Thor: Ragnarok

I loved Marvel a couple of years ago, but lately I've gotten tired of it and am becoming allergic to infantile, colorful CGI mess for elementary school kids. After Doctor Strange or Guardians of the Galaxy 2, Thor isn't much different and it's basically the same old same old with just different heroes. I can praise the opening action sequence and the final very brief bridge carnage accompanied by Led Zeppelin, which was perfect, but the rest went over my head. I didn't laugh even once, there is a lack of jokes and the humour consists more of scenes where someone falls on the ground or breaks something – I guess I'm too old for this – plus there are a lot of annoying characters. Loki got on my nerves, Karl Urban was completely useless, Jeff Goldblum gave the worst performance of his career, Hela lacked space and I didn't even enjoy the character of Thor himself. The action is mostly okay, but there wasn't enough of it to keep me sufficiently entertained. I couldn't even avoid the deaf passages, so for me one of the weakest, most confusing and most infantile Marvel movie. A mix of Star Wars and Power Rangers. I hope Avengers gets darker, otherwise I can't take it anymore. 60% (10/30/2017)

I didn’t have that much fun. Like Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, the third Thor wants to be a very family friendly film, so it crams in a bunch of characters that are completely useless, but every viewer gets a chance to pick their favourite. It mixes in humor, because is needed, and visually and musically, it references the 1980s because that was a cool era. Or something like that. Well, again, it all works only halfway. Taika Waititi and Chris Hemsworth, who is good at comedic acting, push the humour forward so much that the film grinds along like an adventure flick. So while there are some truly spectacular things happening on screen and the story has the potential to be epic, with scenes that send chills down the spine, overall it's more of a comic book sitcom. There's so much comedy and over-the-top characters that when it comes to the real fight for life and the fate of Asgard, it doesn't work. The banter and buddy chemistry with the Hulk are fine. But when everything else doesn't work because of it, and the fight with the goddess of death has about as much emotional impact as waiting in line at the post office, I see that as a problem. I'm not saying I didn't have fun, but I really probably won't watch it again in the years to come. Maybe I wouldn't mind if Marvel started having a bit more ambition than just making "big, successful, and pretty cool" movies. (07/27/2018)

After all the embarrassing and serious stories about saving the world, or even the universe, Marvel finally excels at what it does best: a comic book comedy caper. It’s a tad worse than the first Avengers, but the juicier and snappier humour and the great characters (Cate Blanchett with antlers and a painted Jeff Goldblum) are a hit. What is absent, however, is a balanced group of superheroes where everyone has their own. Even so, it's damn catchy, and every time the spoiler from the trailer played, the audience in the cinema giggled with satisfaction, quite rightly so. (10/27/2017)

Thor: Ragnarok is an absolutely mainstream movie that brings the child-like elements of Star Wars into Thor’s world, while its costumes and makeup make it more colorful than The Fifth Element. But I didn’t really want Thor to go in this direction, as 70% of its runtime is filled with situational, slightly infantile humor that doesn’t address any plot points. Which doesn’t mean that the masses who adore Guardians of the Galaxy are not going to have a great time. And that seems to be the whole point of the movie. (11/13/2017)

Never mind the destruction of the soul, never mind the darkness. Let's enjoy the ride. After the amazing second Guardians of the Galaxy, New Zealand joker Taika Waititi arrives in a garbage spaceship to transform Thor’s theatrical woodenness and mythological sculpture into a highly human portrait of a ripped daffodil that has daddy issues and is morbidly dependent on its phallic pride - a giant hammer. Marvel tried out this seriously unserious style in the third Iron Man, and thanks to the Guardians of the Galaxy, Marvel already knows that people want escape, retro, and nonsensical alien worlds inhabited by eccentric piles of rocks and other strange homuncules. The third Thor thus resembles a euphoric 8-bit arcade, which uses only the X and Y axes to move, but you can also enjoy a lot of gags, shooters and action escapades. It's not without its flaws. Hemsworth sometimes tries so hard that he distorts his face, and the joke-a-minute syndrome does lead to dead spots. Moreover, Thor does not have much of an elegant plot, where the traditional world-destroying motif is transformed into a moving statement about family relationships like the second Guardians of the Galaxy. The fashionable hooker Hela it's quite amusing, but everything around her is rather desperately generic, so the accumulated eruption of energy at the end eventually leads to clichés. Fortunately, Taika almost always accompanies them with some full-fledged ironic gags that will restore balance to the universe. Did you want an empty, badass, yet confidently biting spectacle? Here's your stuffed portion. (10/27/2017)