I know it’s been out for a few months and I just got around to watching it last night. Full disclosure, I haven’t seen the second Thor movie yet.
I am starting to think that either I have aged out of the Marvel super hero movies, or I was never that into them in the first place. I loved the first Thor movie as with most of the solo Marvel movies. In fact of all the Marvel movies I have seen the only two I didn’t care for were the first Punisher movie from the last go round and Daredevil. I know those aren’t Marvel Studios movies but I am talking any movie featuring Marvel Comics characters. So how did I find myself watching Thor 3 and not enjoying the movie?
I felt the movies have not gotten to a point where they are all basically just mini-Avengers films now instead of stand-alone superhero pictures. This has become a bit of a chore trying to keep up with all of the movies, but even beyond that it’s starting to introduce unnecessary clutter into the film. I get these are Marvel Cinematic Universe films, but I kind of miss the days when you could watch a solo movie and the only connection to the other films were throw away references or end-credit scenes. Now it’s gotten to the point where if you miss one or two you could go into a stand alone sequel and be totally lost. I am not even sure if it is entirely possible to just watch the three Thor movies as JUST Thor movies. I haven’t seen Thor 2 but I can already tell if you missed Winter Soldier, Guardians of the Galaxy, Doctor Strange and Civil War, among who knows how many others, you could go into this movie totally lost.
How about the movie by itself then? Screw it, I honestly cannot take this movie on its own, there was just too much going on that I know I missed by not watching certain other movies. I know who Doctor Strange is, sort of, from the comic books, but I am getting older I haven’t ready any comics since I was much younger, so I shouldn’t have to watch a throw away side movie in this grand shared universe just to make sense of the third movie in what should have been a stand alone series with just connections to the larger Avengers movies. Okay, so now it’s gotten to the point where you can’t just keep up with the main line you have to follow all the side movies. I remember the days when reading those epic cross overs that it would be cumbersome trying to track down all the different issues from the off books that weren’t in my regular reading list. X-Men were among the worst when it came to cross overs. For all the love the Marvel Movies get, I prefer how the X-Men films do it where each movie does loosely references each other but could each stand alone as they often ignore one another.
Okay enough rambling now what did I actually think of the movie? I guess if I had seen these other films it wouldn’t feel overwhelming because there were just a lot of things going on that didn’t make sense within the context of this individual film. That in itself made it harder for me to enjoy the film. Yes, the action was good, the characters were true to their previous portrayals and the over all plot was largely convoluted to the point where it felt like all they were doing was using this as either a filler movie to get to the next chapter of The Avengers or just using it as a cash in to keep the wheels going.
As far as this film being a commercial for the movies I haven’t seen goes, yeah well it would be easier if there wasn’t one of these films coming out a month for 12 months out of the year.
Stephanie Bri 