Ragnarok and Justice League

Now to play a little catch up. Here are a couple of superhero movies that came out last November.



Thor: Ragnarok

This movie was a lot of fun, with no slow parts, plenty of action, awesome cinematography, funny dialogue, and decent plot. Yet, I found myself getting annoyed with Marvel's constant tying in with other stories in the Marvel Universe. I would have preferred if this movie were more of a standalone. In fact, you could have removed the Hulk entirely and the plot would still be intact.

Thor and his brother end up facing a new foe that could destroy Asgard. However, they become stranded on some random far away planet. Thus, they must first get off the planet and gather allies to fight this foe.

The movie is bold and is not afraid to change things up. Yet, I doubt I will remember much of the plot a year from now -- like with most Marvel movies.

And how again did the Hulk end up on the same exact planet (evidently on the Guardians of the Galaxy side)? I didn't even remember him disappearing in an earlier movie. Yes, I know that this borrows from an actual Hulk storyline from the comics, which is pretty cool, but still too much reliance on coincidences.

Most people are able to overlook this and yet blast other movies for doing less -- strange, but understandable. Marvel movies do a good job at keeping interest levels high enough so that people don't care much about the plot issues.

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Justice League (2017)

I went into the movie theater expecting a terrible movie, and maybe that helped me to enjoy it. It was ... decent. Then again, I tend to like Zack Snyder movies when others don't. I love the darker feel in these DC movies, and the more comic-book looking effects.

One of the biggest complaints against Snyder is that he tends to jam too much plot into such a short time. It becomes too much to process, and the viewer becomes lost and less able to enjoy the movie. But in "Justice League" the plot is a lot more straight forward. Big baddie shows up, the Justice League bands together, and then they try to stop the world from ending. Perhaps this was helped with the last-minute infusion of Joss Whedon's writing. Funny they should bring in the man who helped Marvel's "Avengers" to be a great success. He is the master of the ensemble script!

Yet, some characters just seem to suddenly exist, and -- big complaint from the masses -- we didn't exactly know who they were. Aquaman, Cyborg, and the Flash were all cool and in character, and there was a small bit of character development, but without having seen their origin stories, they just seemed to exist and not do much else.

As usual in Snyder films, the fight scenes are pretty cool and comic-book looking. It was worth catching in the theater, and I'd probably watch again if this happened to be on TV.

My biggest disappointment was that when it was over, there was this big "is that all?" feeling. The plot was easy to follow, but felt very thin. The resolutions at the end weren't very satisfying, though there is a cute cut-scene in the middle of the end credits.