A mishmash of ideas

Rating: 6/10 (8 June 2018)

Ragnarok while being a fun movie felt extremely dull regarding overall tone and execution. Two stories mashed into one movie.
It has fun moments like the arena planet scenes, but the Ragnarok part of the plot is rather tone deaf. Odin's 'scene' is rushed and void of emotional impact. Acting is weird at times, especially Loki's lines were delivered weirdly at a few places and the writing/humour falls flat often throughout.
Moreover the directing is rather mixed too, resulting in failed moments and causing some of the problems mentioned before. Because of this action scenes often shot in a way that eliminates tension and impact. The army massacre scene was particularly unbelievably weak. The CGI is rather inconsistent too. Some of the scenes were really unimpressive, felt half-complete while others looked cool.
I would also add that the visual and musical style also felt weird, the film having a kind of 80s vibe, with almost game-like sequences with pumping 'rock' music then of course the usual mythological-superhero crossover music came in at a few places. This further adds to the confusion whether this supposed to be an action oriented, fun movie or a more cataclysmic story of destruction and loss. In the end the dual story line might have been the biggest issue in the movie. These are two very different sides of the same universe and does not add up to a coherent experience.
My favourite scenes from the movie that I really liked are definitely from the arena. Though there are problems there aplenty too like Hulk being advertised as a killing machine then after the fight showing him as a sobered down version of himself joking around and being adorable. This is weird as hell. I would even call this lazy writing which is nothing new in this genre.
Another thing which is not really an issue for me but which can be a kind of lore-breaking decision is to cast a mixed race woman as a valkyrie. Though once again I am not sure how accurate this based on the comic books but mythologically it seems to be rather conflicting. Nevertheless it was not a huge thing overall, and on the other hand I am quite happy with Heimdall's portrayal to be honest.
Overall based on my first watch Ragnarok felt a rather rushed movie with mixed execution. The Thor series is the weakest of the standalone ones (on the level of the Hulk movies maybe), Ragnarok being the latest and possibly the best so far. I am sure that the character and related universe can be used to come up with a great story but so far the Thor franchise was let down by filmmakers. This film was a great chance to prove the worthiness and relevance of it but they wanted a little bit too much and tried too hard to be bigger and more filled than the previous resulting in a chaotic mess.