Thor: Ragnarok Reviews - 12 Critical Reactions You Need To Know

4. The Stakes Are Disappointingly Low

"If there can be anything negative to say about Thor: Ragnarok, it might be that it’s a bit too light: the stakes, while urgent, never feel quite as earthshaking as advertised, and no one seems especially affected by what should be considered significant events in the MCU...In the end it all feels a little bit weightless." - Den of Geek

"That’s another big problem with Thor: Ragnarok...The movie rushes through so much, treating everything so breezily and facetiously, that it undercuts any real sense of importance or menace offered by the notion of the end of all things. When Big Dramatic Moments do happen — and there are a few — they’re jarringly weightless. This is Diet Ragnarok." - IGN

"Joyous though its clowning is, the film occasionally feels too glib. Heavier emotional beats, including wide-scale slaughter and the loss of a major character, are all but swept away in a format ill-equipped to deal with sobriety." - Empire

"The laughter and grandeur overshadows almost everything else. Ragnarok is missing the emotional core that has elevated many other Marvel films. The jokes and set pieces come at you so often that there’s barely a moment for you to feel anything else...Rarely does any of it grab you in the guts." - Gizmodo

As excellent as the film mostly is, it's apparently unable to escape that one big, nagging Marvel problem: the film is almost too light for its own good, to the point that none of the action or drama really has convincing stakes, because firing out the next gag is always more important.

On the face of things it's clearly not a huge problem, given the effusive reviews so far and inevitably huge incoming box office haul, but for those feeling a little exhausted with the MCU's mostly lightweight approach to anything close to real stakes, this will only further compound that.

Surely Thanos' arrival in Infinity War, where he'll likely slaughter at least one major Avenger, will fix this, right? Right?