Gonna watch Ragnarok a little early.

I wasn’t particularly confident going into this one. Thor 1 and 2 are two of the weakest MCU movies, and I wasn’t expecting much more from the third installment — although I did appreciate its neon 80s vibe.

I ended up liking it a fair bit, mostly because it eliminated everything that made the series what it was :D

Flip side. See you.

Ragnarok...

The good:

• Direction. A good director can really elevate these superhero movies. Just look at Raimi or Nolan or Whedon. Taika Waititi was most definitely the right man for the job. His mockumentary What We Do in the Shadows was intelligent and witty and droll, and so too is this latest Thor flick. There's a looseness here, and an improvisational mood, that really benefits the production.
• Humor. Dear thunder lord, is this movie uproarious. Hemsworth is naturally funny, and the script lets him loose. Everything from Thor's interrogation scene to the Asgardian play (with cute cameos from Matt Damon and Sam Neill) to Bruce getting trapped in a parade honoring his alter ego -- it's laugh-out-loud funny. But the funniest part, by far, is...
• Jeff Goldblum. The man deserves his own line. Everything Goldblum does in this movie is pure gold. Every line, every gesture, every facial tic is priceless. His grandmaster is idiosyncratic, insouciant, and mysterious. 
• Production design. The cinematography is nothing to write home about, but the production design, by Lord of the Rings alum Dan Hennah, is pretty great. Sakaar, with its heaps of trash, retrofitted buildings, and gladiatorial arena, is of course the highlight.
• No. Fucking. Natalie. Portman.

Updated rankings:

OUTSTANDING
1) Captain America: Civil War

GREAT  
2) Captain America: The Winter Soldier
3) Iron Man

GOOD
4) Guardians of the Galaxy
5) The Avengers
6) Spider-Man: Homecoming
7) Thor: Ragnarok
8) Iron Man 3

DECENT
9) Black Panther
10) Captain America
11) The Incredible Hulk
12) Avengers: Age of Ultron
13) Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2

MEDIOCRE
14) Doctor Strange
15) Ant-Man
16) Iron Man 2

POOR
17) Thor
18) Thor: The Dark World

Thor: Ragnarok

My thoughts with spoilers below.


Pluses:

The cast is fantastic.  Hemsworth is better than he's ever been.  I love seeing Ruffalo here as the Hulk.  One thing I always think when I see an Avengers movie is that I want to see more Hulk, and I like that they made the Hulk mature into a small child here.  As great as Hulk and Thor are, there are 3 newcomers that are even better: Valkyrie, Grand Master, and Hela.  Valkyrie is great as the Asgardian who is drinking to forget her past.  Goldblum is just fantastic as Grand Master.  Like I just love every scene that he's in.  And then there is Hela.  She gets her own point as a plus.

Hela is just an awesomely badass villain.  Like the movie just goes out of its way to show how overpowered she is.  She smashes Thor's hammer.  She single handedly destroy's Asgard's army.  Cate Blanchet has the presence to make this character believable.  After watching this movie and Spider-Man back to back it is hard for me to decide which villain I like more: Hela or Vulture.  Both are fantastic villains in completely different ways.

This movie is so fun and funny.  It is basically an action comedy.  I was laughing the whole time.  I found the humor to be a major plus except for the one spot where they made a joke when Asgard blew up.

The action in this movie is fantastic and it comes complete with a Led Zeppelin theme song.  When I first saw this movie I thought, "Man Marvel must have really upped the budget on this one.  It's got a bigger cast and much better action than the earlier Thor films."  Then I looked up the budgets of the earlier Thor movies and found they were about the same as Ragnarok.  Taika Waititi simply managed to do so much more with a very similar budget.   This leads me to my next point.

Thor: Ragnarok is simply better than previous Thor movies in every way.  More heroes.  More locales.  More humor.  Better action.  Better villain.  This movie is just plain better.  It's funny because the joke is that several trilogies have two great movies and then a dud (like Raimi's Spider-Man or Nolan's Batman).  Thor somehow does the opposite by giving us two duds and then a great movie.


Minuses:

For a guy who can shoot lightning from his fingertips, Thor sure does get electrocuted a lot.


In conclusion, Thor: Ragnarok is breathes wonderful new life into the tired old Thor franchise.  This is a must see for anyone who remotely likes super hero movies.  

9/10

Doctor Strange 8/10

well going into this I definitely thought this would be a 5 but rewatching I saw all the great parts which make it rise above its generic origin story. I love Benedict Cumberbatch as an actor and its great to see him in the MCU and do an amazing job as Doctor Strange, the support cast is great as well. That time loop scene is one of the most unique things Ive ever seen

Pros:-
Acting, Music, Amazing visual effects

Cons:-
The generic villain in a generic story really brings the score down , feels like a waste of Mads MIkkelson.

