Thor: Ragnarok Review

If "Thor: Ragnarok" proves anything, it's that Thor himself is the silliest superhero on the big screen. His superpowers are super strength and... his ability to win fights with a hammer? I guess "Thor the Super-Carpenter" didn't sound so good. Chris Hemsworth plays the titular, self reminding "God of Thunder," a buff but oblivious Avenger who never seems in on the joke, but then again, the jokes are not that funny to begin with.

Here we follow Thor initially on a quest to find his father Odin (Anthony Hopkins), where, alongside hi brother Loki (Tom Hiddleston), find out that he is dying. As if hearing your father (or adoptive father) is passing isn't bad enough, they also discover that they have an older sister, Hela (Cate Blanchett), who can escape exile now that Odin will no longer be around. Sounds like they need a family therapist. Then he dies, she shows up, and breaks Thor's hammer. Sounds like he needs to take a trip to Home Depot.

Through some excess in plot Thor ends up on Sakaar and is captured by Valkyrie (Tessa Thompson) and wrangled into the "Contest of Champions," run by the Grandmaster (Jeff Goldblum). Goldblum steals every scene he's in, having far more fun with the material deserves. He forces Thor to battle his "champion," who turns out to be the Hulk (played amazingly lethargically by Mark Ruffalo), they fight, more plot happens, they reconcile, and so on. Thor is trapped into battling by a small shock-transmitter that is sunk into his neck, and this little piece of technology ends up being like one of those gadgets in a James Bond movie, where it is introduced, then utilized just when the hero needs it. Of course, it is a lot less exciting then that, as it is simply used to disarm Loki , who by this movie is little more of a smug "hey I'm a good guy now but don't trust me!" character. Aside from all the Grandmaster scenes, I was just begging the film to move beyond the planet Sakaar, which is a banal movie junkyard location- there is only so many piles of trash you can see before you've seen all the variety film's real and computer-generated set pieces can offer.

Hela has the people of Asgard in hiding, refusing to accept her as their ruler. Thor, the Hulk, and Valkyrie, now a dull drunk-turned hero, end up leaving Goldblum's land and park on the bridge entrance of Asgard to battle her, but what fun can come from watching a bridge blow up? It's not some super cool, space bridge- it's a bridge. I've already exhausted myself from all these obviously CGI fight scenes from every other Marvel movie; if it wasn't for the title on my theater ticket, I'd forget which movie I was watching.

The remaining Asgardians escape via a large spaceship during the final battle on Thor's computer-generated home planet. This is when the plot gets a little creaky, as it is explained that Hela's powers come from Asgard, which is also explained to be not a place but a "place where Asgardians live (or something like that)," so why does she want to kill the Asgardians? She would have no power if she killed them! Why couldn't Thor just toss one of those shock-transmitter things on Hela? I guess stupidity runs in the family.