Thor Ragnarok- Review (Spoilers)

Hey you, welcome back to the channel. And guys, today we're going to review Thor: Ragnarok. This will be spoiler-filled review as we go towards our second week of the opening of Thor. And so, um, you know, um, when the Thor series first came out It was directed by Kenneth Branagh. I remember watching, you know, many productions starring Kenneth Branagh. You know, he was a well-known Shakespearean actor. He did some work in Othello, Henry V, Hamlet. But the thing about Kenneth Branagh is This time he's a director, and he, he directed the first Thor movie, and it was a surprising hit to me because I wasn't sure what they were gonna do with Thor. He had always, you know, for me, you know, at this point in time, it had been 2011, he had been a, one of these characters I didn't know if he would translate well on screen from comic book to live-action adaption. And surprisingly, Kenneth Branagh did a good job of making this a character-driven story about a family, about a family and the struggles of this, uh, of these two brothers, Loki and Thor. And, uh, very, in a very clever way move Thor to Earth. And, uh, you know, we got to just see a lot of, uh, uh, character, uh, driven story as opposed to trying to, you know, uh, bring us into the world of Asgard so much. And it worked well, um, uh, and I enjoyed the movie very much. And I found the character of Loki quite compelling. But as we moved into the second Thor movie, uh, The Dark World, uh, you know, at that point for me, I start to see this entire story dynamic start to fall apart. And a lot of people didn't like, uh, Thor: The Dark World, the second one, for good reason. Um, and, uh, you know, it just didn't work well. And, uh, you know, obviously you go back to the drawing board. Uh, my thoughts would have been to go back to what worked in the beginning with the creation of the Thor character, and that was Kenneth Branagh as the director. But maybe Kenneth was busy, or, you know, he didn't want to keep, you know, going back to the well, or, or whatever, whatever the situation was. Uh, you know, we didn't get, uh, Kenneth Branagh telling the story anymore. It was going more over to the, you know, the Marvel comic book area, you know, which was fine. That's what we wanted it to do. But as we get to Thor: Ragnarok, I think the problem we get with Thor: Ragnarok is it starts to give in a lot to the criticism of, you know, basically, you know, what Thor had been getting. Since Thor: The Dark World. And this kind of created this situation where, you know, Thor's— the character of Thor is now kind of being made fun of. Uh, we get to Thor: Ragnarok, it's basically a comedy, you know. We, you know, and, um, Guardians of the Galaxy had pretty much perfected that, I think, uh, and it was a hit. And it seems like to me they attempted to do this with Thor. And not that Thor wasn't a, uh, you know, that this movie didn't work. There's many elements of Thor: Ragnarok I thought that— I felt that worked. But I think the problem was I think Guardians of the Galaxy had already filled an area, uh, that Thor: Ragnarok was, you know, was trying to fill. And Thor, uh, you know, as a Marvel character, as part of the Avengers, he's always been the muscle guy who fit in a certain area of the Avengers and the Marvel Comics. And, you know, as I reflect back on the comics, Thor was many things, but I don't remember him being a stand-up comedian, you know. And, you know, oddly enough, a lot of Thor: Ragnarok worked because I think Chris Hemsworth is just a naturally charming and funny actor, and so he was able to make this work. But I think the problem I had with it was that I didn't really see Thor in the Avengers circle that way, you know. He never really came off that way in the comics or anything like that. So I just felt like them creating, making this Thor: Ragnarok movie where they're off in these other worlds and dimensions and what have you, it just started to kind of feel more so like just another Guardians of the Galaxy type setup. And, uh, you know, I, I, you know, there's Guardians kind of fit that area well, but now as Thor's kind of bridging that gap between Guardians and the rest of the Marvel characters as we move into Infinity War. You know, I just thought it was a little bit too much comedy. Some of the timing didn't work, but the pacing of Thor: Ragnarok worked quite well. You know, it worked very well. It moved along. I was never bored in the movie theater, and I very much appreciated that because a lot of times I do find my time's like, okay, this movie's dragging on a little bit too long. How much more time we got? And I didn't feel that way in Thor. I felt like Thor did a good job of the way it was shot, the way the film was made, of holding my interest and various things like that. And I really did, you know, find enjoyment in that. But, you know, as I was saying, I think it's just trying to distinguish, is Thor now going to be this comical character you know, that's quite prominent now. And, you know, with the Avengers and these characters, you know, Iron Man. But, you know, Tony Stark, when Robert Downey Jr. plays Tony Stark in Iron Man, it's, he has these great comical punchlines that he does quite often, but he can also bring it back and be a very, uh, dramatic, uh, serious character. And, uh, he's very good at doing that transition to where I'm not pulled out of the film. I felt at certain points of Thor: Ragnarok, uh, I was actually kind of pulled out, you know, of the film, not taking it serious and going, this is a joke. And it's just like, is this, you know, something that I want to see Uh, when I look at these Avengers characters where they all exist in the same world as, uh, um, the, uh, various, uh, Black Panther. So, you know, Thor and all the other versions are going to exist in his world. And, uh, so, you know, it's to combine all these worlds together, um, and different types of character has been a bit, uh, challenging for me to do in my mind. Uh, I I personally would have been quite fine with some of these movies and characters just being totally existing on their own, not following the Marvel model where everybody has to, you know, exist together. And so, you know, with that said, just, you know, talk a little bit about what we got with Thor: Ragnarok. You know, obviously we had all of these reveals with his sister Hela. You know, played by Cate Blanchett, being the villain, being a very powerful villain. As you got to see in the trailers, how easily she destroyed Thor's hammer. And the parts of the film I did like was the reveal that Odin at one time wasn't this benevolent ruler, that he had done many dark things to create