Awesome
Captain America:Civil War
Captain America:The first Avenger
Captain America:The Winter Soldier
Avengers
Avengers:Age of Ultron
Iron Man
Iron Man 3

Great

Doctor Strange

Guardians of the Galaxy

Good

Black Panther

Mediocre
Incredible Hulk
Ant Man
Iron Man 2

Bad
Thor
Thor:The Dark World

Continuing along with the MCU television series advisories, it was at this point that both The Defenders appeared on Netflix (capping the small screen Avengers experiment that began with Daredevil) and ABC, showing its ineptitude, premiered Marvel’s Inhumans. Of the two, I have only seen Inhumans so that will be the only pilot rewatch I’m doing. If anyone would like to jot down some thoughts about Defenders to fill the gap, please feel free, but just be mindful of spoilers. Now to get on that Guardians 2 review . . .

Yep, watched Thor: Ragnarok again, and I am sticking to my opinions. 9/10, loved it so much, easily one of my favorites!

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 seems to be a polarizing film. There are those who love it and those who think it’s a pale imitation of the first. I’m going to try to judge the film on its own merits so I’ll put this out in front. It appears that the director tried so hard to make an irreverent film in the original (while still bound by the MCU rules) that it became a hit by its fresh feel and quirky nature. The second film by contrast, in trying to recapture that same magic (one of the first lines from Pratt includes “a-holes”), Gunn ended up making a sequel that does not live up to its predecessor because it’s trying too hard to BE its predecessor. What made the first film a hit, is what makes the second film feel more routine. It’s still above average but I can see why some would compare the two.

In any case, let’s talk about this film. My biggest grievance actually is that it took the greatest strength of this sub-series, the chemistry and camaraderie of the group as a whole and immediately splits them up for a majority of the film. At first I thought it might have been the result of a scheduling conflict, but Rocket and Groot are voice roles (I’m not sure how much, if any, on-set motion capture was being completed), so I can only ascertain that this was intentional. Our core cast is really only together at the beginning and end of the film. Once on Ego’s planet, the characters are further split off and spend the majority of their time with supporting cast rather than each other. This robs the film of a lot of its energy as the core cast tends to feed off one another and they all pop more as a result.

The Guardians films, at their core, have been about family. If not your actual family, then about the one you create for yourself to make yourself whole. This theme is bluntly hit over the head for a lot of the film. I see the Guardians as not people who necessarily like each other, but who need, and perhaps love, one another. That seems to have been the central premise of this film, but it’s not very well plotted out. It makes sense there would be some strain as the group has only been together a short while. Peter and Rocket are both forceful personalities so it’s logical there would be tension there. My issue is we never see a resolution to that. Rocket spends the rest of the film bonding with Yondu and the climax is about how Yondu affected him. There’s no real resolution to Peter and Rocket’s personal feud.

Speaking of Yondu, Rooker is the clear MVP for this film. I was a little wary about his sacrifice when I first saw it in theaters because it seemed a little melodramatic just to end the film on a bittersweet note. But this is really where Guardians 2 shows its strength. The focus on that love between Peter and his actual father figure in spirit if not in biology is one of the most emotionally resonant of the entire MCU. “He may have been your father, boy, but he wasn’t your daddy” is a haunting and heart-swelling line. The resulting funeral scene is both poignant and beautiful both visually and in emotion. It allows the audience to end this film that has veered so wildly between comedy and drama to revel in its emotional poignancy, something the MCU always seems hesitant to do.

Overall I still enjoyed Guardians Vol. 2. Could it have done more with the material? Yes. But the film we got still is both enjoyable and at times powerful. I loved that it focused on its cast and telling their stories rather than using it to bridge towards Infinity War. The problem is that all the stories don’t carry equal weight or relevance. The Gamora/Nebula relationship seems one rich with possibilities (like Thor and Loki) however the film seems to pay it mere lip service in an effort to get it out of the way. The Peter/Ego story fares better but that’s in large part due to Kurt Russell’s performance. His Ego has an effortless charm, and can be both tender and menacing at a moment’s notice. Drax and Mantis is both hit and miss however the scene where they sit silently while he somberly remembers his family is one of the best of the film.

I briefly just want to touch on one thing that bothered me most. When Ego sets his plan in motion, Quill asks what will happen to his friends. Telling Peter that he needs to let them go, the quick indifference to agreement that follows left a bad taste in my mouth. Yes, there was some mind control going on there, but for a series about forging this family of losers, that the bond between Peter and his friends was not stronger seems wrong. Another moment is when Peter says “You shouldn’t have killed my mom and squished my Walkman”. Now, I loved the moment where Ego destroys the Walkman. It had come to symbolize the last connection he had with his mother. But to give voice to it as if it had the same weight as her actual death diminishes the impact.

