I liked the movie and I like a lot of comedy in my movies but I feel like this may finally have been the one that pushes the comedy elements a bit too far. It's not so much that any individual bits didn't work for me. In fact, given the sheer number of comedy bits that permeate the film, it's kinda shocking that such a high percentage of them landed for me. However, the thing about the comedy of the Marvel movies is that, what usually makes them work is that they are an unexpected bit of levity in an otherwise serious situation. By having the film be quite so overrun with comedy bits, it ends up diluting the power of all of them.
I suppose, because of that, I ended up kinda disappointed by Jeff Goldblum's part in the film. In a more straight-faced movie, his natural eccentricity would have been some welcome comic relief. But when everyone is really goofy anyway, he kinda disappears into just background noise.
That said, the evolution of the comedy wasn't quite surprising given the first 2 movies. Ever since the first
Thor, Chris Hemsworth has shown a great gift for goofy comedy that somehow never undermines his badass heroics. The humor also tended to be the best part of
Thor: The Dark World (an underrated movie, though admittedly with a crappy villain and a pretty paint-by-numbers story).
And as someone who really liked the first 2
Thor movies, I was kinda disappointed at how much of the supporting cast that we didn't get this time around. I mean, Jane Foster was always kind of a stick in the mud, so I don't particularly miss her. But I love Darcy and I really hope that they bring her back at some point, even if it's in a different movie. (I keep picturing her as Tony Stark's secretary at some point or something.) And then we get no Lady Sif, very little Hogun, and Volstagg & Fandral getting taken out like chumps. Lady Sif & the Warriors Three deserved better than this.
I liked a lot of the new characters though. Hela was pretty badass. Skurge would have been forgettable except Karl Urban gives him such charm. And I liked Valkyrie. (BTW, this sarcastic, hard drinking Valkyrie reminds me a lot Tamsin, the sarcastic, hard drinking Valkyrie from
Lost Girl. Works for me!
)
I also liked the ironic twist where they had to fulfill the prophecy to destroy Asgard in order to save it.
Minor quibble: It's hard to remain spoiler-free about Thor losing an eye in this movie when they already showed an image of 1-eyed Thor in the
Avengers: Infinity War trailer attached before this movie!
(Oddly enough, I'd seen that trailer before but hadn't noticed Thor's eye until viewing the trailer that time!
)
Favorite moment: "I have been falling for 30 minutes!"
Second favorite moment (or perhaps just moment that will haunt my nightmares): "It's my birthday!"
)
