GOAT CHARIOT!!!!!!!

Thor becomes the first MCU character to have four solo films. 

Lucky thing they left his arc incomplete after Endgame.

Once more planning ahead in general means my reviews are late, therefore I will not worry about spoilers.

As much as I enjoyed Ragnarok...

(Very much. That is how much I enjoyed it.)

I was concerned that its success would push the next outing too far into more comedy and more cosmic, and get distant from the core of Thor.

I was pleasantly surprised. The cold opening with Gorr's origin was dark and bleak.

(I was also surprised at myself for being pleasantly surprised with "dark and bleak" making it a meta-surprise as well.

I would also have a much easier time writing if I could spell "surprise" correctly, or even consistently, without going back to fix it every time.) 

The regular opening with Thor and the Guardians was what I expected the whole film to be: entertaining, but overly goofy. 

Fortunately, while it was fun, it was also short.

The movie stayed serious where it needed to be.

Gorr's mindset and quest.

Jane's illness.

Even Thor and Jane's past relationship break up and current rekindling, while it had light moments, was played straight for the most part.

The Marvel universe has a lot of ridiculous things (Examples- every mythological pantheon existing and interacting, or weapons that are sentient) and those were handled tongue in cheek to acknowledge their silliness while keeping them in the context of the film.

Presenting it this way made Zeus both laughable, and terrifying at the same time.

(And given Olympians have golden blood, that was THE GORIEST fight scene in the entire MCU, including Deadpool.)

I was also pleasantly surprised how well the film balanced the superhero/ cosmic / and mythological aspects of Thor that show up in the comics. 

Zeus and Eternity in the same film! The Marvel cosmology/ Mythology are out in force across multiple story lines. With all the Fantastic Four rumblings, Galactus has to have an impressive showing. Woo!

Thor's arc is still about determining who he is. It was shown with the humor of the film. His early attempts at inspirational, heroic speeches are hilariously awful, but as his story unfolds, he has more sincerity behind what he's saying, until by the end he is truly inspiring to the children. That acts as a transition from "god" to "superhero." Most gods in the film are shown to be self absorbed hedonists. By the end, Thor inspires and empowers (metaphorically and literally) the captured children to be the best they can be, as superheroes should.

(And yes, we love bunny girl!)

Jane has an impressive arc of acceptance of her condition, as well as the heroism inherent in making every moment count. Its another fine example in fiction showing its not the amount of time we have, but what we do with it that is important. The CGI making her newly buffed form look taller was outstanding in how it remained unnoticed.

Korg was fun, Val was a powerful leader and fighter, and the goats were screaming all the time. 

Yes, they didn't do that in mythology or the comic books, but taking an aspect of the legends that's already goofy as heck before putting it in a movie and making it EVEN MORE ridiculous, acknowledging it, made them work in context. 

The dark parts were dark...

really dark. 

And the villain was scary. 

But the comedy made the darkness bearable. 

Overall, fun exciting and bring on some more!

This is the problem with getting way ahead on my writing. It lets me focus on what I want to write and I end up with less to say in the reviews for recent stuff to fill in the gaps.

Oh yeah, almost forgot.

Why didn't they use the "Eternity Wish" to fix Thanos.

Out of story answer- because then Endgame would be ten minutes long and boring.

In story answer- Because Tony's Gauntlet gave the level of control required to undo the snap that near immortals knew isn't available with a standard wish, which almost always ends up in a "Monkey's Paw" situation. (Remember Gorr's altruistic wish still resulted in his own death.)