Review: "Thor: Ragnarok"

Let's be honest here: this is more of my reaction than a proper review. Kind of like everything I post, really.

So I just got out of a showing of Thor: Ragnarok and HOLY SHIT WAS THAT MOVIE A BUCKET OF FUN!!!!

If one were to be honest, Ragnarok is more of a spiritual cousin to one of the Guardians of the Galaxy movies. It's got goofball humor, a fair amount of '80's nostalgia, flashy space opera craziness, campy villains, and a lot of snark.

A lot of snark.

Chris Hemsworth continues to knock it out of the park with the perfect combination of arrogant badass and snarky humor as Thor Odinsson. Tom Hiddleston returns as Loki, the villain who is sometimes just an anti-hero. Mark Ruffalo returns as Bruce Banner/The Hulk. And this time we get classic, comic book Hulk. Idris Elba returns as Heimdall, the Asgardian who is as badass or more than Thor. And there's other returnees from the previous Thor films. They also introduce Tessa Thompson as Valkyrie, a fairly obscure heroine from the Defenders comics in the Marvel universe. An interesting take on the character in this film.

On the villain side, we get Kate Blanchet who rocks every scene she's in as Hela, Goddess of Death. With her is Karl Urban playing the villain known as Skurge the Executioner.

I won't bother going into the plot. It's pretty crazy and I really don't want to spoil it. Suffice it to say, the story doesn't have many slow points. There's always something going on. When there isn't, the film cuts away for some villain to chew the scenery or some hero bonding and snark.

I honestly think this was the best of the Thor movies, hands down. A low bar, sure. Still, I would put Thor: Ragnarok up against possibly one of the Guardians of the Galaxy movies for well-paced fun.

As a bonus, I got to see trailers for Justice League and Black Panther. Until Wonder Woman, I really had no desire to see any of the DC movies. The previous ones were largely crap. The last Batman film I liked was The Dark Knight. Now that I've seen the Justice League trailer, I have to say I'm sold on seeing it. As to Black Panther, that just looks like a massive ton of fun. It's good to have films to look forward to.