Asgard, conquering many worlds, stealing their gold to create this beautiful city, World Asgard, and using Hela as his kind of hammer to do that. But then later on deciding that that's not the ruler he wanted to be and kind of trying to cover everything up, pushing Hela to the underworld. And we've had that happen several times throughout history with various figures where they start off a certain way. I believe we had a similar situation with Fidel Castro and Che Guevara where Castro pretty much wanted to kind of distance himself from some of the the policies that Che Guevara, you know, had. And, you know, so kind of trying to do away with the past, going forward to the future, and kind of forgetting the path you took to get there. Either you're trying to cover it up or some embarrassment or what have you. But we got to learn that a lot of that gold was extracted from other worlds to create Asgard through conquest. So I found out all that very interesting to tell, you know, these, these interesting stories about where the world of Asgard had started and where it ended up. And obviously Hela, Thor's sister, is trying to seek revenge, feels she's the proper heir to the throne, a great deal more powerful than Thor and Loki. And, you know, we get that, we get the destruction of Asgard. And we get basically the Asgardian people now being this nomadic group. There's this large vessel escaping Asgard as Asgard is destroyed. And all of that I found very interesting. You know, like the role of Valkyrie, you know, who had been part of this honor guard, this that were basically destroyed by Hela. And her journey to kind of find her place back to serve Asgard and avenge her lost comrades, her lost loved one against Hela. And, uh, you know, and we got the Thor, we got, uh, Thor versus, you know, Hulk. Um, and, uh, the, the Hulk character, very comic booky, uh, wasn't a big problem for me, but, uh, you know, a lot, great deal different from the past Hulks we had, we had seen. A little bit troubling for me in that this movie's did this 360-degree turn from, like I said, the Avengers movies. I felt like it was trying to be a duplicate of Guardians of the Galaxy, maybe trying to borrow some of Guardians' success. And I would have preferred that Thor continued on its original course, like as directed by Kenneth Branagh, and just let the fans, uh, you know, have their say, but keep going because the first Thor movie was a great movie. I've never heard anybody complain about the first Thor movie. I've heard people obviously hate the second Thor movie, Thor: The Dark World, and I find that in this film, Thor: Ragnarok, whereas a lot of people do like the film as it was entertaining, and I can't deny that it was very entertaining if it would have been anything but the Thor character, I would have been perfectly fine with it. But I think the Thor character, him becoming this— before, if he was humorous, it was almost like accidental humor. Now this version of Thor, he seems like he's quite aware of his comical talents and quite witty with it. And I didn't like that. I would have preferred this version of Thor be more of the accidental humorist, you know, the accidental comedian, not the very sharp-witted Tony Stark type comedian. And so that was part of the issue that I, you know, I had with that. But what I did feel was perfect about this film, really worked about this film, was Jeff Goldblum, who played the Grandmaster. And I couldn't think of a better character than Jeff Goldblum to play the Grandmaster. He's like the perfect actor to play that role. It's almost like it was— it's just certain, uh, actors that when chosen for these Marvel character roles are just like perfect for them. They fit how they're written in the comic books to a T. Uh, I think one such character would probably be something, something like Iron Man. Robert Downey Jr.'s portrayal of Iron Man, I would think that, uh, he, he was a perfect fit for that character. And Jeff Goldblum is a perfect fit for Grandmaster. Uh, and you know, in this very sadistic way, uh, you know, he's, he's not a bad— he doesn't feel like a villainous bad guy. He just feels like a, like a psychopath or sociopath, you know, just a person who is, uh, unaware that there is a problem in his actions, you know. But I, I, you know, I felt Jeff Goldblum was just perfect for the role. Did an excellent job. I was very entertained by his parts, and it just felt very close, related to the comic books, very, very accurate to the Grandmaster in the comic books, you know, coming to life. But of course, at the very end, we get this large ship in the end credit scenes, and, you know, obviously my mind's jumping to this could be Thanos that's surrounding, you know, this ship, the escape ship that the Asgardians are now living on. And, you know, that's very interesting because through now what I believe to be or will include Thanos' reaction or interaction with Thor and the Asgardians and What one theory I have is that Hela is not dead. You know, we didn't see Hela die when we seen— when we saw Asgard destroyed in the end, but they didn't show her die. So I just found this very interesting that when we think about Thanos and his motivations, you look back to the comic books, it's always he's motivated by death. He's motivated by the, by the Marvel character Death. And in Thor: Asgard, Hela is representative of the underworld, or, you know, death in that way. And so it's kind of interesting. I'm wondering, will we see a Thanos and Hela, Thanos and Death type team-up? And maybe there will be some type of romantic interest between Thanos and Hela. I think that would be very interesting to bring into Infinity Wars. Cate Blanchett, obviously a great, great actress. I did like her parts in the film, and I think that would be very interesting if they added that in there. And I could see that very well happening, you know. Of course, Loki is always as entertaining in these films. We got to see him be mischievous as usual, always double-crossing people. And, you know, as Asgard is being destroyed, you know, there's some speculation he may have the Tesseract and things like that, and Thanos is looking for that. But guys, anyway, tell me what you thought about Thor: Ragnarok. Do you, in the Thor lineup, in the 3 Thor movies, Rank the ones you like, uh, that are your best, that are your favorites. Let me know which ones. I'm still going for the first Thor, Thor: Ragnarok second, and then Thor: The Dark World. Um, anyway guys, let me know, uh, how you feel about this Thor movie and where it ranks in the Thor movie lineup. Guys, if you like content like this, don't forget to like and subscribe. And until next time, take care.