The Thor solo films that are apart of the highly successful and highly praised Marvel Cinematic Universe have always been met with a response that has claimed them to be the weakest of the solo outings in Marvel’s repertoire. Even if Thor’s first adventure is Marvel’s most creatively interesting film as it is captured through the mystical eyes of Kenneth Branagh. Then comes 2013’s Thor: The Dark World that suffers at the hand of Game of Thrones director Alan Taylor not understanding how crucial it is to direct your story in the proper direction. Many fans believed that Thor should just be reserved for appearing as a side character or in the Avengers flicks because his films just weren’t meeting the high standards met by other entries. Cut to the announcement of New Zealand born director Taika Waititi (What We Do In The Shadows) joining Marvel Studios and fans’ tune towards the God of Thunder shifted with the announcement of Thor: Ragnarok. The subtitle literally meaning “the doom of the gods” or “the world perishing in flame and starting anew”. Understanding the definition of “Ragnarok” and realizing that Taika is a director of comedy, it seemed like an odd pairing that was packed with potential. Potential for a unique and creative film that took risks with it’s approach to telling the story of Thor’s conflict with the impending doom of his home world, Asgard. Unfortunately, that potential is all but squandered just a mere 15 minutes into Thor: Ragnarok’s 130 minute runtime. It’s engine shows signs of life in a surprisingly exciting opening scene, but that engine seizes there afterwards. By struggling just a quarter of the way into the film, the experience became an excruciating bog to get through. Ragnarok packs zero punch, zero surprises, and zero life to it’s meaty source material. Tackling the story of “Ragnarok” should bode well for the big screen but is treated poorly by Marvel Studios. For an event so large you would anticipate a feeling of the behemoth that awaits with one wrong decison, but nothing becomes of it. Instead of routing us down a path of exciting plot points leaving us guessing while we slip off the edge of our seat, we are given numerous scenes where characters walk and talk. Not the interesting kind of walking or talking, but a movement where characters point at things, describe them, explain them, and wash, rinse, repeat. You can almost count on both hands the amount of times characters (namely Hela) will just explain how something works or why something is the way that it is in a scene. Instead of showcasing how imperative “Ragnarok” is to our protagonist through the villain, it comes across as another aimless Marvel affair. A product unsure of itself and worried that it may not appear as apart of the brand if it even remotely tried anything different. If any Marvel film in Phase 3 was going to be the one to show some signs of diversity it would be this one here. It would have been naive for any viewer to head into Ragnarok anticipating anything different than a comedy, but one could at least expect inspired decisions narratively. Everything within the story of Thor: Ragnarok comes without any value or weight. An issue that could have been easily resolved by giving Hela, the Goddess of Death, something to do besides walk and talk. She kills some Asgardians, sure, but she’s just another MCU villain that fails to bring anything relatively interesting to the table. She’s dressed in dark clothing, pimped out with the dark eye shadow and all, but behind that mask is a character with no semblance. There is little to know about Hela, and anything we do know about her is given away in one scene. There’s no nuance with Hela, she is evil and the reason she is evil is just because she’s evil. Blanchett is fine in the role but for an actor of her stature and caliber you would expect so much more (an actual line in the film might I add). Shifting away from the overwhelming amount of negatives within Thor: Ragnarok, is a sample size of positives. Glimmers of the potential that could have allowed Ragnarok to flourish amongst the ranks of the best comic-book movies ever made. It’s always a delight to see a cast that loves doing their job, and Chris Hemsworth (Thor), Tessa Thompson (Valkyrie), and Mark Ruffalo (Bruce Banner/The Hulk) are the standouts. Thompson is destined to be a star and this may propel her into the spotlight more than any role could’ve. Is it her best performance? No. Is it a performance that could guarantee more of Tessa? Yes. I also found the imagery to be sharp, crisp, and full of life. Colors sparkled even if there were questionable moments of CGI backdrops that looked like Thor had (much) less of a budget than it did. Ocassional camerawork and action sequences impressed me a fair bit and has me itching for Taika Waiti to direct more action oriented films. It’s the film’s biggest and brightest positive and that says something about a director who is just now taking a stab at films outside of his indie comedies. Ragnarok also contains some really impressive scenes between Thor and Hulk that would have any comics reader jumping for joy. Their dynamic is a highlight and make for some of the film’s best laughs, Ruffalo is the definitive Hulk and Banner and I can’t wait to see how the two banter in Infinity War. It’s no doubt, that after reading through all of this, you can come to the conclusion that I found Thor: Ragnarok to be a terrible film. A film that reminds me of everything I loathe about the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and the spotlight of everything that Phase 3 has done wrong. It doesn’t surprise me that Ragnarok is beloved by so many as it is a firm reminder of just how much Marvel Studios cares about their brand. It’s a shallow film, with zero meaning, purpose, or weight in any of it. A film filled to the brim with jokes that airball past the backboard and smashes the face of an attendee. A comic-book film that doesn’t even understand how to craft a compelling narrative. A comic-book film that has convinced people it is a unique story despite how eerily familiar plot elements and narrative are. Thor is exiled from Asgard, but why should I care? The people of Asgard have barely shown any admiration for the God of Thunder, so why should I. The plot only asks for them to care because of the non-existent “stakes”. Hela is as stupid as villains come and the reign of terrible Marvel villains continue as they show no signs of giving half a damn about properly developing characters. The editing is choppy and almost seems misaligned with the vision of Taika. Before you settle from the scene you just witnessed you are quickly transported to more explanation. It’s scene after scene, dynamic after dynamic, and exchanges after exchanges of nothing. Literally, nothing. It’s a wannabe 80s flick that tries SO very hard to be 80s that the only thing really 80s about it is ONE 80s hit and the overuse of Mark Mothersbaugh’s one note synth track. Thor: Ragnarok is a pretender, not a contender for Jeff Goldblum’s contest of champions. It’s a movie with the potential to reign down thunder and lightning like Zeus sitting atop Mt. Olympus, but the entire product fizzles out like trying to set off a firework in the pouring rain. Thor: Ragnarok gets a 35/100