A colleague recommended "Thor: Ragnarok" on the premise that the presence of Taika Waititi ("What We Do in the Shadows") as director lent this superhero wank a wry cleverness that set it apart in the Marvel universe. I didn't catch the vibe at all.
What I mostly experienced was leading man Chris Hemsworth, a cipher on the screen if there was ever one, and the comedy equivalent of Boris Karloff tap-dancing on the Ed Sullivan show. Or Kim Kardashian hosting "Saturday Night Live." Or a tree trunk doing standup. In other words, comedy is a heavy lift for Hemsworth the he-man, and humor is certainly not his first language.
Jeff Goldblum shows up as some sort of eccentric quasi-bad guy, and he is as silly as ever. But Hemsworth bantering with Mark Ruffalo (Hulk/Bruce Banner)? Not just unfunny, but painful to watch. Tom Hiddleston does his mopey thing; Tessa Thompson looks patently uncomfortable as the alcoholic (?) Valkyrie; and Cate Blanchett slinks around as a Cruella de Vil type, perpetually in search of her motivation.
The three writers are all Marvel lifers, almost exclusively, and this seems nested with obscure inside jokes and elbow nudges. You'd have to be a true diehard to follow the plot and care about who is doing what at any given time. Meanwhile, the CGI violence is run-of-the-mill cartoonish; at times it literally makes no sense how a certain superpower randomly overwhelms another one. Why doesn't Hulk just stomp out Thor and put Hemsworth out of our collective misery?
Title: THOR: RAGNAROK (2017)
Running Time: 130 MIN
Elapsed Time at Plug Pull: 70 MIN
Portion Watched: 54%
My Age at Time of Viewing: 59 YRS, 8 MOS.
Average Male American Lifespan: 78.8 YRS.
Watched/Did Instead: Switched to a documentary on Netflix.
Odds of Re-viewing This Title: 110-1
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