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Oh I have another one. Thor Ragnarok. People loved it because they liked the Thor character and found his earlier films too dull or something, but I loved that they were unapologetically serious about themselves, using comedy in ways that felt very authentic to the characters.
But Ragnarok? It came out later the same year as this excellent essay about bathos, and it was dripping in it. I was hyper tuned to the problem with bathos, and it leaned even harder into that took than nearly any other MCU film did.
What sucks so much is that it had the bones of a really good dramatic story. The Bruce Banner/Hulk storyline had built up over multiple previous films, and come the climax of this film it's established that he's in Bruce form now and has enough control to stay that way, but if he transforms into Hulk it'll be a big deal and he may never be able to be himself again. So they arrive in Asgard at the climax of the film and it's pretty urgent. In a dramatic moment you can see him steel himself to make the sacrifice; he jumps out of their aircraft onto the rainbow bridge, clearly intending to transform into Hulk to fight Fenris.
…and he splats. Faceplants on the bridge. Still in human form. It's played for laughs. The ultimate conclusion of Hulk's story in this movie and probably the most important moment of his arc over the entire MCU to this point, and it's undercut by a joke. Not even a very funny one. A slapstick joke that would make Charlie Chaplin cringe.
And it means nothing, because the very next shit, he's transformed anyway and throwing Fenris around like a doll.
Not to mention it undermines the verisimilitude of the movie. I can suspend my disbelief in these movies pretty hard, but Bruce Banner, in human form, is meant to be painfully average, physically speaking. He should have died from that fall, given he didn't transform. That's certainly not the worst thing about the moment, but it is was the sprinkling of salt on top of the wound that just made it that little bit worse.
That moment was the worst bit, but the film as a whole was full of lazy humour and bathos, and it was really just the worst example of what was wrong with a lot of MCU movies at the time. I was shocked to hear so few people came away disliking it in the same way I did.
I'm sorry but all the previous Thor movies (and the one after this) are ASS. Ragnarok is the only good Thor movie.
Sorry, and you're entitled to enjoy what you enjoy, but it's just not good. Fundamentally undermining your own characters within your own story, let alone undermining arcs that have built up over multiple movies before you, at the climax of those characters' arcs, does not a good movie make.
I really don't like this sentiment. First of all because it doesn't match my experience on the ground, where many of the most highly-regarded superhero films do take themselves quite seriously. The first two Toby Maguire Spiderman films. First two X-Men films. (And, the third of each of those trilogies also takes itself seriously but is not as good. But the point isn't that being serious is automatically good, but that being serious is in no way a detriment to being a good film.) The Nolan Batman trilogy and The Batman, as well as The Penguin from a live-action TV perspective. Logan received widespread critical acclaim even outside of the comic book world. Or we can leave the live action realm and look at cartoons like BTAS, whose excellent dark tone basically defined what the title character should be like, and whose early crossover with STAS often received favourable comparisons to the far inferior Batman v Superman live action film two decades later.
But even if there weren't good counter-examples, I wouldn't like that sentiment, because it's essentially admitting "it's impossible to make a superhero film that is also good". And I fundamentally do not agree with that defeatist message. The superhero genre is one that is capable of a great range of tones and subject matter and of instilling a wide range of emotions in its audience.
Ragnarok was good though? Entertaining and overall engaging. The original was a snooze fest, dark world is AWFUL and ugly looking. The last one is as bad only with bad jokes and unfinished CGI
While I still just fundamentally disagree with your assessment that "Ragnarok was good though", what's definitely true is that calling Ragnarok good is utterly irrelevant in response to this specific comment.
Because this isn't about Ragnarok. It's about the notion that comic book adaptations can be taken seriously at all.
How is that any different than Ragnarok?
Most of the jokes landed in Ragnarok and you don't see Thor jumping like an idiot, he actually has badass moments
Some of the jokes land, "most" is debatable. The few badass and dramatic moments are ruined by being immediately followed by some slapstick bullshit.