The Monuments Men (2014): adapted by George Clooney and Grant Heslov from the book by Robert M. Edsel and Bret Witter; directed by George Clooney; starring George Clooney (Stokes), Matt Damon (Granger), Bill Murray (Campbell), Cate Blanchett (Claire), John Goodman (Garfield), Jean Dujardin (Jean-Claude), Hugh Bonneville (Donald), Bob Balaban (Savitz), and Dimitri Leonidas (Sam Epstein):
A WWII movie so episodic that it seems as if it had been edited down from a 6-hour miniseries. The real-life concept is fascinating -- the Allies create a team to save art and literary treasures from the Nazis as World War Two draws to an end. The cast's main strength is its affability in a movie that lacks any real comedic or dramatic highs, a trait the movie shares with another George Clooney directorial effort, Leathernecks. A mild diversion, but nothing more. Lightly recommended.
Thor: Ragnarok (2017): based on characters and stories by Jack Kirby, Walt Simonson, Sal Buscema, Larry Lieber, Stan Lee, and others; written by Eric Pearson, Craig Kyle, and Christopher Yost; directed by Taika Waititi; starring Chris Hemsworth (Thor), Tom Hiddleston (Loki), Cate Blanchett (Hela), Idris Elba (Heimdall), Mark Ruffalo (Banner/Hulk), Tessa Thompson (Valkyrie), Jeff Goldblum (Grandmaster), Anthony Hopkins (Odin), Taika Waititi (Korg), Benedict Cumberbatch (Dr. Strange), Clancy Brown (Surtur), and Karl Urban (Skurge the Executioner):
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The off-beat jolliness and humour of this Marvel entry only grows on a small screen. One wishes Joss Whedon had the leeway to make as jolly a superhero movie. Chris Hemsworth is a comic revelation, closely followed by Mark Ruffalo himself as Bruce Banner and in motion-capture CGI as Banner's Hulkish alter ego. All that and so much design work based on Jack Kirby's art, right down to Hela's head-dress and all those weird circuit diagrams painted on every wall. Highly recommended.
Thor: Ragnarok (2017): based on characters and stories by Jack Kirby, Walt Simonson, Sal Buscema, Larry Lieber, Stan Lee, and others; written by Eric Pearson, Craig Kyle, and Christopher Yost; directed by Taika Waititi; starring Chris Hemsworth (Thor), Tom Hiddleston (Loki), Cate Blanchett (Hela), Idris Elba (Heimdall), Mark Ruffalo (Banner/Hulk), Tessa Thompson (Valkyrie), Jeff Goldblum (Grandmaster), and Karl Urban (Skurge the Executioner): Almost too jolly and jaunty an entry in the Marvel Movie Sweepstakes, given the death toll in the movie. Reducing Gotterdammerung to a punchline seems both too much and not enough.
Oh, well. Thor: Ragnarok is also the Marvel movie that looks most like the comic books it's based on, particularly Jack Kirby's 1960's work on Thor and Walt Simonson's writer-artist duties on his great Thor run of the 1980's.
The tone is really more Simonson than Kirby -- there was a jocularity and a sense of the absurd to his run, though he was better than the film-makers at balancing the epic and the absurd. Full credit to director Taika Waititi, whose What We Do In the Shadows was an absurdly hilarious faux-documentary.
The movie goes on about 15 minutes' worth of CGI battles too long. All the actors are as fresh and lively as in any Marvel production to date, and Cate Blanchett camps it up as super-villain Hela, whose crazy head-piece comes right off the Jack Kirby pages (so, too, the designs of many of the aliens in campy Jeff Goldblum's space-court, extras from Kirby's 1970's space-god saga The Eternals). Even Bruce Banner and the Hulk are funny. Recommended.
