1. So, why can Marvel Studios churn out competent, entertaining superhero movies seemingly at will, while DC Entertainment gets caught in so much Sturm und Drang every time it puts out one of its overwrought productions? With the exception of the excellent Wonder Woman, which I think shows the best potential of being a tent-pole of any film that DC has produced, all their movies seem just terribly... fraught. Thor: Ragnarok, on the other hand, is everything one would want from a film in this genre: fun characters, fantastical action, visual thrills, a little humor, and some heroism at its core.
2. Like many films these days, the CGI stuff got a little too big for my taste: my favorite Marvel movie is still Ant-Man, in part because the stake were so relatively small. But given that this movie focuses on a epic chapter in the history of Asgard, I guess it can be forgiven for being huge. And truth be told, for all that it was an apocalyptic tale, there were a lot of small bits as well - Thor with Dr. Strange, with Odin, with Hulk, with Valkyrie, and of course, with Loki.
3. I gotta give credit for diversity. We're starting to see worlds on screen inhabited by people who more resemble those in the world we live in, and that's great.
4. I'm going to say it: Stan Lee's cameos are getting tiresome.
5. Many years ago, I read an article in a fan magazine - Amazing Heroes or A Comics Reader or something like that - in which a writer asserted that many of Jack Kirby's visuals would never work anywhere but on the comics page. He said that certainly in live action, and even in animation, some of the King's costume designs were just too much for reality, as wonderful and beautiful as the looked on the page. He gave Hela's headdress as an example of this notion.
He was wrong.
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