Thor: Ragnarok (2017)

Tagline: “Thunder will rain” Punchy enough but clearly a written by a secret East 17 fan...

Or was that song really about Thor? East 17 also had a top ten hit called Let It Rain. So I think we all know the secret here.

Premise: Ahem. Moving swiftly on. Thor gets banished to another planet while his previously completely unmentioned sister wreaks merry Hell on Asgard. All shot on location.

Delivery: I've enjoyed the superhero film renaissance, or rather I did initially. Particularly nice was finally getting to see a convincing Spiderman film (the Andrew Garfield one, the latest came too late for me to give a monkey's), who was one of my favourites as a child. But if I had to pinpoint where I began to feel a bit underwhelmed by them, it would probably be Avengers: Age of Ultron. Or possibly Iron Man 3. Either way I'm now very fatigued by the whole superhero movement, bordering on actually finding them a danger to original film making. For some reason however, I always got on with the Thor films quite well, so I decided to give Thor: Ragnarok a go.

Much like The Last Jedi, Thor: Ragnarok's humour levels are what make the film. Only with Ragnarok for me it wasn't the difference between just north of apathy and really enjoying it, the humour was what stopped me walking out. Chris Hemsworth is arguably a better comic actor than dramatic, his timing and variety of delivery keep the dialogue unpredictable and entertaining. He was also absolutely hilarious in Ghostbusters, which was criminally maltreated by fans and critics. Thor's breezy, knowing script is hardly Network, but at least they aren't trying to sell it as in any way serious. I have eyes.

Thor: Ragnarok is a kid's film, with about as much threat as Despicable Me. Which is fine, but I really do not get all the grown men who seem to be mad for it like it's doctrinal or something. Although having said that I don't get going mad for doctrine, either. I'll whizz through the completely unimportant “plot” (without spoilers). Thor fights with CGI monsters, his long hidden sister, Hela, turns up and tries to take Asgard. She's played by Cate Blanchett, channeling The Crow, if Brandon Lee had a collagen addiction, and she's called Hela. We know this because at every opportunity she tells other characters she's, "Hela". Which had me thinking of Eric Cartman, who frankly would have been a better villain.

Blanchett delivers the comedy well, when given lines allowing it, but her costume and army are about as scary as something from Narnia. Mr Tumnus's shit. There we are; Hela's army and rip off dire wolf are as scary as Mr Tumnus pushing out a warm, coiled, furry, human-goat turd. Onto the White Witch's chest. Too far? Good. All the while Hela's wasting time announcing her name in Asgard, Thor and Loki are trapped on a distant planet and must rush back before she's greeted every civilian in the city. The planet they're trapped on is bonkers, too, it looks like Roy Lichtenstein designed a David Bowie wet dream. Camper than Freddie Mercury and Kenneth Williams having a pillow fight. Actually Freddie was pretty hard, I reckon he'd drop the pillows and... I'm going to stop my chain of thought there I think. Already let the Narnia thing run away from me.

Bedsit it? Meh. I made it though, mostly pretty entertained and not finding anything past, “this isn't really for me” to be offended by. The effects are good but the story is a bit zzzzzz, it's the banter between the characters which kept me watching. If you have kids and/ or are a comic book geek, you'll probably love it, for me, two hours ticking over happily enough, now consigned to the will never watch again bin. 6/10