LOOK AT FAT BUMBLING THOR AND LAUGH and ignore the plot holes pls

Rating: 3/10 (6 June 2019)

I realise that I'm in the minority, here, but I walked out of this...this thing really, really angry. Oh, it's a spectacle, to be sure, but an empty one. To each their own, and more power to you if you enjoyed the film, but I couldn't. Why? A number of reasons. It'll be wordy, but at least you can see why exactly I only gave it a three-star-rating - and this is coming from a person who mostly reviews things she loves.
Anyway, here goes.
First, characterisation. Oh, boy. Let's start with a spiteful nit-pick. Those kept piling up, which is why I mention it. The Asgardians. I have a question, writers: why are the Asgardians fishermen now? Seriously, what gives? Asgard was a highly developed society with technology so advanced, it looked like magic. They had Star-Trek-esque power shields. They had hovercraft. They are not fishermen. Is that because of Norway? Not everyone fishes there, either and also, Asgardians are not Norwegians. It's like if you live close to a river and you specialise in engineering energy shields, someone suddenly pushes you into a boat, and goes: "Fish!!!!" Sorry, but no.
Then, there's the real problem: Fat Bumbling Thor. What was that? No, seriously. What was that? That's not Thor. That drunken, stoned, lardy, snickering, obnoxious fool is not Thor. Remember the first movie? Where he was a bit of an impulsive, boisterous tool but still overall noble, courageous, selfless, and cultured? The Thor who created some situational comedy without turning into a pitiable punchline? That's Thor.
Character derailment for the sake of komedy is not funny, nor is it excusable. It's just bad writing. It's gimmicky and I hate it.
Don't even get me started on how Nebula kills her past self without consequences or how years of character development for Gamora get wiped away. Awesome, that. Top notch.
The other characters don't fare all that well, either. What was it with Tony suddenly being "tired and finally ready to rest" or whatever (paraphrasing, here)? Since when? And Steve staying in the past and playing houseboy whilst Hydra run rampant and his best buddy gets tortured is maybe the worst bit of pathetic "happy ending" I've ever come across with. That's not something he would do. If he had a shot at saving Bucky in the past, he would. He wouldn't be this selfish. I also wonder how exactly that worked in everyday life. What did he do all day? The dishes? Peggy's life would be drastically different with Steve around. None of the future events would have happened, and there is simply no handwaving this away or ignoring it. The reason I'm harping on all these details is that added together, they just don't make sense. Everything is just off, and we're supposed to just go along with it like it doesn't reek of sloppily put-together, bad fanfiction? No. No, thanks. I'll pass.
That's all bad enough, but then, the plot kicks in, and boy howdy, is it a doozy. Now, I realise that time travel stories need to be taken with a healthy heap of salt (pun unintentional but fitting), yes, but I guess it's the entire package that made me so mad. It's the cavalier attitude, the nonsense, the lack of intelligence, the lack of logic, and all the la-dee-dah accompanying it. First of all, there's the "oh, it's not like in Terminator and Star Trek". What is it like, then? If I travel into the past, it's my future? Okay, so riddle me this: if someone goes to the past and kills their past self, then they're still dead in the future and will, therefore, never travel into the past. That's a head-scratcher, but how does the movie deal with it? TERMINATOR WAS WRONG!!!!!! HEY, LOOK, SHINY CARKEYS!!!! That's pretty much it. It doesn't make sense on even the most basic level. Even on first viewing, when we're supposed to just cackle at Fat Bumbling Thor and gawp at the big explosions, the whole plot simply falls apart. Cause and effect are a thing. If someone cuts off my finger in 1999, I'll still be Frodo in 2019. You can't just go THAT'S NOT HOW IT WORKS, make a wannabe-snarky quip, and then movie on to the next hilarious hijinks. What outrageous thing will Fat Bumbling Thor do next? How much more amusing will this light-hearted version of the Hulk be (never mind how all his problems just got magically solved for the sake of hurr-hurr-funny).
And how exactly did Steve get the MacGuffins back to the exact same moment in time? That's just virtually impossible, because there were always people around. Take the glowstick of destiny, for instance. Hail Hydra? Okay, so that means that Winter Soldier etc. didn't happen. Nothing past those movies happened, because how - how - did Steve get that thing back without anyone seeing him? There were people around at all times (even Howard Stark in the 1970s). How did he get the ether back to Jane? Did he sneak up on her? Even if, she would have noticed, and that would have changed everything. What about Natasha? How did that pan out? The lol-I-kill-me-first scene, and then Steve shows up and it's all hunky-dory? Why is she still dead? If it never happened, then she shouldn't be dead. But I guess the movie told me her death is final, so it's all good. Tell me, movie, don't show. I don't need sense or logic. It was in the script, so it must be true. And what about Loki? Not only did he (as per the rules of the movie) create an alternate timeline by stealing the Tesseract, but he's gone now from the main one, isn't he? And none of these taking-away-bringing-back gigs affected the other events occurring simultaneously in the MCU timeline? How?
The scenes went on for too long, too, especially the "comedic" ones. The one relatively in the beginning, with Scott and Bruce and those kids...yikes. It went on forever. The joke wasn't that clever or amusing in the first place, and it overstayed its welcome like nobody's business. And they kept doing that over and over (o hai Fat Bumbling Thor).
Sigh.
The problem is that all these logic failings, the bad characterisation, and the shucks-ain't-we-clever-thinking-is-for-dopes instants pile up. The movie feels like a clip show: a bunch of komedy or action sketches sewn together, written by folks who think their audience has the attention span of a tomato. That's the worst part. The lack of effort to tell a coherent story. Oh, I'm sorry, was I supposed to feel sad when Tony bit it? Because I didn't care.
It just made me angry.
I'm only giving it three stars because the effects were shiny and it's not the actors' fault.