Laughs and action

Rating: 8/10 (25 October 2017)

I saw this film at the Beckenham Odeon in London. The beginning of this film was as impactful as the bullet-time opening of Swordfish. So that set the movie off at with very high expectation indeed. Hela's part in the story was as expected, and nothing changed from the trailers. She's very powerful, and also very single-minded. Hulk's treatment in the film was in two parts - when he was the Hulk, he was a star, but when he was not hulk, he was a bit part player. I'm not sure I liked how his role was handled in the film, but I suppose anymore exposure of the Hulk, would have taken the shine off Thor himself. So maybe its understandable. I personally felt that more could have been made of the Hulk's character. What did make the film stand out though was the comedy. It was very unexpected, and also brilliantly done! Along the way, Thor meets a minor gladiator, who turns out to be the funniest guy ever! You'll have to see for yourself, but his deadpan delivery turns the film almost into a comedy, every time he's on the screen! The battle scenes were good, but not to the level of LOTR, for scope and spectacle. I enjoyed it, but I feel that it fell just a little bit short of the standard that Wonder Woman delivered. But it did set up the forthcoming space-based Marvel films very well (Black Panther was not referenced).