Thor: Ragnarok

Thor: Ragnarok isn't as great as the trailer makes it out to be. The humor is different, but it felt too much like it was from a gag reel instead of an actual movie. Led Zeppelin's "Immigrant Song" is basically the best part of the movie.

I haven't seen either of the first two Thor movies, and I don't really feel like I need to. The trailer for Ragnarok looked cool, probably mostly because they used Led Zeppelin's "Immigrant Song." That song pretty much made the entire movie, too. At least it's apropos, since it's about Vikings. It's also crazy that it came out *50* years ago.

The movie had a weird sense of humor. You could say it's because the director is from New Zealand, but the writers were American. A lot of the jokes seemed like they were from the gag reel, even the opening one with Thor twisting on the chains. And they kind of overdid it when they kept going with that joke.

The Avengers

The Avengers got too much hype, and it went on for too long. It missed the mark in a lot of ways, but the dialogue was good. Tom Hiddleston pretty much made the movie as Loki, and I like Chris Hemsworth and Robert Downey Jr., too.

Somehow, I haven't been able to see The Avengers until now. I did request it from the library four months ago, but the library system in this county really sucks in terms of having enough media for the amount of patrons they serve. So, I'm late to the party, and I already knew all of the funny/interesting scenes.

I'm not a fangirl; I'm not into comics at all, but I've spent enough time around them to be bored to tears. I haven't seen The Hulk or Iron Man. I've seen enough parts of Thor and Captain America to know I'm not interested in the rest. I did like Iron Man 2, and I liked Hellboy. They should've brought him in, too. But I guess he's not Marvel.

The Avengers movie got way too much hype, at least in my circles. I heard about it for months before it came out. I didn't like the marketing, either. Too full of itself, maybe. I wasn't expecting a whole lot out of the movie. I do like the Iron Man character, and Robert Downey, Jr., and that aspect was good. The light on Tony Stark's chest is always a distraction for me. I imagine filmmakers are always thinking about when and to what extent it should be visible. I don't think they always made the right decision on that in this movie. Chris Hemsworth does a great Thor; that's a character I enjoy, too. Ruffalo was good.

I watched the featurette on the DVD, and I think it was Whedon (maybe not though) who said something like, "You'll always see Chris Evans as Steve Rogers now, it overrides all his other roles." No, actually, I won't. I see him as the guy from The Losers, which I liked better than this movie, anyway, thank you very much. I like Evans, but he looks kind of weird as Captain America. It doesn't really work for me.

Johansson did a fine job with Black Widow. Renner didn't do anything for me as Hawkeye, though. Loki was a great villain. That part totally worked for me from his first scene. Tom does a leer that's perfect for the role. Going in, I felt like the plot was going to be kind of dumb, but Tom at least made that part of the movie better than I was expecting it to be. I loved what they did with his hair, too; the little bits curling up in the back were a great touch.

Shutter Island

This movie has a lot going for it. Scorsese's a great director, DiCaprio's a great actor. The overall production is solid. The ending wasn't exactly a surprise, and it's still a bit more ambiguous than I'd like, although I'm not sure what could've been done to change that.

Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind

While watching this movie, I thought, "The last time I disliked characters this much was when I saw Being John Malkovich," and sure enough..this was written by the same man. Unfortunately, this didn't grab me the way that did, and it was even tougher to sit through. I think I may have to write off Mr. Kaufman altogether, no pun intended.

Zodiac

Despite the fact that this version is much better than The Zodiac, I didn't nearly fall asleep during The Zodiac like I did while watching this. The aesthetics here are more interesting, as is the tack of focusing less on the killings and more on the people affected by them. It also has a more solid, satisfying ending.