|
Beefcake delivered. I liked it. At moments it felt...weird? I'm guessing it was the pacing? I dunno, but it wasn't an atrocious thing. Jokes were funny, action scenes were metal, and I never realized that was Matt Damon lol I also loved that Strange was wearing bright yellow gloves. Hope they don't remove that for Infinity War, it looks stupid but GOOD. The color palette was beautiful, the Kirby designs, Jesus....so good. I went with my sister that isn't a big MCU nerd as I am, and she loved it, and it seems it was easy to follow even i f she hasn't seen all Marvel movies.
|
#
?
Nov 5, 2017 01:15
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 4, 2024 01:44 |
|
Yakmouth posted:Wow, Well, the film is basically the platonic ideal of what fans what from a Marvel film. It's all jokes and memes with absolutely no surprises (just think about how self-aware and referential the whole cast is). It's one-half Thor and Friends Visit The Meme Planet and one-half The Fate of Asgard and it'd have been better if they had stuck to one or the other. A film opening with Thor awakening on the junkyard world and running into Hulk and then needing to get off the planet and back to Earth could've been far more entertaining and solid. As it was, the diversions to Asgard were just... there. Like, really, try explaining the Hela plot to someone without making it sound just bizarre. Hela arrives on Asgard and kills everyone who stands in her way. She wants to get the magic sword that'll allow her to travel through the galaxy and conquer it. But Idris Elba has the magic sword -- unfortunately, he has to protect thousands of civilians. Despite this, Hela never really gets close to getting it because Idris Elba can move thousands of people as easily as if they're the clothes on his back. I thought the beginning was profoundly weak and the film only really grabbed me when they went to Earth. Wow, a prophecy! That's so interesting! How did Thor get here? Who cares, the film basically as Thor talk to the camera about why it doesn't matter. Why does Thor sound like he could be Tony Stark with that level of snark and sarcasm?I thought the middle had a lot of funny scenes and lines and was generally entertaining but also thoroughly predictable. I think the ending climax fight was maybe the weakest of any of the Marvel films, partially because of what VagueRant said, and partially because it came down to bring the lava man out of the plot box and let him do his thing. Like virtually all Marvel films, it squandered an interesting villain. Like all the Marvel films, it draws awareness to its sacrosanct continuity but then openly disregards it and paves over it in tiny scenes or single lines of dialogue. I like Waititi's stuff and I think it's great that he got a shot at the Marvel 'verse, but I think this film was just about as heavy on the 'everyone quips all the time in the same voice' that Whedon is rightly derided for. Except, in Ragnarok, a lot of the characters had those obnoxious self-aware moments, even Hela, that just compounded it. And there were bits where the tone verged on parody. The opening, for example. TBQH, the film Ragnarok reminds me most of recently is Transformers: The Last Knight. It has the same awkward mash of plots, characters who don't matter to any of the plots yet are given heaps of screen time, an underwhelming climax, a wasted villain, nods to The Next Film, and moments where you wonder if they're just going to go full parody. Guardians of the Galaxy 2 was much better at maintaining a bit of a zany tone without pushing into the parody territory, which is also unfortunate for Ragnarok because GOTG2 did the zany space adventure much better. I definitely think it ranks pretty low on the Marvel film scale and I say this who has generally enjoyed them, even if I don't think they're great films. But this is the first one where I was left utterly underwhelmed. I said in the megathread that the franchise feels like it is beginning to show its length and struggle under the weight of a dozen films but, looking at this thread, they can probably keep knocking them out by just giving the audience precisely what they want: jokes, memes and comic book nods.
|
|
|
#
?
Nov 5, 2017 02:22
|
|
|
Marvel movies are better comedies than any of the recent straight comedy movies.
|
|
#
?
Nov 5, 2017 02:54
|
|
|
Yakmouth posted:I liked the idea of Thor being unintentionally funny -- I'm not into him actively cracking jokes. The opening scene bugged me especially and it took me a while to get into the movie because of it. This is the same Thor who convinced his friends to go to Jotunheim because he thought killing some Frost Giants would be a rollicking good time. Pretty sure black humor is where Thor lives. Now you're right, the movie amped it up, but considering how funny it was, I really don't mind. I'll take interesting stories over complete character consistency across a dozen+ films.
|
|
#
?
Nov 5, 2017 03:26
|
|
|
Inescapable Duck posted:I still wanna see Strange have a run-in with Spidey. Hopefully with Mysterio as the villain.
|
|
#
?
