Friday, November 3, 2017

I liked "Thor: Rangarok"



Marvel is at an interesting point in it's movie making history.   We're, what, 20 movies in?  Now that they're past origin stories, they seem to have embraced two things:

  1. tone can vary 
  2. letting creators with a vision go a bit nuts means you aren't necessarily repeating yourself (as much)

Guardians of the Galaxy demonstrated that audiences wanted a bit of balance to grim-dark superheroes, and the abysmal approach to DC's slate of films up to Wonder Woman showed what *not* to do - so it's a bit rewarding to see Thor bounce back from what was arguably one of the weakest Marvel movies with Thor: The Dark World* and come back with the pop-corniest Marvel movie since... well, this summer's Spider-Man: Homecoming and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 were both pretty solid entries as well.  Let's just agree it's been a good year to be a Marvel movie fan.

Marvel's movies have reflected or echoed an arc not dissimilar to what has happened with the printed comics.   Hitting the stage with a surge of quick hits that were better than what we'd seen of late in the same genre, an expansion of the universe with a diversity of types of comics/ movies that reflect the milieu of each character, pulling them back together with Avengers comics/ movies as mega-events that never quite work, exactly, but do ground everyone in a single reality, then push everyone back out into their own books/ films.