to be worth watching. And in particular, I really enjoyed Ragnarok. I'm also very relieved that this was what my friends and I settled on watching. It was between this, Jigsaw, It, or Thank You for Your Service. This was also my first IMAX experience, and the only thing I found particularly different about IMAX was the bending of the projection in the far reaches of the screen are akin to the bending that occurred during the CinemaScope phase of Classic Hollywood.

Thor: Ragnarok was innovative and atypical in plot, structure, mechanics, and techniques for superhero movies. This movie does a very good job of balancing humor and drama, something that you don’t often see in superhero flicks and certainly not in Marvel Cinematic Universe releases. The appearance and involvement of Doctor Strange, while coming off as a bit familiar because it was the mid-credits scene in Doctor Strange (2016), is one of the single most enjoyable sequences in movies for me. Ragnarok's screenplay is clever and its willingness to go in directions that the audience does not anticipate is a sign of relief amongst all of the formulaic movies that are released these days. These changes in direction were not plot twists though, they were just creative and unexpected ways of approaching the story. The acting was fantastic, particularly from Chris Hemsworth as Thor and Tom Hiddleston as Loki.

Loki! That’s another thing. Not to get off topic, but I have never liked Loki more. Loki was different, he was not the simplistic “I’m going to trick you and then laugh at you, my dumb brother Thor” Loki that we have come to know through the first two Thor-led vehicles and the first Avengers movie. He was an uncertain Loki. Loki out of his element and now thrust into a universe where nothing is as clear-cut as he was already mistaken enough to believe. I liked watching Loki navigate this new element, and would gladly go and watch it again just to treat the viewing as a way to analyze Ragnarok as a character study of Loki.

Wow. That was a bit off track. I feel like I covered some great new ground in that section, but back to the praise of the movie. This features the two best uses of any Led Zeppelin song in cinematic history. "Immigrant Song" plays during both the beginning fight scene and the ending fight scene, and it is perfectly and exquisitely placed both times.

There were some problems with the movie, but the only one that is really worth mentioning was my main issue with a key visual aspect. There was poor fight cinematography featured throughout. With the sole exception of Loki’s appearances in the fight sequences, every fight was choppy, sloppy, and incohesive in flow. While I do think that there are other things that were wrong with Ragnarok, things that, depending on the day, can be deemed more important issues and greater cinematic injustices, I only mention this one because of the genius reasoning that one of my friends gave me for why it may appear that way. He also noticed the lack of flow within the fight scenes and said that it could be attributed to an overuse -- and as I see it, a misuse -- of CGI.

Well done, Marvel. You really got it right with this one. It may not have been the best movie or the most entertaining work that you have produced, but it was the most promising one that you have given us. And while the post-credits scene was simply for humor, the fantastic set-up that you gave us with the mid-credits scene makes me pleased to wait for your next release. Thank you.