Nov 5, 2017 03:43
|
|
|
Baronash posted:This is the same Thor who convinced his friends to go to Jotunheim because he thought killing some Frost Giants would be a rollicking good time. Pretty sure black humor is where Thor lives. How much did you like the first two Thors? ‘Cause I liked them quite a bit and maybe there’s an inverse relationship here. I knew Waititi was going into this wanting to do his own thing, but I thought he was going to outright ignore the first two instalments, not go out of his way to undermine them. Like forget Thor himself for a minute — did you think Idris Elba was playing even vaguely the same character that he played previously? Odin felt off to me, too. To be absolutely clear, I didn’t hate the movie. I do think I might have liked it less than the previous ones, though (Yes, even Dark World). As a goes-down-easy diversion Ragnarok fits the bill, but considering this movie ended up completely obliterating the status quo of the franchise, I’d have preferred it if there was a bit more gravitas to go along with the giggles. I’m also aware that by and large the Thor films are regarded as the weakest franchise in the MCU, so I can understand why most fans might appreciate the change more than I did — different strokes and all that. Anyway maybe after GoG2 and Homecoming I’m just burnt-out on the funny side of the MCU. Maybe my expectations were too high. I’ll more than likely appreciate it more the next time I watch it.
|
|
#
?
Nov 5, 2017 04:04
|
|
|
A bit of the humor- specifically involving the other fighters Thor meets- put me a bit in mind of Steve Gerber, and how the character of Howard the Duck was originally just a side character in this interdimensional story he was writing, like a villain had kidnapped people from across dimensions, so why not a duck from a duck world? Mix that in with the obvious Kirby and Simonson notes, shots that seemed borrowed from the 1980 Flash Gordon (and there's one in particular that reminded me of Solaris though it's a stretch), and Mothersbaugh's score, and I was impressed what they managed to pull off.
|
|
#
?
Nov 5, 2017 04:13
|
|
|
ImpAtom posted:I really was soured on the film by its seeming genuine fear of allowing dramatic moments to stand without undercutting them with comedy. Some of the comedy was really funny but sometimes it just felt like they were scared you'd think they were taking things too seriously. The ending in particular was soured for me because they couldn't seem to take even half a moment to let a pretty amazing visual stand on its own. But this is a comedy film and that was one of the funnier moments and didn't ruin the visual at all. It made it funny. I mean unless you thought that a light hearted romp of a film should have ended on an awkward and somber note completely at odds with the rest of the film
|
|
#
?
Nov 5, 2017 04:32
|
|
|
A comedy film about the Goddess of Death returning to destroy a character's homeworld and people (and, in a way, their culture and essence by revealing the grand lie of their history), culminating in needing to unleash an apocalyptic being that the hero spent considerable effort in stopping making him an active participant in destroying his own world... I'm not sure about that, Tim.
|
|
|
#
?
Nov 5, 2017 04:57
|
|
|
Wandle Cax posted:But this is a comedy film and that was one of the funnier moments and didn't ruin the visual at all. It made it funny. I mean unless you thought that a light hearted romp of a film should have ended on an awkward and somber note completely at odds with the rest of the film I think an argument can be made that a 'light hearted romp of a film' shouldn't end with planetary destruction and mass population displacement at all. But if you're going to go there, awkward and sober might fit the bill.
|
|
#
?
Nov 5, 2017 05:01
|
|
|
Milky Moor posted:A comedy film about the Goddess of Death returning to destroy a character's homeworld and people (and, in a way, their culture and essence by revealing the grand lie of their history), culminating in needing to unleash an apocalyptic being that the hero spent considerable effort in stopping making him an active participant in destroying his own world... I'm not sure about that, Tim. I guess all those people laughing at all those jokes were wrong then?
|
|
#
?
Nov 5, 2017 05:05
|
|
|
I think they replaced Mark Ruffalo with Larry David wearing a wig
|
|
#
?
Nov 5, 2017 05:08
|
|
Doctor Spaceman posted:I guess all those people laughing at all those jokes were wrong then? Yakmouth posted:I think an argument can be made that a 'light hearted romp of a film' shouldn't end with planetary destruction and mass population displacement at all. But if you're going to go there, awkward and sober might fit the bill.
|
|
|
#
?
Nov 5, 2017 05:26
|
|
|
What frustrates me about all the ironic trailing comedy dialog is that the film doesn't need it at all. Thor: Ragnarok has some really funny poo poo in it. Comedic moment with good timing that don't rely on being a long verbal fart at the end of dramatic scene.
|
|
#
?
