Paul and Tim do a deep dive into Marvel’s latest hit movie, Thor: Ragnarok! It’s Superhero Month at World’s Best Media, baby! Surtur The Fire Demon couldn’t stop us from recording this killer podcast! Listen here or subscribe on ITunes:
Tag: Thor Ragnarok
Movie Review: Thor Ragnarok (NO SPOILERS)
These fuckers at Marvel, they got me REAL fucking bad! Gimme Phase 4, Phase 6, PHASE FUCKIN’ 20!!! I’ll take it all! Thor: Ragnarok marks Marvel’s 17th film with 3 more in active stages of production, with several more in the planning stage. Then there are the Netflix series, with The Punisher debuting later this month. Runaways premieres on Hulu in a few weeks and Agents of S.H.E.I.L.D. comes back mid-season. I must admit there have been a few hiccups on the TV side of things (I’m glad Marvel’s first true DISASTER was an Inhumans miniseries on ABC. Because really, who gives a shit?), but otherwise Marvel has me by the balls and they are not letting go. If they keep making movies like Thor: Ragnarok, they can lovingly hold onto my balls as long as they want.
I love how the non-Avengers Marvel movies have become less about individual heroes like Marvel Phase 1 and more about team ups of a few prominent Marvel heroes under the banner of one of the big three (Cap, Iron Man, Thor). Though I love the character of Thor, what really sold me on the movie was the fact that it was going to be a team up film with the Hulk with a little side of Doctor Strange. Then when that 1st awesome, METAL trailer came out, they had me hook, line, and sinker.
The Thor films are interesting components of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. I love the first one and I think the first half of that movie has some of the most creative and interesting filmmaking in the entire series on display. Kenneth Branagh was an inspired choice to direct the first Thor film and I’d love to see him come back and play in the MCU sandbox again. In my opinion the second movie is the weakest in The MCU (Fuck you, Tim! Iron Man 2 rules, baby!). So where does Thor:Ragnarok stand? Well, it’s a whole hell of a lot of fun.
It’s certainly extremely different from what’s been done before not only in other Thor films, but in MCU films in general. It’s a unique movie and once it gets started, it’s a crazy roller coaster ride that doesn’t stop until the end of the movie. The film flys by. This is largely thanks to the influence of director Taika Waititi. However, if these films don’t have some heart, some emotional center to latch onto, I feel they lose something. Fortunately, the film doesn’t forget to make you care about it’s characters. All of the best of the Marvel films have had a really strong emotional center built around strong characters, innovative filmmaking, and fun action sequences.
(“Loki listen, this is never easy to say, but it’s time we put Dad in an assisted living facility. Oh! You banished him to Earth? Problem solved, then.)
I think one of the best things about the film is the continued development of the relationship between Loki and Thor. Loki is someone that we should hate, but I found myself rooting for him to find some redemption. Which brings me to another point I enjoyed: the villains are not black-and-white, with stupid, vague goals and motivations. Hela was an interesting villain and it was fun every time Cate Blanchett was on scene as this character. She looked like she was having a blast, but her character wasn’t without depth. I wouldn’t put her in the top tier of Marvel villains like Loki or Kingpin or Ultron, but she’s certainly not a bland villain like Malekith or even Ronan The Accuser.
(Say what you want about me, but I think Cate Blanchett looks crazy hot like this)
Of course we can’t talk about this movie without talking about The Hulk. I don’t think fans of the Planet Hulk storyline will be disappointed. It would be an exaggeration to say that this is a full on adaptation of that story, but characters and elements from the story are incorporated into the movie that I was pleasantly surprised to see were included. Nothing in this movie with the Hulk quite beats the gladiator match between him and Thor that we’ve seen pieces of in the trailers (Loki’s reaction to seeing that Hulk is the reigning Champ is priceless). Personally I felt The Hulk wasn’t quite the scene stealer other reviews have made him out to be, but I love me a good Thor and Hulk team up.
(Just as this picture was taken, Stan Lee realized he had just shit his pants.)
I have a nitpick about The Hulk which is sort of the spoiler, so I’ll get into that on our podcast “The World’s Best Podcast with Paul & Tim”. We’re going to do a deep dive into the film and talk full spoilers. So keep an eye out for that and make sure you see the movie before you listen to the podcast. The are some huge, surprising, game-changing developments in this movie. No single character in the MCU has ever had such a massive status quo change.
I was surprised that the movie lived up to its title. This really is Ragnarok. Like Norse Mythology Ragnarok… well kinda. Norse Ragnarok by way of Marvel Comics. For you comic book fans, this movie borrows as much from Thor: Disassembled as much as Planet Hulk. Fans of the comics will probably be able to guess where things are going for Thor and The Asgardian part of the MCU by the end of the film.There’s a mid credits sequence that makes the future somewhat less clear. I don’t even want to vaguely speculate on the meaning of the mid-credits scene because it could be interpreted as Spoiler-y (More on all of this in our podcast). All in all I enjoyed this film a lot. I do not think it is as good as it’s being made out to be. It’s a very good movie, but not in the top tier of the Marvel films. But whether you are a Marvel fanatic or just movie fan who enjoys a good sci-fi romp, go see Thor:Ragnarok, you’re guaranteed to have a good time.
Final Grade: B
Or
8/10
Thanks for reading!
-Paul
What I’d Like To See: MCU Phase 4
Thor: Ragnarok comes out in a couple weeks, and is being called ‘the most anticipated movie of the fall,’ and I must agree it, looks awesome. This puts us at about the half-way point of the MCU Phase 3 (I believe Avengers 4 is the final film slated for this phase). What is going to happen with this phase has largely happened, and so I want to turn to speculation for Phase 4.
