I wasn't disappointed a bit and Ragnarok is easily one of the best from Marvel Studios and a huge step up from the previous Thor films. The main thing that made the film so great to me was the stunning visuals that seemed to take strong inspiration from classic comics by people like Jack Kirby and Walt Simonson. It looked a lot more comic book-y than Thor 1 and 2.
The film is extremely colorful and the set and costume designs are creative and unique. There were even some trippy scenes with the Bifrost Bridge that were a joy to watch.
The action is great and the fight scenes are inventive. A lot of people have been hand-wringing over how much of a comedy this was going to be, but I didn't think it felt out of place in the Marvel Studios canon. There are plenty of dramatic moments as well and they struck a decent balance, but if you prefer your superhero films to be as a serious as The Dark Knight, this might not be for you.
The visual effects were overall strong, but there were a few moments that were just a bit dodgy. A fully CGI character like the alien Korg just wasn't quite there and I was always thinking about how he was computer generated. Having said that, Korg, played by the director, was probably the funniest character in the film.
He was just one of many entertaining new characters, and another one I really enjoyed was Tessa Thompson's Valkyrie.
Cate Blanchett is definitely one of the best MCU villains, and also the first main antagonist that's female. She's evil while still being playful and her costume and makeup are fantastic. Her character isn't actually that well-developed, but Blanchett sells it and she looks awesome.
I was a bit underwhelmed by Karl Urban's Skurge, as he never really does anything and is largely inconsequential to the plot.
There was lots of Hulk and his fight against Thor is among the most fun fights Marvel Studios has made.
Unusually for the MCU, which generally has serviceable, but forgettable scores, the electronic, synth-heavy music from former Devo member Mark Mothersbaugh is memorable and perfectly fits the neon-infused aesthetics of Ragnarok.
Since I had no major complaints and it does so many things well, I give Ragnarok a 9 out of 10. Critics are liking it as well and it has a 93% positive rating on Rotten Tomatoes, which makes it one of the highest rated comic book movies ever.
The third Thor movie made $14.5 million on its opening Thursday. For comparison, the previous MCU entry, Spider-Man Homecoming made a similar $15.4 million on its first day and ended up with an opening weekend of $117 million.
That'll be it for the spoiler-free section, so stop listening if you want to avoid plot details.
Despite being relatively comedic, Ragnarok ups the stakes and has pretty serious consequences for the universe. Minor characters were killed like the Warriors 3 to make the threat of Hela feel more real.
The MCU hardly ever kills off even minor characters, so this was a nice change of pace. They even killed Odin, destroyed Asgard, and Thor lost an eye, which I definitely didn't see coming.
There were a decent amount of references to the greater universe without feeling forced, like Banner mentioning Sokovia and his romance with Black Widow from Age of Ultron, and of course the amusing cameo from Dr. Strange. This segment might have been confusing to people who hadn't seen his film, but they probably just went with it given all the other craziness in Ragnarok, and his sequence is one of the highlights of the movie.
There also seemed to be a clear setup for Avengers: Infinity War with Loki eyeing the Tesseract and them encountering a large spacecraft in the post-credit scene.
I was slightly disappointed by the way they used Surtur. His design was great but while he was important to the plot, he ended up being a bit of an afterthought. It didn't affect my appreciation of the film that much, but it was kind of a missed opportunity, given that we presumably won't see him again in the MCU.
I loved the Beta Ray Bill easter egg on Sakaar and I really hope we see him eventually.
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