Nov 5, 2017 05:58
|
|
|
So if Asgardians are so drat tough and strong Why do they have any issues at all with the Skeletons that get destroyed near instantly from a burst of a perfectly normal Earth gun? Just something I was a bit confused about.
|
|
#
?
Nov 5, 2017 06:02
|
|
|
i really enjoyed the near overuse of "immigrant song" in retrospect, considering what happens at the end of the movie.
|
|
#
?
Nov 5, 2017 06:11
|
|
|
Astrochicken posted:i really enjoyed the near overuse of "immigrant song" in retrospect, considering what happens at the end of the movie. heh, I hadn't thought of that. I guess that counts as foreshadowing?
|
|
#
?
Nov 5, 2017 06:14
|
|
|
Christ, after tons of trailers and two watchings of the actual movie, I realized Hulk's line is "Hulk is like fire, Thor is like water." I thought it was "Hulk is like fire, though I like water". In hindsight, I'm not really sure why I thought it was that, but it somehow felt right for Hulk to say.
|
|
#
?
Nov 5, 2017 06:33
|
|
|
The whole film, a comedy, dealt with its catastrophic subject matter with humor, which worked really well (humor can be portrayed in different ways and about different subjects, including ones that normally are quite serious) along with the more light-hearted jokes and character moments so i'm not sure what your argument is, other that the film wasn't serious enough which is subjective, but it's a lame argument hey audience did you enjoy the laughs, let's end the movie on a major serious somber downer, not awkward at all welp have a good day
|
|
#
?
Nov 5, 2017 06:42
|
|
|
Pretty funny, gorgeous, but they didn't need to make everyone into Deadpool. Grandmaster arc was a fun ride but didn't do enough work to keep the middle from appearing to sag, in retrospect. The middle was the best part, but felt like it belonged to a different movie and made no use of the beginning's buildup or the ending's payoff.
|
|
#
?
Nov 5, 2017 06:51
|
|
|
Honestly I initially thought that they were going for Asgard is a people not a place - when all the citizens are evacuated, Asgard is just a big palace. Let Hela have it, but without the people making it home she loses her power (because Asgard has left her) and is stuck just waiting for the lava giant to show up, completely alone for all eternity... again.
|
|
#
?
Nov 5, 2017 06:54
|
|
|
Really gorgeous movie, and unlike basically every other MCU entry this one actually has a score that's worth a drat, but maybe that's just because synths are at least something that isn't "generic movie soundtrack". Gee golly, though, this film is exhausting to watch. It has something like seven acts and they all nearly have a huge explosive action setpiece climax that would normally anchor a regular-sized/paced flick. This was like watching Civil War's byzantine 10-act structure but every climax is the airport fight and it's frankly tiring to sit down and pay attention to. Good hangover or background movie, though. E: Hela tied with Toomes for best MCU villain too, since they're among the only, rare non-hero characters that are allowed to have personality in this franchise tin can made man fucked around with this message at 07:01 on Nov 5, 2017 |
|
#
?
Nov 5, 2017 06:56
|
|
|
This isn't going to be a popular opinion, but Immigrant Song didn't really do it for me. It's a great song, it synced well with the action. But I've heard it -- and derivatives of it -- enough times in trailers, TV shows and on its own that it feels a little unoriginal now. Must be hella good for people catching it the first time, though.
|
|
#
?
Nov 5, 2017 07:03
|
|
|
Bit weird how this marvel kid's movie makes light of combat veterans using alcoholism to self-medicate PTSD
|
|
#
?
Nov 5, 2017 07:13
|
|
|
Yakmouth posted:I think an argument can be made that a 'light hearted romp of a film' shouldn't end with planetary destruction and mass population displacement at all. But if you're going to go there, awkward and sober might fit the bill. Considering that the director's previous big hit was a wacky comedy about vampires horrifically murdering people, I think that argument might be missing the point somewhat. Edit: especially since that's what got him the Thor gig in the first place Snowglobe of Doom fucked around with this message at 07:24 on Nov 5, 2017 |
|
#
?
Nov 5, 2017 07:15
|
|
|
I appreciate the trailers efforts to mislead the public about the film. Just overall I loved it.
|
|
#
?
