Thor: Ragnarok

From the opening scene of "Thor: Ragnarok" -- the third in the "Thor" series, and the next installment in the never-ending "Avengers" cross-over films -- we know we're getting something not quite the same as the ones before. Where "Thor" and "Thor: The Dark World" had humor but were mostly serious affairs, "Thor: Ragnorok" eschews the tone of the earlier films and goes full-on comedy in an attempt to duplicate the success of "Guardians of the Galaxy." (And, to an extent, "Deadpool.")

From the constant goofy humor and use of an inexplicable '80s-insipired score by Mark Mothersbaugh (it makes the movie seem like "Flash Gordon"), this doesn't even feel like the other two films at all, which is sort of annoying, to be honest. The three credited writers have written a lot of the Marvel One-shots as well as Marvel animated films, which makes sense, as this seems like a big CGI cartoon. Oh, there will be those who love the tone and find the sometimes spoofy humor entertaining, but I honestly wasn't sure what I was even watching. Not only that, I wasn't even sure what the through line of the story was, because it didn't really have a ticking clock or any urgency to it.

Asgard is supposed to be destroyed by fire in an ancient prophecy that starts to come to fruition when Thor and Loki's sister Hela (Cate Blanchett) shows up. She's the typical slinky evil sorceress type that just wants to destroy things for whatever insane reason she has. (Hey, if you destroy things where ya' gonna live?) So Thor (Chris Hemsworth) and his evil/dear brother Loki (Tom Hiddleston) have to team up (then not team up, then team up again) to try and stop her. But first, Thor is kidnapped by the Grandmaster (a super-campy Jeff Goldblum), who puts him into a gladiator ring for sport. His first opponent? Why, Hulk, of course. Hulk (Mark Ruffalo) is big and nasty and doesn't seem to know (or care) who Thor is. They fight, they banter, they team up. Everyone teams up in this movie, even though nobody particularly likes each other. And -- surprise, surprise -- the two female leads are humorless tough gals who scowl a lot. I speak of Valykrie, played by Tessa Thompson, who struggles with a British accent while downing booze and acting like Michelle Rodriguez in a "Fast and Furious" movie.

There's a lot of flash and dazzle and wall to wall mind-numbing special effects to keep young minds working overtime, but this is just a pumped-up video game with little to no character development and an inconsequential plot. As the movie washed over me, I tried to figure out why it wasn't working. And I thought of films like the "Star Wars" trilogies. In those films, each new episode furthers the epic story with character arcs, continuing mythology, and an audience's solid investment in where the character's journeys will go. In the Marvel universe, there are only moments for these things. Otherwise, it's simply some big evil adversary that wants to destroy things, and some semi-humorous banter to liven things up. It all becomes one big shrug and indiscernible from one film to the next.

As directed by Taika Waititi (who plays a giant tree thing called Korg here), the film plays like almost a spoof of super hero movies. With past films like "Hunt for the Wilderpeople" and the hilarious "What We Do in the Shadows," he's not the most obvious choice as director. But at the same time, Disney seems to jump on bandwagons, so with the success of "Guardians" it seems they wanted to mimic the style and tone even though it's a radical shift from the last installment.

With movies like "Star Wars" we can understand the voracious desire for the next chapter. But honestly, with some of these superhero movies they are becoming so interchangeable that they could really just wait a few more years in between franchise films to get audience's desire back to a fever pitch. No one was clamoring for a "Thor" movie, especially since he appears in all the "Avengers" movies anyway. Not to mention, every time we get a side-story film focusing on one of the Avengers, more of the Avengers show up so it just seems, well, like an "Avengers" movie.

And if Disney wants to keep doing this over and over, maybe come up with a compelling storyline that will make us want to race to the next installment to find out what happens. Make it mean something. Don't make it some fire-breathing moron in a special helmet that gives them powers to destroy a planet. Because, frankly, it's getting boring. That said, who am I to say anything as the film will undoubtedly make a lot of money? At the same time -- and I never thought I'd say this -- the DC Universe is actually starting to seem more appealing. Perhaps what "Wonder Woman" did for DC, Brie Larson's "Captain Marvel" can do for Marvel. Fingers crossed.