thor: ragnarok

[IMDB]

thor: ragnarok lets you know in the first minute what kind of movie it is going to be: lighthearted romp with epic CG fights and banter.  it basically delivers on this promise, and the result is just fine.  but, you know, *just* fine.  i made the mistake of watching this movie back-to-back with black panther, and as a result, i found myself feeling like this one could have tried harder to mean something.  burning asgard to the ground while remarking that asgard is the people, not the place...it really just smells like an excuse to punt a bunch of asgardians and misc gladiator aliens towards earth.

but i dunno, i guess what i am doing here is complaining that thor was thor.  of course he was thor.  that is, like, his job.  i might as well complain about an 80s action movie that featured bad one-liners.

so ok, that was some negative stuff.  on the positive side, i was really impressed with the level of fun that they crammed into this movie.  comparing the atmosphere to the first two thor movies, i find that ragnarok came across much truer to the idea that thor is an ale-swigging viking god, but i cannot decide whether to be impressed that it is so or to be annoyed that this version of thor is so very different from the thor that has appeared in all the other MCU films.  maybe both.

thor: ragnarok gets three exploding hammers.  and here is another complaint: the impact of that moment was completely ruined by its inclusion in every single trailer they put out.