RageLite review - Thor: Ragnarok

After Catwoman, I need a bit of a palate cleanser, so let’s return to the Marvel Cinematic Universe and Thor: Ragnarok.

Of the Avengers characters who’ve had multiple solo movies, Thor’s have undoubtedly been the weakest. Whilst Loki remained one of Marvel’s strongest villains, the films themselves often felt bland and boring. This was particularly the case with the Dark World, which ended up being quite a divisive movie.

It’s all change for Ragnarok though. Natalie Portman, who allegedly hated filming the Dark World, is gone, and once again, we have a new director, this time Taika Waititi. The overall style and tone from the first two movies is to get a massive overhaul, but I’ll leave that for the review portion. Waititi’s past experience is in comedy, with his directing credits including “What we do in the Shadows” and “Hunt for the Wilderpeople,” neither of which I’ve seen but they’re both critical and commercial successes.

And the trend would continue here, Thor Ragnarok would go onto make $890m on its $180m budget and scoring a 92% Rotten Tomatoes rating with an average 7.52/10 and an 89% audience rating with a 4.2/5 average. All these figures exceed the previous Thor movies, but is it worth the reception, here’s my take

Marvel Month - Mini Review - Thor: The Dark World

Ah, we return with another Thor movie and it’s the worst rated movie of all of them. By the time of this review coming out Thor: Ragnarok would be in cinemas, given the trailers it looks to be quite a substantial change in direction for it with more of a Guardians of the Galaxy-eque feel, and yes, we’ll get to those movies. And also, a notable absence of Jane Foster and her cronies and we’ll definitely be getting to that. Still, the movie was financially successful enough that a sequel was green-lit and ultimately the reviews aren’t that bad. It’s still better rated than Batman v Superman… I’m just rambling, let’s take a look.

Marvel Month - Mini Review - The Avengers/Avengers Assemble

Next up in Marvel Month, it’s Time for Avengers assemble

I’ve already done a review of that, and a lot of my complaints still stand is it goes into *sigh* its 4^th season, that said I have seen improvements. But this time we’re looking at the other Avengers Assemble

Known as The Avengers in the US, the title was changed to not be mistaken for the British The Avengers, the Nostalgia Critic did his review on that and I have no unique perspective to cover it as I’ve never seen it, it’s a little before my time.

But Avengers Assemble was a massive gamble for Marvel, with a hefty $220m budget, a large cast and the pressure of being that movie everything was all building up to, this movie blew everyone away, meeting their expectations and of course, for Disney, who had recently acquired Marvel, made over $1bn at the box office, $1.5bn to be more precise. This is also the first Marvel movie I ever watched, at the cinema with my soon-to-be uni housemates.

But 2012 was a way away, does it still hold up, let’s take a closer look.

Marvel Month - Mini Review - Thor

Well, it’s time for another movie that isn’t an Iron Man one, and who better than the God of Thunder himself, Thor. Released in 2011 this movie earned nearly $450m on a $150m budget and has a 77% rating on Rotten Tomatoes But let’s just dive straight in shall we?

After a series of rash decisions lead Thor to reigniting a war with the frost giants, Thor is banished to Midgard, Earth, to relearn what it is to be worthy. But with S.H.I.E.L.D. laying claim to his hammer and Loki making claim to the throne of Asgard, it will not be easy for Thor.

4 issue Test #24 - The Mighty Thor

Yeah... me using variant covers might become a thing, still it's one of the best-looking so far

When the God of Thunder became the Goddess of Thunder the move was marked with controversy. Sure, female superheroes are not many and move helps balance that, but is the right way? There’s no easy answer to that, despite what some people think. Here’s my view. Making Thor a woman (in the same way they made the Punisher black for a few issues) would’ve been a mistake because it's a stupid plot-line with an instant reverse button if things go wrong. Making a woman Thor is what Marvel actually did. Just like they made a Hispanic Spider-man (Miles Morales), a Black Captain America (Sam Wilson) etc. It’s not ideal, especially in the latter case where the man in question already had an alter-ego (the Falcon). But I’d take that over changing a character because universe reset – yeah, I’m talking to you DC Wally West!

TV Retrospective: Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes season 1 episodes 21-26

TV Retrospective: Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes Season 1 episodes 1-5

With Avengers: Age of Ultron having come out only a few months back, it’s time I think to look at the Avengers cartoon

NO NOT THAT PIECE OF SH*T (Season 2 review coming when season 2 is done)

No, for this retrospective we’ll be looking at the full and complete run of Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes.

Because of the long season lengths and the fact that I have other shows I want to do retrospectives on I will do each series in 5 parts (so 10 overall) so let’s dive into the first 5 episodes of the series.