First Hit: Found this film and story to be silly and having a mediocre plot.
I know I’m not the target audience for superhero adventures. What I find is that the more films are made about these superheroes the less plausible they become. The fantasy kingdoms have no basis in anything relatable and with the stupidity and/or lack of depth of most of the characters, I check-out while watching them.
Here we have Thor (Chris Hemsworth) who is being imprisoned by a fire demon named Surtur (why, how and so what), learns that his father Odin (Anthony Hopkins) is no longer in his home world of Asgard (why, how and so what) and that everything is going to be succumbed by the prophecy of Ragnarok. This prophecy tells of the death of the gods including Thor because he’s the God of Thunder. This might be a good thing as these characters are getting long in tooth and stretched far beyond their original purpose. More importantly, they aren't interesting any longer.
Breaking free, he discovers that his brother Loki (Tom Hiddleston) has been posing as their father Odin in Asgard. Together they endeavor to find their father Odin. In comes the older sister Hela (Cate Blanchett) who is the goddess of death and tells Loki and Thor that she’s taking over the kingdom of Asgard.
From here it just gets bad, we have flights of fancy to a planet called Sakaar where Grandmaster (Jeff Goldblum) holds court. He pits Thor against Hulk/Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo) in a fight to the finish. Then they meet a drunk Valkyrie (Tessa Thompson) who relinquishes her drunken lost ways and decides to fight the good fight to kill Hela.
Was there anything I liked? The tongue-in-cheek stuff was OK, but this film is all over the map in time, space, and story.
I didn’t care about any of the characters. I thought that many of the sets were fun to look at. Didn’t think the story was compelling or interesting. I wondered by Blanchett and Hopkins would do these parts. The constant battles are the same everywhere and there’s nothing new under the sun here.
I was left thinking; why can’t someone get creative?
Hemsworth did what he was told. There’s no real acting here, just a modern man playing a god and losing his hair along the way. Wondering if he gets his hammer back in the next movie. Ruffalo was OK, nothing interesting in this role for him. Thompson was adequate to the role. Goldblum was his over the top Goldblum – when will he actually act as something other than a smart-alecky buffoon. Blanchett was good, but I couldn’t help but wonder why she took this on. Hopkins, obviously, does things for money in some cases and this is one of them. Hiddleston was OK as the evil brother. Eric Pearson and Craig Kyle wrote a very mediocre, lackluster script. Taika Waititi threw everything at the audience and the outcome was how much shit actually stuck on the wall? Very little.
Overall: I’ve got to quit going to Marvel films because it is too hard to make the story work with what I see on the screen.