Nov 5, 2017 07:21
|
|
|
Vegetable posted:This isn't going to be a popular opinion, but Immigrant Song didn't really do it for me. It's a great song, it synced well with the action. But I've heard it -- and derivatives of it -- enough times in trailers, TV shows and on its own that it feels a little unoriginal now. I think this movie is the first time I've heard the song, so yeah, hella good. First time I heard it in the trailers I thought it was Tina Guo's Wonder Woman theme, I wonder if Immigrant Song inspired her for that.
|
|
#
?
Nov 5, 2017 07:31
|
|
|
The WW theme definitely owes a bit to Immigrant Song. (Though I also feel it's very faintly echoing the 70s "Wonder Woman!" Theme/sting.)
|
|
#
?
Nov 5, 2017 07:33
|
|
|
Gonna get these tags working It's a video game movie. Asgard visually invokes D&D/Final Fantasy/Dark Souls. You can see a bit of Halo, Mass Effect, and I'll chance saying District 9 in the Sakaar segment of the film. I think that's why there's probably a lot of complaints about the action segments of the film in general. The climax of the film is the summoning of Final Fantasy's Ifrit, but he goes by the name of Surtur, so the wheel turns again. Ragnarok is also the name of the Summon Attack/Final Fantasy Sword that kills Hela. When Thor is on Sakaar and gets his hair cut, he becomes the short haired, white male video game protagonist. When I heard "Contest of Champions" then hearing 142 get paid in-game currency, and Loki vocalizes also wanting to gamble for eSports Contest of Champions eSports money on Sakaar. I had a stupid grin on my face when Banner's "Hulk" avatar turns off, because I liked how he has the good sense not to want to play the game anymore. I saw it with my girlfriend and a friend of ours and they both eventually fell asleep. I really liked the movie, but I'd say my analysis of its narrative is piecemeal. There's lots of interesting imagery that just doesn't seem to pay off narratively I like that Hela is as worthy to hold Mjolnir as Thor is, that the Asgard game world/level is a sham, but the revolution that the movie talks about doesn't happen and we're sort of back where we started by the end of the film. Jeff Goldblum saying that the Revolution "is a tie" I guess is fitting for how things just reset at the end. I really laughed a lot and I was entertained by the film, but I was disappointed by the narrative because there's so many times where I felt like something was going to come of the whole aspect that the narrative seems to gesture toward things being a sham or fantasy that don't really pan out. There's that segment where 142 kills all those impoverished NPCs on Sakaar that's never commented on again, for instance. Or the ending where instead of going back to Sakaar, they just go to Earth that had me feeling like they just sort of gave the guy talking about Revolution amnesia, which was unfortunate. I didn't fall asleep, but I found myself basically realizing that a movie about video games wasn't going to hold the interest of most people. I laughed a lot and a lot of the humor of the film worked for me, but my experience was being the only person in my group awake, and my girlfriend isn't really into comics/video games and while our friend has similar interests to me, I found myself wondering if they found the film jarring or uninteresting. Corrosion fucked around with this message at 07:48 on Nov 5, 2017 |
|
#
?
Nov 5, 2017 07:42
|
|
|
Snowglobe of Doom posted:Considering that the director's previous big hit was a wacky comedy about vampires horrifically murdering people, I think that argument might be missing the point somewhat. Yeah, maybe Feige asked Watiti to remake What We Do In The Sadows, only with Asgardians instead of Vampires. I’m not being sarcastic either, Thor was a stale franchise and Ragnarok re-invented it to massive critical acclaim. It’s also a near-guarantee to be a smash at the box office. From a corporate standpoint this film is a 100% success. But I don’t begrudge the people who wanted/expected something different their disappointment.
|
|
#
?
Nov 5, 2017 08:06
|
|
Wandle Cax posted:The whole film, a comedy, dealt with its catastrophic subject matter with humor, which worked really well (humor can be portrayed in different ways and about different subjects, including ones that normally are quite serious) along with the more light-hearted jokes and character moments so i'm not sure what your argument is, other that the film wasn't serious enough which is subjective, but it's a lame argument hey audience did you enjoy the laughs, let's end the movie on a major serious somber downer, not awkward at all welp have a good day Hmm. No.
|
|
|
#
?
Nov 5, 2017 08:26
|
|
|
The trailers and every single comment from the director made it very clear that this movie was going to be a comedy, I don’t understand how so many people here caught unaware. If anything it had a lot less comedy than I was expecting.
|
|
#
?
