2017 Marvel Wrap Up (Part 3: Thor Ragnarok)

Thor: Ragnarok Spoilers

So obviously Thor might be the longer spoilers review because it is pretty fresh in my mind. This is also the case because I think it has the biggest impact on the Marvel cinematic universe despite being a pretty self contained Thor story.

So last time we were in Asgard we discovered that Loki had returned to Asgard and was impersonating Odin. Well at the beginning of Ragnarok, Thor returns to Asgard and exposes Loki. This is done in a really funny way because you see Loki disguised as Odin watching a play of his "heroic" death. It's great because Anthony Hopkins is acting like Loki impersonating Odin and it's done really really well. If you hadn't watched the previous movie, you could probably still deduce that Loki is the one really ruling Asgard because he's sitting watching a play and eating grapes.

This also leads to probably the best cameo in history as Matt Damon plays an actor playing Loki. And of course because this play is commissioned by Loki himself, he really hams it up and it is a really funny comedy bit at the start of the movie. Sam Neil also plays an actor in the film. I remember Sam Neil being cast in the film but I thought he was going to have a larger role in it. Even when I saw him as an actor in the movie I thought he was going to have a larger part. I was very wrong. Still it was fun to see those two at the beginning for a fun cameo.

The start of the film sends Thor and Loki to New York to find Odin but it also brings them to 177A Bleecker Street, the Mystic Sanctum protected by Doctor Stephen Strange.

Now I have watched Doctor Strange a couple times since my first viewing and I have really become disillusioned to it every time. It's not a bad movie, it just falls into that damned Marvel formula that I am personally getting sick of. And unfortunately, Doctor Strange doesn't really add a whole lot to this movie and could have been written out and nothing would have changed.

This interaction between Thor and Doctor Strange was included in the post credit scene of Doctor Strange and that is the only reason it was included. I doubt Waititi would have kept it. It reminds me of the Ant-man Falcon fight scene in Ant-man, a scene that I really hated because it brought the movie to a screeching halt in order to promote Civil War. Doctor Strange has a similar motivation but I actually didn't hate this scene as much as the Ant-man scene. It was pointless, but it didn't feel like it was promoting anything. It felt like Thor was in New York and ran across another hero in New York. It's a weird balance Marvel has to strike because this would happen in the comics and it makes sense that Thor would run into someone in New York, especially Doctor Strange. However, because Marvel has used that loophole in the past to stop the movie and promote future films I of course was skeptical. Again, it wasn't necessary, but it wasn't bad.

I might talk about this more in a future post but I think that Doctor Strange shouldn't take up a role in the Avengers. I think he should be his own entity that is a force for good, but a more neutral force. I liked how he was kind of the sage character in the beginning and was more of an advice giver as opposed to joining Thor on his mission.

Then you have Odin's death.

So again, 2017 seems to be the year that Marvel is actually killing off some supporting characters and it looks as thought they are not coming back. Odin dies in this film but instead of it being sad for his children Thor and Loki, it is kind of brushed aside. For as big of a character as Odin is, his death was almost a little confusing for me and way too quick for me to really process. Obviously you don't really have time for the emotional response you got from Starlord in Guardians of the Galaxy, but I would have expected more. Also... there was that big reveal that Loki was impersonating Odin at the end of Thor the Dark World and that is resolved in the first 10 minutes of the film. It kind of points towards the reality that the continuity of these films is pretty flawed and Taika Waititi really didn't have any intention of heading down the road that I think Marvel originally set out at the end of The Dark World.

Which is good, but at the same time a little bit confusing. If you look at the scenes from Age of Ultron where they hint at Ragnarok, that version of Ragnarok was going to be a lot different. I would have been really interested in seeing what this version of Ragnarok would have been but it probably would have been similarly as underwhelming as Thor The Dark World was.