The phase one movies were largely introductions. We got the Avenger anchor characters (Thor, Cap, Iron Man, and Hulk) setup, and it culminated in The Avengers. Phase two was about expansion, in phase two we had movies like Guardians of the Galaxy who were the Avengers in space, and Ant-Man who is a West-Coast Avenger, as well as filling out the world-building of 3 of the originals (no Hulk movie for so many reasons). And so far Phase 3 has been letting our toys play together. We’ve had Captain America: Civil War (which is really an Avenger’s movie in many ways except they’re split) and Tony Stark is almost a secondary protagonist in Spider-Man: Homecoming, Thor: Ragnarok looks as if it could be called Thor and Hulk against the universe. These mash-ups have been great, and Thor and Hulk look like they’ll be the up there as well.
Here is the thing you need to understand about Marvel’s process (as best as I can understand it): they started us off with characters that may have been B-list to the masses, but they knew wouldn’t require much to make them appeal to people who don’t give a shit about comics (while staying true to the comics), then as time as progressed, as the audience has become more hooked, they’ve brought us into a cinematic comic-book world unlike anything else. They started introducing us to less traditional movie-going experiences, but more traditional comic book experiences. Things are weird, and overall the audience is loving it—can you imagine when Iron Man came out in 2008 if someone had told you Marvel would make a movie about a talking raccoon and a sentient tree that you would have been excited? Maybe if you’re reading on this site I guess, but overwhelmingly I think the answer would be no for those of us not delving into the weird world of comic books.
For Phase 4, we’ve had the cross-overs, we’ve had the mash-ups, we’ve had the weird, now it’s time to get to ‘the replacements.’ By the beginning of Phase 4, the franchise will be ten years old, many of the actors will have been in for 6 or more movies, and it will be time to start changing the line-up. It’s not necessarily what many want as a viewing audience, but it is what the business will begin to dictate, and honestly, I think there are some great potential options for it.
Comic books, unlike movies or TV, don’t have actors they need to replace, and yet they often do replace the characters. Right now in the movies Steve Rogers is Captain America, but both Bucky Barnes (aka The Winter Soldier) and Sam Wilson (aka The Falcon) have both ascended to the role of Cap. Most of the superheroes in comic books have been multiple characters, and it can rejuvenate them, it can change perspective, and I think it can do that for the MCU.
You might be thinking, “I don’t want anyone but Chris Evans playing Captain America,” but just because he doesn’t play Cap doesn’t mean he can’t return as Steve Rogers, or even later to return as Cap if the storyline allows it. This option frees up the actors a lot, because while the paychecks are nice, for the Chris’s (Evans and Hemsworth, and maybe even Pratt) it’s a lot of physical work to keep in their superhero conditions.
As it is, in Homecoming, we basically get Tony Stark having outsourced many of the Iron Man duties to autopilot, and so I think there is nothing that says they have to kill off the characters, or recast, just replace. We need an Iron Man, and a Cap on the team, but do we need Steve Rogers or Tony Stark?
With Ant-man, we’ve already seen the second iterations introduced, largely because Hank Pym (played by Michael Douglas) is too close of a character to Tony Stark, whereas Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) is a much different character.
The richness of comic books in adaptation is that there is so much source material much of it conflicting, but all kind of co-existing, and it allows the filmmakers to do whatever they want. It solves a couple of problems that I think are going to occur, one is that inevitably if these films continue going, there will need to be recasting, but this could allow a buffer space, and a shifting of the world/tone to allow new actors in. The second issue it solves is it uses fatigue on the part of actors playing the same characters to further world-build. It also allows different kind of conflicts, the conflict between characters not trusting a new Cap, or a new Thor, or whomever needs to be replaced creates conflict, and this has been Marvel’s strength is the conflict between protagonists, not the conflict between protagonist and antagonist.
Clearly, Kevin Feige knows what he’s doing, he’s been slowly sucking us all into a far less generic cinematic franchise, one that does resemble comic books more than traditional films in a lot of ways. So perhaps this will be the eventual route he takes, and if it isn’t I’ll be along for the ride, because on the whole he’s been getting it right, but I suspect if the audience keeps going along as he pushes us further and further, we’re going to see these kinds things happening, and I personally look forward to an MCU in which characters are replaced and not actors (for as long as possible).
New Podcast: COMIC-CON 2017
Tim and I discuss some cool comic book and movie news in our latest podcast. Including info on new movies like Thor: Ragnarok, Captain Marvel, and more. I’ve posted the podcast link and some of the posters and concept art below:
https://www.spreaker.com/episode/12427741
Here’s the super cool new poster for THOR: RAGNAROK!
The King of Wakanda gazes out on his nation…
This is concept art of Brie Larson as Captain Marvel fighting Kree warriors…
The last bit of Marvel stuff is this concept art for Ant-Man and The Wasp. Michelle Phiffer is playing Janet Van-Dyne, the original Wasp.
Thor Mother-Fucking Ragnarok!!!
I know I’m not the first person to say this, but I really think Marvel is just fucking with DC at this point. A few weeks ago, DC drops the Justice League trailer and Marvel is all “That’s a nice little trailer you have there.. Fuck you, here’s Spider-Man: Homecoming!” Last week DC announces that Joss Whedon is writing and directing a Batgirl film for them, so today BOOM! Thor: Ragnarok!
The Thor movies have been the weakest of the standalone Marvel films so far, but this looks fucking spectacular! We live in a wonderful time to be comic book fans…
Here’s the trailer:
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