#I guess my mo is taking scenery shots to show setting changes

[novapark]

[thetrickisnotmindingthatith-blog]

Thor Ragnarok Review.

I’d give it a 6/10. My interest in the Superhero genre has slowly faded more and more since Days of Future Past set the bar so high for me. Not to say any of these movies are undeserving of attention by anyone. they’ll never get close to a 3/10 for me since they’re all tentpole movies so that will always garner a flood of respect for the hundreds and thousands of hours of work put into these movies by everyone to the special effects crew, set designers, costume designers, marketing department and editors. With respect even being thrown in the direction of the ambitious runner or tea maker who just wants to get noticed. Anyway the flaws of the movie really revolve around the Marvel ingredients that we will sadly never get a chance to say farewell to since they work so well with the majority of audiences. It’s tonally inconsistent, everything up until Thor steps foot on Planet Goldblum is rushed to the point where I feel like the writers vision weren’t fully formed. Even when we’re strapped into the adventure with Thor the run time really doesn’t agree with the movie. The CGI is amazing for a 2001 movie. It really gives Philosophers Stones Troll a run for its money just kidding this movie was actually released arrived in 2017 and some shots are frankly embarrassing. Granted I respect the hundreds of hours of effort put into the CGI, those people are deserving of respect but some shots do not look good at all. Jesus Christ this post is long, I respect anyone who actually takes home to read it. The tonal inconsistencies make it so the emotions in the movie aren’t felt nearly as much as they should be. The use of Zed Leplin doesn’t really make a whole lot of sense..in fact it makes no sense at all….in fact even that’s an understatement.

But you’ve got some very nice sectors of humour here and there, the villain has a great attitude and as a major Middle Earth fan it was pretty awesome to see. While the closer CGI shots are pretty bad there are some gorgeous wides here and there. There’s a great transition that uses the stars to fade into a sugarcoated advertisement for Goldblum and that really flowed well. There’s a legitimately excellent scene where Heimdall discovers a secret sanctuary on Asgard, The gorgeous scenery, the costumes, music and sound design all come together really well in that short scene. The exact same goes for other scenes which means that overall the movie is elevated in quality due to that. All the performances in the film are good it’s always great to see Anthony Hopkins even if he’s been pulling a bit of a Marlon Brando recently. Hemsworth is your every day leading man, Mark Ruffalo is very good-ish….I dunno he just always seems to be constipated in these movies like Mark Wahlberg just without the accent. Tessa Thompson does a nice job with what she has to work with, I especially like how the director let her keep the accent. Tom Hiddleston also does a good job portraying arguably the most morally flexible character in history of any medium, okay that’s not 100% true but he’s up there. Cate Blanchett does a great job, she is almost like a female version of Tim Curry in Legend complete with some positively memorable costume design. Also Taika gives a nice motion capture performance the “piss off ghost” scene was hilarious. I’m not entirely sure about Hulk, I know that Ruffalo does some Mo Cap but Hulks most substantial scenes are full CGI but I imagine Mark Ruffalo does a good job walking around in the white black and grey mo cap costume. And everyone else is good. It was also nice to see some 300 Snyder style imagery in the Valkyrie vs Hela scene, since I always adore when a directors visual style can be seen influencing other movies. Next time I’ll remind my self that it’s only a MCU movie and like every single other consistently made franchise they’ll always revolve around the same positives and negatives unless the money starts getting lesser.

Also there’s a major missed opportunity to explore Asgard more in the MCU. The scenery of Asgard means you could really get some truly epic shots hearkening back to scenery of the 80s fantasy movies like the Dark Crystal and Willow but especially Peter Jacksons epic and unmatched way of filming New Zealand for the Middle Earth franchise. Also I would’ve loved to have a scene of Valkyrie at night sitting in her ship to show a bit more of her character because not only could the landscape of Sakaar make for some great midnight scenery but you also have a great set to work with and any opportunity to have great visuals and to develop a character simultaneously should always be seized.

I guess X-Men: Days of Future Past just felt special to me since I’ve never connected with the MCU like others have so saying goodbye to the original X-Men cast who I grew up watching was almost like my last real connection to the genre after the prestigious Dark Knight trilogy ended (the only real highbrow franchise of the genre). All superhero movies released recently have adopted a very convener belt mentality and they range from utterly repulsive, terrifyingly, hauntingly production problem plagued business decisions like Fantastic Four, Suicide Squad and Justice League where it makes film buffs like me doubt their ideals since this is an industry that film buffs want to get into, the pillars of their adult life are built on the idea of making a tentpole blockbuster one day and then we see stuff like those films it’s quite terrifying thinking about being in a situation like that. Anyway they also range from your usual bad Hollywood movie to a nice popcorn flick. Stuff like GOTG, Wonder Woman and Black Panther are especially great since they’re like escape routes, a little path way for genres that wouldn’t usually deliver quality projects, these genres include Fantasy Adventure (Wonder Woman and Black Panther) and Space Opera (GOTG) to give film audiences something good from those genres for a change. Because on the surface/shell these movies are about superheros and that’s the reason mainstream audiences go to watch them, but inside we’re treated to gorgeous, socially groundbreaking swashbuckling adventures and glossy, nostalgia filled, colourful and hyper stylised space adventures. It’ll also be interesting to see what the directors of these movies does with their ancillary market money (like if they’ll make their own small independent projects) and how well they’ll spend their capitol. Spending capitol is basically what projects actors, writers and directors chose after their tent pole blockbuster….granted they usually pick some small indie movie or TV show that they’ve been wanting to get off the ground for some time. 

But those CW Superhero shows, they’re the real stuff.