Nov 5, 2017 08:27
|
|
|
Wandle Cax posted:But this is a comedy film and that was one of the funnier moments and didn't ruin the visual at all. It made it funny. I mean unless you thought that a light hearted romp of a film should have ended on an awkward and somber note completely at odds with the rest of the film It absolutely does ruin the visual, it actively draws away from it to stare at a bunch of characters long enough for a pretty tediously over-long quip to be made. Also comedy is the not the same as a light-hearted romp. This is not a light-hearted romp no matter how badly it wants to be. It's actually absurdly grim with a ton of violence and death, it's just that people quip near-constantly to distract you from it. It's pretty hard to call a film a light-hearted romp when it kills off a huge portion of the cast of the previous films pretty unceremoniously, takes the protagonist's eye and leaves a gaping bloody wound, blows up his homeland, features a plot about one of the protagonist's friend being a trapped prisoner in his own mind, and of the two most memorable new characters introduced one gets impaled and dies and the other is a PTSD soldier who self-medicates through severe alcoholism. Also the idea that any sort of serious emotion ruins a comedy or lighthearted film is pretty weird because a lot of genuinely excellent comedies are willing to have those kinds of moments. Asgard is still destroyed at the end of the film, the shot is still there of the protagonists watching their homeworld obliterated. The joke doesn't change the actual action, it just feels frightened to actually expect the viewers to feel any emotion besides ironic detachment. Hell, I wasn't particularly big on Guardians of the Galaxy 2 but even despite aiming for action-comedy it was at least willing to pretend the funeral scene was supposed to evoke emotion despite following up a battle where the protagonist literally turns into Pac-Man. ImpAtom fucked around with this message at 08:37 on Nov 5, 2017 |
|
#
?
Nov 5, 2017 08:30
|
|
|
The original Star Wars is fairly light hearted in tone- it was hailed as an old-fashioned fun adventure flick- and it features a boy's family being massacred and the genocide of an entire planet. There's a difference between content and presentation. The movie has some heavy poo poo go down but presents itself as a light energetic action adventure with a lot of humor to contrast with the heavy stuff. This is actually fairly old hat as dramatic techniques go, there are a lot of pulp stories and the like where lots of people die and they don't really dwell on it because the point is the thrills. That's a stylistic choice. It's not like the filmmakers made a mistake and accidentally ended up with jokes all over the place. I can see why it's not to some people's taste but I think in this case it works. I could appreciate what was happening and some of the subtextual implications (Hela pointing out that Asgard was built on blood and conquest and there's a price for that) and also laugh at the things that were funny. Maybe the Guardians films do a better job mixing the wackiness with weightier emotional moments but I think there's room for movies like this too. It's the King Kong vs. Godzilla of the Marvel movies, though not as overtly satirical.
|
|
#
?
Nov 5, 2017 08:48
|
|
|
Aquasnake posted:On the other hand, Thor probably won't be getting his hammer back, so it will probably be different. Or maybe it will just be completely ignored like Tony's arc. I bet Strange can put it back together
|
|
#
?
Nov 5, 2017 09:30
|
|
|
Tony: "Hey Immigrant Man wasn't your hammer destroyed?" Thor: "I made another." They got quips! There. Or have Tony make one like the Ultimate version, more mechanical, using his tech forged in the heart of a star. Man continues to show he's on the level of the Gods a dropped thing from Avengers 1 or a continuation of Strange capable of managing Gods and the Beyond.
|
|
#
?
Nov 5, 2017 09:41
|
|
|
It's honestly like he transitioned between subclasses in a video game. He lost the hammer but got a huge boost to lightning abilities. Hopefully he'll have maxed that out before the Infinity War.
|
|
#
?
Nov 5, 2017 09:42
|
|
|
Steve2911 posted:It's honestly like he transitioned between subclasses in a video game. For sure this film was rife with video game visual language. There's a moment where Valkyrie changes class/equipment/armor in the game, Thor and Loki in a very Halo esque shooting sequence, and 142 and Thor "tank" so that Loki (their mage/summoner) can channel his spell spring to mind, though there are many more.
|
|
#
?
Nov 5, 2017 09:52
|
|
|
ImpAtom posted:This is not a light-hearted romp no matter how badly it wants to be. Actually, the film is exactly what it wants to be. Might not be what you want it to be, but it is a film very confident it its own skin.
|
|
#
?
Nov 5, 2017 10:43
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 4, 2024 01:44 |
|
|
CharlestonJew posted:I think they replaced Mark Ruffalo with Larry David wearing a wig "Hulk can't go back to Earth, there is fatwa against Hulk!"
|
|
#
?
Nov 5, 2017 11:11
|
|