The main part purpose of Odin's death is that he was the only one keeping Hela in exile and now that he's dead she can return. There is a little bit of retconning in Odin's character as Hela is actually his first born daughter. She was his "executioner" during his conquest of the 9 realms but when her power became too great he exiled her and now she's back for revenge.

And when she comes back she comes back with a fury.

Remember these three? Yeah they all die kind of horrendous deaths when Hela comes to take over Asgard. Lady Siff (played by Jaime Alexander) doesn't make an appearance in the film and is the only one not horribly murdered by Hela.

I get the feeling that Watiti wanted to kill Siff but since she's the only one of these characters that I actually remembered, I wasn't surprised that she wasn't in this film and will probably either continue her run on television, or show up in a Phase 4 Thor movie and they'll lament over their friends who... I'll be honest I can't remember their names.

And it's worth talking about Hela because I've had some time to really decide if she's as good as people say she is. But first let me be clear, the issues I have with Hela aren't with Cate Blanchett. She's great.

The issues come with how she's utilized. I think people are willing to give her a bit of a pass because Blanchette does give a great performance and she just chews on the scenery the entire time. She's also Thor's sister and for some reason the villains that are related to Thor somehow end up being more liked.

But the main issue is that as much as Hela is a fun character, she's not really utilized correctly in the film and she really only interacts with Karl Urban's character until the very end. I'll talk about Skurge, but my point is that you've got this great actress in Cate Blanchett and you put her in a corner until Thor and Loki, the more entertaining people in the movie come back to Asgard and even then you just have them do a fight scene. They get a little bit of banter but at the end of the day, she's just an obstacle to figure out their personal hero journey. And that's the thing with Marvel films is that they put so much effort into their heroes that their villains get thrown to the wayside.

The reason I was more entertained by Jeff Goldblum's character is because he got more interaction with the main characters. He was a foe longer than Hela was and that interaction was great. Yeah it started with a weird Willy Wonka montage to introduce him... which was weird, but still funny! But at the end of the day I enjoyed The Grandmaster as an antagonist than I did Hela.

Both villains get a pretty vague ending and I'm really grateful for that. These are two incredibly talented actors, I think Marvel would be out of their minds to really kill them off. I don't really have any doubt that Cate Blanchett is coming back. They don't give her an explicit death and while they didn't say conclusively that she's dead at the end of the film, it still is open for her to come back and be the muse for Thanos in Infinity War. And the Grandmaster is seen at the end facing an angry mob but it's more for humor not to insinuate that he is dead.

But on the other hand of things...

What was the point of Karl Urban's character? Like I know Skurge is an actual character but you've got a great actor like Karl Urban and you make him probably one of the most boring characters in the MCU ever? He literally could have not been in this film and it wouldn't have made any bit of a difference.

Also let's talk about Loki in this film.

So in an interview before this movie came out. Taika Waititi said he wanted to make Thor the most interesting character of his own film, something that hadn't happened in previous films. That title always went to Loki. Up until this point, Loki has always been the fan favorite. I was surprised on how much they shit on Loki in this film to the point where his character almost becomes a little bit worthless in the grand scheme of things.

The other thing that kind of worked against this film was the fact that the brother dynamic between these two had already been done to death in previous films but especially in The Dark World. So while there are a couple of allusions to Thor and Loki's relationship, they kind of breeze past their past and by the end of the film, Loki, despite all that he's done, kind of becomes a good guy. The fan girls finally changed him I guess.

I'm impressed that Waititi made Thor the most interesting character but at the same time he really downplayed what made Loki so great. I love Tom Hiddleston and I like his character of Loki but I feel like he should have just died in The Dark World and Ragnarok is a perfect example of why that should have been the case.

The last thing worth talking about is the ending. There's a couple things with this.

First off... well done marketing team. This picture both gets the audience excited for the film, but is strategically edited so to not give away the ending that is Thor loses an eye in this movie. It does not look like he's getting it back either.

