Every single character can't be comic relief!

Rating: 5/10 (8 November 2017)

Are we watching a comedy or an action adventure? A friend of mine hyped this to the skies before I went to see it. He said it was epic, great, and didn't take itself too seriously. But that was probably the big problem. From that description I was expecting something like Guardians Of The Galaxy 1, or likewise. But unlike Guardians this one relied so heavily upon humor that about halfway thru the story was totally lacking in gravity. All Marvel movies have a lot of comedy yes, but mostly that's been handled with care. This one didn't take itself too seriously, I give you that, but in the process of "not taking itself too seriously" it made itself feel dishonest at times. You can't make a movie where every single character or event is a comic relief! The audience gets confused about what should be funny and what shouldn't, and before you know it's not funny anymore but boring.
Really, you have a story line about a family that is actually kind of tragic:
Your father dies and you find out about your psychotic murderous sister whose very existence he's never told you about. In your last attempt to stop her, your home gets destroyed. All you're left with is your treacherous adopted step-brother who already has tried to kill all your friends on countless occasions.
Talk about family drama! But where is all the emotion that should come with it? The only hint of emotion we get is delivered by Anthony Hopkins, and not because it's a great scene but because he's a great actor. He actually out-acted every single actor in the whole movie in just a couple of seconds. And where is the real threat? Cate Blanchett is a great actress too but her character never felt threatening or gave the plot any gravity. Just some funny looking person in weird clothes like all the rest. Since the movie relies so much on humor it seems like the characters don't even care. If they don't care, why should the audience? Guardians, while relying a great deal on humor itself, at least made you care about the characters.
One thing I actually liked was The Hulk. But not as the "Hulk" but as Bruce Banner. He was fun to watch. But as the rest of the movie he was also lacking in depth as soon as he found out where he was. On a different planet for two years, and he didn't even know about it? That should have driven any man out of his mind, yet even he managed to joke it off like it was nothing. I guess you shouldn't expect much out of a movie based on comic books, but since Civil War my expectations has gone up considerably. Or this type of humor might just not be my cup of tea.