Thor: Ragnarok and Justice League Review

Hello to my four readers! For your loyalty I am rewarding you guys with a double whammy! Yes, I will be reviewing the two of most anticipated films of the year: Thor: Ragnarok and Justice League! Does Thor keep the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s hot streak alive? Or does he continue to carry the title of nobody’s favorite avenger? Is Justice League another step in the right direction or is it further proof that the DC expanded universe is a failure that should be taken out back and put out of its misery? Well there is only one way to find out so strap in for these movie reviews!

 

Thor: Ragnarok               

First things first we have Thor: Ragnarok, directed by Taika Waititi, and starring Chris Hemsworth, Cate Blanchett, Tom Hiddleston, Te

ssa Thompson, and Mark 

Ruffalo. Trapped on the other side of the universe, Thor and Loki must band together with some unlikely allies to stop Hela, the goddess of death, from taking over their homeworld of Asgard.

Even though it is the third Thor movie, the third Marvel movie to come out this year, and the seventeenth movie in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), Thor: Ragnarok still manages to be a refreshing installment in the MCU. This film is more comedy than action, which is exactly what Thor needed because his previous films were some of the most dull and boring films in the MCU. The cinematography was superb, and some scenes were just downright breathtaking, looking like renaissance paintings at times. The movie was bright and colorful, which was something that Marvel movies, especially, Thor movies, previously lacked. The action scenes were exhilarating, the fight scene between Thor and the Hulk is the best in the MCU since the airport scene in Captain America: Civil War. A lot of these elements are thanks to the aforementioned director and the screenwriter, Eric Pearson. He was able to make a lot of characters who could’ve been very stale into hilarious scene stealers, as their jokes were on point about 99% of the time. If Marvel didn’t give Waititi and Pearson creative freedom this movie could’ve been more of the same, so kudos to them for learning from their mistakes and not making them a second time.

Thor: Ragnarok is not only one of the best superhero films of the year, it is one of the best Marvel movies and I’d highly recommend it, I give it an eight out of ten.

 

Justice League

Justice League is directed by Zack Snyder and stars Ben Affleck, Gal Gadot, Ezra Miller, Jason Momoa, Ray Fisher, and Henry Cavill. When the malevolent Steppenwolf tries to take over the earth (again) Batman and Wonder Women have to gather a team in order to take him down.

Let’s start with the positives: every performance is great in this film, Gadot and Affleck continue to kill it as Wonder Woman and Batman, Miller and Momoa were hilarious as the Flash and Aquaman, and Fisher was great as Cyborg, especially considering that he hasn’t been in many other films or television shows before. The action was awesome, whether that was the work of Snyder or due to Joss Whedon’s re-shoots I don’t know, but I found myself grinning during all of those scenes. I’d even go so far as to say that I’d rewatch this movie in theaters just to see those scenes again.

Now that all the positives are out of the way we’re going to have to touch on the negatives. First off Steppenwolf, the villain, was just so devoid of character that you knew that he’d pose no threat in the long run. He was just some evil thing who wanted to take over the world with his CGI army, which has been done so many times that some twist on the character should have been added to make it feel somewhat fresh. For example, look at Thor: Ragnarok, Hela has the same motives and the same CGI army but her charisma, and her personal ties to Thor, Loki, and Asgard makes her more of a compelling and threatening villain. While each actor did their character justice and the whole crew had chemistry, the characters themselves were lacking in depth and motivation. It takes little to nothing for Batman and Wonder Woman to convince Aquaman, Cyborg, and the Flash to join the Justice League, just one or two scenes with little dialogue and all of a sudden they’ve joined the team. Unlike Marvel, these characters don’t all have individual movies to flesh them out so they really needed some more screen time in the movie to provide the background. Hopefully, we’ll see it in the director’s cut. Another problem that I had with the movie was the writing. Joss Whedon and Chris Terrio are both usually fantastic writers, but some of the dialogue was questionable and downright immersion breaking at times.

While it may seem that I hated this movie more than I liked it that’s not the case. I thoroughly enjoyed the film and I can’t wait for the sequel. The film had great performances, chemistry, and action scenes but also featured a bad (yet serviceable) villain, poor character development, and weak writing at times. Despite its flaws you should go out and see it, I give it six out of ten.