First off:
Fantastic !!!!!!!! This is a "hella" of alot of fun and I "doug" nearly all of it.
BUTTTTTTTT........
I was surprised about what they did and didn't alter from the trailers again. It doesn't half throw you off when you see scenes that have been redone and changed but on the positive side it made the journey a bit more unpredictable and stronger,but you will be shocked by some of the changes,just keep your eye open for them.
Happily I guess most will be glad to hear they kept the Zeppelin track, it tops and tails the movie and it certainly rocks and by the God of Thunder, what an openning AND finale!!!!! Brilliant.
Tonally ,it kind of felt like "Flash Gordon" at times (though obviously its light years better) with lots of throwback puns (including one to the original "Willie Wonka" movie) , and the visual style and soundtrack felt very retro, particularly once they get off Assgard.
Without wishing to spoil much, if you remember the way you felt about the first time you saw Guardians of the Galaxy, then you will likely to love nearly all of this. I laughed far more often than I thought I would, even though I really liked and enjoyed the directors previous work anyway, and the chemistry between all the cast works fantastically well, with only a couple of jokes falling flat on their face (though I did still howl with laughter and wolfed the bulk of them down without any problems). Its a damn funny movie and it works because the cast were obviously having tons of fun improvising and you'll not need to get help spotting the jokes, they mostly land on the nose.
Kudos to Tessa Thompson AND Taika, I loved what their characters brought to the movie, Jeff G as the grandmaster is played with a very light touch and Cate B is wonderfully over the top, though she did disappear for most of the second half of the film ,when the focus has to be on Thors Revengers, and I even liked Skurges story arc (if not his accent). And ,for once ,Antony Hopkins didn't feel like he slept through most of this (he does the other thing).
I get some people will think the story is "slight" and it is, it has nothing on the scale of "The Winter Soldiers" complexity and the seriously darker under tones ( even though this is Ragnorak) , but there still are some surprising casualties , but ,do you know what, I came out of this with the biggest grin on my face after it and I actually ached a bit from the amount of laughing I'd done.
Job done Taika!!!!
Loved it
PS :Two end of scenes. The first is pretty brief but makes sense it terms of the Infinity Wars, whilst the other at the very end is hardly a revolution in laughs and not essential viewing so you could skip it unless you want to sit through all the VFXs credits (and I think I counted thirteen different companys that supplied them on this film!!!)