The last good movie of the MCU, the first in a long time...

Rating: 8/10 (9 May 2020)

The Good: It's a straight-forward comedy which is just one small step away from the giddy highs of the most iconic slapstick movies. There are a lot of action scenes, (usually the worst parts of any Marvel movie), but only a few of them are boring. (Hulk arena fight and a couple other forgettable ones). Led Zeppelin brightens some of the other fight scenes into camp. The plenitude of jokes mostly all land, why are Kiwis so good at doing this...? Jeff Goldblum plays himself on the planet he originally came from and it's hilarious. His no. 1 stooge is played by the same Kiwi actress who played the child welfare lady in Watiti's own Hunt for the Wilderpeople and she's even funnier here. Hemsworth and Hiddleston have their comic-duo routine down by now after rehearsal in Thor the Dark World. Mark Ruffalo exaggerates his own neurotic-ness so much you can only laugh at how ridiculous he is. There are actually several very funny verbal exchanges that left me impressed at the writers. Maybe Watiti should write more scripts. The designs are so refreshingly retro; I wish more modern movies looked as clunky as this. Overall it reminded me of Star Trek the Voyage Home: a Marvel movie for people who don't usually like Marvel movies. And, it's way funnier than the vapid losers who pass for comedians today, Kimmel, Colbert, Fallon, and all those other hacks.
The Bad: The storyline is the same superhero dribble we've all seen a million times before and since; if it would have gone full-blown Bob Hope it could have been a 10-star movie, sure. The Asgard plotlines were kind of boring. On top of that, this is the biggest and most expensive insult to Norse mythology I have ever seen. The Norse Ragnarok was an incredibly serious and apocalyptic event and this movie reduces it to a punchline; people will now think of this screwy movie whenever it is mentioned. A lower-stakes comedic plot would have done wonders. Meanwhile, there are some green screens and CGI, but the humor mostly distracts from it. The shoe-horned in Doctor Strange scene should be excised, have a little respect for people watching this fifty years in the future who won't have the luxury of wasting 100+ hours of their lives watching repetitive Marvel films and keeping up with the mythology of them.
The Ugly: The Valkyrie character teetered dangerously into the territory of a Jerk Sue, someone who is mean and rude but tolerated by all the characters. If you like lady wrestlers maybe you won't mind this.