I’m going to give Guardians Vol. 2 a 6/10. I’m torn on this score and waffled back and forth on rating it higher. But in looking at the other films I gave 6s to vs. 7s, it fit more into the former category. I’m still immensely looking forward to Guardians 3 more than Ant-Man/Doctor Strange 2. I also would love to see a spin-off with that Ravager crew led by Stallone and Yeoh. It’s a visual feast with livid technicolor dreamscapes and the characters are ones you want to spend time with. I just wish they spent more time together so the film did not feel as jumbled and unfocused. Worth a watch but doesn’t stand out from the pack as much as the first.

Current rankings:
1) Captain America: The Winter Soldier
2) Iron Man
3) The Avengers
4) Captain America: Civil War
5) Guardians of the Galaxy
6) The Incredible Hulk
7) Black Panther
8) Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2
9) Avengers: Age of Ultron
10) Iron Man 3
11) Captain America: The First Avenger
12) Doctor Strange
13) Ant-Man
14) Thor: The Dark World
15) Thor
16) Iron Man 2

I had a marathon of Marvel movies like 2 weeks ago and allowed myself to think about what I truly thought about them.

Civil War: 7/10
I was contemplating over the time period whether I gave this a 6 or a 7. This movie has a lot of problems. The overall look of the film is incredibly bland and kinda just makes me bored looking at it. I assume this movie was shot on a digital camera and no one was given the task to color correct the flat image that came out of the camera. I put the trailer through Hitfilm and tried to make the colors more vivid, but ended up making a saturated mess. I really don't know what they could have done to make the movie look more visually interesting, but I know that I have seen movies that look better than this. The CGI is also questionable in certain areas and stands out against the ultra-realistic environments the movie has. I enjoyed the fact that the villain was just a random pedestrian that had to deal with the repercussions of the actions of the Avengers, but I found his plan to be horribly convoluted. I don't appreciate that Marvel didn't have the balls to kill any of the characters off and give them a real motivation to be mad at each other. Hopefully I see it in Infinity War. Other than these prominent issues and some other nitpicks, the movie is very enjoyable. All of the characters seem to work well together and you can tell that they all have a personal relationship to each other. Everyone has clear motivations as to why they are taking the actions they take. Neither side is inherently wrong, but the movie does its best to show that characters have personal biases affecting their decisions. I thought Black Panther in this movie was a much stronger character than in his own movie, since they actually took time to develop a character arc that saw him reject his initial idea of revenge. Its nothing mindblowing, but I appreciate that it is included. As a humongous Spider-Man fan, I was very pleased with his portrayal and thought that he was an incredibly fresh interpretation of the character in terms of movies. All the other characters are also solid. The action is really good and feels less mechanical than Age of Ultron. The music was decent. The movie was paced very well. Pretty solid movie.

Dr. Strange: 6/10 (leaning towards 5/10)
This has some of the best visual design and effects that I have ever seen in a Marvel movie. They're not particularly original, but the set pieces and overall design of the landscape is incredibly detailed and pleasing to look at. The music is better than most Marvel movies. Some of the humor is funny. The acting is very good. Other than that, this movie is generic. It's the typical origin story where a cocky douchebag has to go through difficult circumstances and become something better than they previously were. Dr. Strange's character development feels incredibly rushed and he doesn't become a likable hero until the last 30 minutes of the movie. He continuously makes life worse for other people and he's not particularly charming. He feels like Tony Stark, but with none of the charisma. The villain isn't the worst since you can tell he has a personal connection to the Ancient One and has understandable motivations. He kinda just ends up being throw away though. I recall one instance where the movie made me mad. Right after seeing the Ancient One die, Dr. Strange suits up and gets ready to stop the bad guy. Instead of making it a reflective moment that inspires the hero to accomplish his objective like in The Dark Knight and Spider-Man 2, the screenwriters throw in a cheap joke that completely takes away any emotional resonance the audience could feel during the moment. It feels insulting. This one was just above average. I really enjoyed it when I saw it in theatres, but my liking for the movie dropped significantly after watching it on Netflix. Still a decent movie, but nothing special.

I'll have my thoughts for the rest of the movies up soon.

I put the part about the comparison in the first paragraph and you clearly missed where I said I wanted to get that out the way and then spoke about the flaws of this film. Just like I have with every film in this rewatch. So you can “very big sigh” all you want. I marked this film one point under the other. At the end of the day, this film is not as good as the first in my opinion. Pulling out one sentence from a long review to justify your worldview is nice. But my review actually doesn’t match any one of your criticisms about how “it’s exactly like I said”. I never once said “too many jokes” or “no plot”. I never even talked about expectations. In fact your review is more about your reaction to other’s reactions than about the actual film so evidence to the contrary, I don’t think you “learned to deal with it”. But hey, you do you, boo. The rewatch is about differing opinions and how we react to films. Our differences are what enhance the experience. An echo chamber is boring. 😉