But that aside, Thor discovers that the power to defeat Hela was inside him the whole time and he goes all Raiden from Mortal Kombat, shooting lightning from his hands and actually becoming the God of Thunder.

The other thing worth talking about in the ending is the question mark about Bruce Banner and the Hulk. In the film, Bruce Banner turned into The Hulk for two years and mentions that if he turns into the Hulk again, he may not turn back. And then he just does and we kind of blow past the fact that we may never see Mark Ruffalo as Bruce Banner again.

Now, I think we will because Mark Ruffalo does play a really good Bruce Banner and it would be a shame to never see him again. However, I don't think a lot of people thought of that because of the humor that was incorporated when he turned into the Hulk for the last time. Now I thought it was really funny when he jumped out of the plane all heroic and just flopped on the ground... but that is kind of an example of Marvel not really knowing when to put in a joke and when not to. It was a funny moment, but it actually has very serious consequences for future films. To be honest, I don't think Waititi was really thinking about that though... to be honest this guy is kind of becoming my new hero.

The other example of Marvel not really understanding that time to joke and the time to be serious is the destruction of Asgard.

Besides this scene really only being used for a comedic bit, it does show the being they release that brings the destruction of Thor's home Asgard. A world we have come to known. And there's a moment where it is being destroyed and their new rock friend makes a joke about how it could be saved right before it blows up. The joke is funny, however, after some time after watching the film I realized how bad of timing that scene was and the perfect example of the Marvel bathos that they're so known for. It's entertaining but it pulls away the magnitude and keeps me from really being invested in the plight of the characters.

But the last thing worth mentioning is the mid credits scene where Thor's ship full of Asgardians are flying to Earth and they run into a huge ship. Who's ship is that? What does this mean for our heroes? FIND OUT NEXT TIME ON THE ONGOING MARVEL CINEMATIC UNIVERSE THAT WILL CONTINUE UNTIL THE DAY WE ALL DIE!

The big theory is that that is Thano's ship and this will kick off Infinity War with Thor and his people being Thano's prisoner or something. It was a pretty bait and hook for the end of the film and it does get me excited for Infinity War.

I might do a fourth part of this to talk about how all these movies connect and point us towards 2018 when Infinity War Part 1 starts. The thing is I've tried to make predictions in the past and have been very very wrong. And if Thor Ragnarok tells us anything, it means that Marvel may seem like it's going in a certain direction but then the winds of public opinion and directors will blow and the result will be totally different. It honestly makes me a little bit nervous for Infinity War but I think the biggest thing that 2017 Marvel movies pointed to was Phase 4. All three movies from 2017 were pretty self contained films which I actually really liked. I don't really need these movies to be directly connected to Infinity War.

With a couple of exceptions, mainly the use of Donald Glover in Spider-man as a hint of Miles Morales and Doctor Strange's really unnecessary cameo in Thor, 2017 Marvel movies kept the story on track for the most part and didn't really allude too much to Infinity War. It made the movies feel a little more solid on their own two feet and I think a lot better than previous MCU outings.

As convoluted as this whole cinematic universe is getting and as much as I complain about a lot of the formulas and recurring issues with these movies, it's obvious that I like them. I feel like if you can't critique the things you like that you probably don't like them as much as you think you do.

I know I said I was going to do a 4th part but I don't want to beleaguer this concept and I have other stuff I need to review. I might do a universe prediction/theorizing post soon once we hear more about Infinity War but until then, these have been my 2017 Marvel Spoiler Wrap up. What do you think of what's going on in the Marvel Cinematic Movies? Which of the three that came out this year was your favorite? Was there anything that I missed? Comment and Discuss Below! You can also send me your thoughts on Twitter @MovieSymposium as well as send me your requests for films I should review in the future. If you follow me on Twitter, you can get updates on future movie news and reviews coming out of this blog.

I'll leave you with this. Whenever I can throw a shout out to Screen Junkies I try to because they're a real big source of entertainment for me and I like to share their stuff. Enjoy!