Guardians of the Galaxy but with much less interesting characters and storyline

Rating: 5/10 (30 October 2017)

Much anticipated and hyped Marvel entry this year is undoubtedly Thor:Ragnarok. There are # of rave professional reviews out there already on this movie. I saw it this week, the first day it opened in Korea, and I am absolutely puzzled what the rave reviews were all about. Yeh, it is lighter in tone, yeah, it has more humor, and yeah there a lot more special effects, but nah, sum of all gives us a very familiar movie, some scenes very similar to this year's superhero mega hit, Wonder Woman, and some scenes even more similar to Thor's soon to be avenging teammates, Guardians of the Galaxy. You can tell that Taika Waititi who directed this movie, wanted this one to be something very different and new from the previous two Thor entries, a Thor movie that can standalone, but what we get is a very differently toned Thor entry that is not new or fresh, but rather remindful of Guadians of the Galaxy. In my view, this is a wrong turn of direction for Marvel. First, you don't have Chris Pratt or talking raccoon, nor the cute, adorable treelike humanoid, Groot. You have Chris Hemsoworth who can be funny at times but does anyone remember any of the movies he starred in, aside from MCU? So, this time, it was talking Hulk that played the worthwhile sidekick role, and believe me, Hulk was funnier and more interesting to watch. He saves the movie. Thor-Ragnarok also goes retro in it's soundtrack, but also this is far less interesting, auditory experience, compared to Guardians of the Galaxy. What they share in close similarity is that the whole story mostly takes place outer-space and this is where fatigue comes to play. We like our superheros because we can relate with them, and they team up and help weak, normal human beings in saving the world, while we watch with awe at their awesome superpower. Mostly this happens here at Earth. That is when it is most fun. Outerspace is already covered by the Guardians team and we don't really need to add more. Also, their superpower status gets bit cloudy and can get less interesting, since our creative human minds will always think and may assume that some big, wonderful creatures, monsters, villains, may just well be hiding deep in unknown space, waiting for their chances to crawl out with their undeniable power. The movies's most efforts are poured into showing good vs. evil fight scenes in dark, outer-space, by the means of visual effects. Story is very simple, something kids may like, but adults may find this movie boring and puzzling by the time end credit rolls up. Hela, the goddess of death, is the main villain here, but even with her awesome, evil power, power that is great enough to destroy Mulnir and to hold back her better known siblings, meets a quick death by another evil power who was somewhat easily handled by Hela's less powerful sibling at the beginning of this movie. Hmmm...Asgard is completely destroyed so, we won't see anymore of Asgard's spectacular, golden, futuristic sculptures, and buildings. We won't see Odin either. We may see Asgardians on Earth someday in some MCU entries. Don't know how that will all play out, but my curiosity is not peaking. Ah, I forgot to mention about the grand master, played about Jeff Goldblum. He wasn't all that funny nor did I feel he played the role all that well, but many reviewers seem to think otherwise. The character felt very annoying and forgettable. Because this one was so keen and focused on just being different, the story leaves out most of previous characters, characters interesting, and important enough, from the last two Thor entries. These efforts to be different and wildly light and humorous while having very little story to back it all up, may work this time around. The movie has a plenty of explosions, spaceships, interesting weapons of destruction, etc. but what next ? By being a standalone movie, Waititi has left Thor alone, lost far out in the space, very well disconnected. This will be a costly misstep for MCU to recover from. They will recover this time, but a couple more of these misteps, and MCU will be competing much harder than now, with DC counterpart.