Nowhere near as good as Ragnarok and actually bad in some places. The first half in particular feels so off. I loved Ragnarok and have no problem at all with a movie containing both comedy and drama (that's every MCU movie), but you have to take some things seriously. You can't present the movie's plot as a complete joke. There has to be stakes. But the scene where the Gods are being butchered all across the galaxy and Thor and the Guardians are watching it on tv feels like a comedy skit. The scene with Sif even more so (though "maybe your arm's in Valhalla" was one of the funnier lines.) These are the scenes that establish the threat of the rest of the movie and they're a total joke, so how can I take anything else seriously?
I liked Korg in Ragnarok (I won't mention Ragnarok again, just making the point that I don't have a problem with this type of movie) but he got really annoying here. None of his lines were particularly funny (though I kind of smiled at Dwayne the Rock) and many made me cringe. I felt relieved when he died - and thought maybe it would be the point where Thor starts taking things more seriously - but of course he just comes back to life right away as the blowjob paving slab from Doctor Who because nothing matters it's all stupid.
Things improve a bit as it goes on and it actually got good when it switched to black and white. It felt like a proper movie for a while there and the fight scene with the shadow monsters on the moon was cool. I kind of liked the kids getting powered up and fighting back, it was cute. But when it ended the movie felt too short because it only really go good in the last third. Why did we need to spend like three minutes on the stage play cameo fest which wasn't as funny as the one in Ragnarok and didn't have the plot relevance that one had (it was where Thor figured out Odin was really Loki)?
Natalie was great: she's a great actress. The cancer plot has some weight to it (as you'd hope!) but even that I felt could have been better. If the first time we saw Jane in the movie she was already Thor then we gradually found out about the cancer through flashbacks at it went on I feel it could have avoided the tonal whiplash of Thor being a total clown with the guardians cutting right to Jane in chemo. Thor and Jane have a nice scene on the boat talking about her cancer but it's interrupted right away by another stupid Korg line. It would be like if Odin's death scene in Ragnarok had ended with Thor comically stumbling and falling off the cliff. There was a brief sweet flashback to Thor and Jane on rollerblades that I really wanted to see more of. Basically the movie could have used a lot more of the actual romance and less of the jokes about Thor's ex hammer.
Christian Bale was good but again the total lack of God butchering hurt a lot. And really given that every God we see in the movie apart from Thor is evil or insane I can't say I felt any stakes in his evil plan. Having him act like the Child Catcher from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang in one scene was certainly...a choice.
Tessa Thompson was fun as always (great English accent too) but Val has nothing in the way of an arc. There's one scene where Fucking Korg (I LIKED HIM BEFORE) recaps her romantic history...but that's it. I thought for sure she'd be shown on a date at the end with the girl she flirted with on God City but no.
So yeah there's good stuff here and probably a good movie in there but the first hour was almost painful at times. DISAPPOINTING (I'm referencing Hercules because there's a Hercules in it.)
