This month has given us the release of 2 big super hero movies from both sides of the house. On the Marvel side, Thor: Ragnarok was released, and on the DC side, we had Justice League. Now if you look at sheer critic reviews, it's very clear as to who won the month of November, however, if you look at the audience reviews, that becomes a little less clear as both films are very close in audience reception. I am going to talk about what I like and disliked about both of these films, so here is a spoiler disclaimer. Both films have passed their opening weekend, so I feel like there has been an adequate amount of time for people to have seen the films.
Let's start with Thor: Ragnarok, the latest installation to both the MCU and the Thor story. This movie is a great film. It's fun, it's whimsical, and it has some amazing action scenes. However, it's strongest point was based in the Planet Hulk story line on the Planet Sakarr. The introduction of characters like Korg (who is easily my favorite character of the film), and the PTSD inflicted Valkyrie were great. Then obviously the fight between Thor and Hulk was a huge highlight of the film for me as it show cases what I have been telling people for years: if Hulk and Thor went all out against each other, Hulk would get wrecked. The only reason why hulk gets to win is because of outside intervention from the Grand master (played brilliantly by Jeff Goldblum). Yet, as great as this part of the movie is, the part that left a rather large distaste in my mouth was how they handled the Asgard side of things.
While there were certainly silver linings to this part of the plot in Cate Blanchet's Hela. and Idris Elba's renegade Heimdall, this part of the film actually upset me. To start with the smaller sins, Karl Urban's Skurge really didn't sit well with me at all. The stoic and cold berserker that serves as the executioner to the Enchantress in the comics is supposed to be a bad ass that Even Thor has a great deal of respect for as a warrior. In this film he is reduced to comic relief and a stooge, and while he may ultimately have been redeemed by sacrificing himself, this is far from what I had hoped to see in this film. The callous destruction of Asgard by Surtur as the means to defeat the villain was also greatly upsetting, especially after realizing that for a third time Thor is not the one who defeats the film's villain, but instead he uses outside help. This has become a rather annoying trend, while I understood this to be part of the lesson he was supposed to learn in the first Thor film, he has not defeated single-handed a major foe since then. This is not a trope that I would have wished for Marvel's god of Thunder and it's disappointing to say the least. However, the biggest thing that left a massive distaste in my mouth was how Taika Waititi killed the Warriors Three. Now, I realize the Warriors three are side characters that have had very small roles since the first film, however, that's not the point. The point is that the Warriors Three and Lady Sif are Thor's BEST friends. These are people that he had gone on countless adventures with over centuries, maybe even millennia, and yet they are killed off like no name extras (with exception of Hogun). Let me be clear, I don't mind that these characters died, I mind that they died in such an undignified way. Volstagg and Vandral are the first people to die by Hela, and they just get destroyed. There is no dignity in their deaths, they look like porcupines with the amount of knives they had coming out of them. Then Hogun fares a bit better, but still is ultimately wrecked much the same, but the gravest insult is that we get no reaction of this from Thor. Sure there was a lot going on in this film, but you mean to tell me that Thor wouldn't have thought to ask Heimdall what happened to his BEST FRIENDS during Hela's invasion? Maybe see if they had survived and were helping Heimdall gather refugees? Ultimately this deprives us of seeing a more human element to Thor's character as he has lost not only his hammer at this point, but his battle buddies. It's honestly unacceptable.
All that being said, I want to be clear that I still enjoyed Thor: Ragnarok a lot. I feel that if it were it's own movie that didn't have an established universe it would have been one of Marvel's best, but as it was attached to the character of Thor and the world that surrounded him, I had just hoped for better. Now time to move onto Justice League.
Before I talk about League, I already did a spoiler free review of the film on this very blog, so please check that out. I would also like to preface that in a choice between DC and Marvel I will always pick Marvel as that's what I grew up with and they have my top 3 favorite comic book characters in it. That being said, I enjoyed Justice League far more than I enjoyed Thor: Ragnarok. Justice League honestly was the most fun I've had watching a movie since Spider-Man: Homecoming and I was grinning for most of the film. I grew up watching Justice League and Justice League:Unlimited, so watching this film bring together a League that sorta mirrored the spirit of that show was just so much fun to watch. It was great to see Batman shouldering the death of Superman, and also for the movie to focus on the more human aspects of Bruce's character. In fact one of the strongest it scenes of the film is Wonder Woman helping Batman out of the Bat suit after seeing that his back is covered in bruises. Their exchange about it both shows Diana's compassion and Bruce's steadfast will and determination to the mission. Superman was a show stealer in this film, aside from the noticable removal of the mustache with CG, this is the Big Blue that people have been waiting for. He is considerably lighter in tone, he has some pretty corny dialogue at times, and outside of when they revive him, he is smiling for most of the film. Also the scene where Superman is able to see Flash while he's travelling through the Speedforce and track him was hilarious, and it gives you a scope of just how powerful the Man of Steel is. Not much needs to be said of Wonder Woman, she just continues to do right what she did in her solo film. Where the film shines most is in the DC Trinity, which honestly is fine by me.
Now that being said, there are some immense narrative issues. The first 45 minutes are hard to watch, not because it's boring or anything, but because they jump around so much that it's utterly confusing. One moment, Batman is on a rooftop confronting a parademon, next thing you know WE'RE IN ICELAND! Problems like that exist throughout the entire first act, and while there is enough good peppered through there to allow you to stomach it, those first 45 minutes are certainly a chore in comparison to the rest of the film. Steppenwolf is easily the films weakest link, I am only putting him in the negative column because despite going into the film with literally no expectations of this character to be anything but a giant muscle that brings the league together, most people do not have the background in comics that I have and therefore could have been expecting something akin to Loki in the first Avengers film. However, where this film suffers the most is in the other members of the League. While all the casts' portrayals are great, I felt robbed of more story on Momoa's Aquaman, Ezra's Flash, or Ray's Cyborg. There was a lot of footage cut from this film to fit it's 2 hour runtime and honestly, that is the most notable flaw. All these characters are great, but I feel we are only given diet versions of them because the scenes that were supposed to help you understand them and their purpose in the film were all cut from it. Once Again, Warner Bros prove to be the biggest Achilles heel for the DC cinematic universe as they decided they knew better than the film makers on what should be presented. While I doubt we will get an extended or Snyder cut of the film, I honestly am curious to see what it would have been like with those scenes in there. I would have liked to see more of the other characters in the League, just to kind of feel their presence a bit more.
Ultimately, Thor: Ragnarok was the better superhero film in November. It's narrative was far less clunky and despite my own reservations about how they handled Asgard, the movie does deserve it's B+ or A-. That being said, Justice League was truly a win for DC, at least to me, as for the first time (outside Wonder Woman) my friends and I that left the theater could only debate on how much we all enjoyed the film rather than what we didn't enjoy about it. To me it was far more fun than Thor, and while it might not be a better movie, if I were to chose a film to go see again it would be Justice League.
Well this has been another edition of Comic Relief! I hope you have enjoyed and I will see you next time!
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