Lightning in a bottle
(This
review contains spoilers!)
When it comes to solo movies, Thor is
the one of the main three Avengers that took the longest to find his footing.
While Iron Man can be credited to creating the Marvel Cinematic Universe and
Captain America’s sequels redefined and perfected it, Thor’s movies have always
been looked upon as more or less filler content justified mostly as quick and
easy worldbuilding.
That is, until today.
Thor:
Ragnarok breaks all the rules set by the previous two films, creating a
world for the God of Thunder that is both fresh and new while still keeping
elements of what fans enjoyed from both previous installments and the universe
as a whole. Just like Guardians of the
Galaxy Vol. 2 from earlier this year, Ragnarok
is a delightful one-off adventure that takes characters you already love
and uses them in new, crazy ways.
Director Taika Waititi takes the
Shakespearian gravitas that caused The
Dark World to be so drab and tosses it off the rainbow bridge, replacing it
with a sharp and unrelenting sense of humour that is a welcome change for the
franchise. It feels much more like a friendly ribbing of the MCU while still
celebrating what it’s accomplished than a mean spirited parody of it. The jokes
are paced well, not taking over the movie while at the same time never allowing
things to get too grim. Best of all, Waititi’s sense of humour clearly shines
through here, creating plenty of funny and quotable moments you’ll still be
laughing about later on.
The returning characters are all
fantastic here. Chris Hemsworth really gets to show his comedic potential as
Thor here, turning him from an entertaining albeit bland fish-out-of-water
character into a lovable goofball that you’d want to hang out with. Tom
Hiddleston is back as Loki, and is just as delightfully charming and sinister
as he always is. And finally, Mark Ruffalo owns every scene he’s in as both
Bruce Banner and the Hulk. Hulk is given much more of a character this time
around, with the same limited speech ability he has in the comics instead of being
limited to his usual roars and grunts. Here Hulk has the personality of a
frustrated child, and has a lot of fun moments as well as several that really
make you feel for the big guy.
As for the new characters, they’re
mostly great. The absolute best thing to come out of this movie is Waititi as
rock monster Korg. He doesn’t have too much screentime, but he’ll have you in
stitches every time he appears. Also great is Tessa Thompson’s new heroine
Valkyrie, a drunk warrior hiding from her past on Sakaar. And finally, Jeff
Goldblum is fantastic as The Grandmaster, the ruler of Sakaar. It’s a
delightfully weird and silly role that puts Goldblum’s unique and weird acting
style to great use.
The only weak points the movie has is,
unfortunately, the main antagonists. Cate Blanchett’s Hela is easily the
weakest villain of the three MCU baddies we’ve been introduced to this year,
lacking both the personality of Ego and the strong character ties of Vulture.
She’s undeniably cool, and has a lot of awesome and funny moments. I just would’ve
liked more substance to her. Even worse is Karl Urban’s Skurge, whose role is
so pathetically unnecessary that you could write him out of the entire movie
and not notice a difference.
But back to the positives: the overall
design of the movie is fantastic. Ragnarok
easily rivals Doctor Strange as
having the best MCU score, using a combinations of the usual Thor grand orchestral score with a ton
of synthesized alien music, creating a great mix that still sounds great when
listened to off-screen.
The set design and CGI are also great.
The garbage planet of Sakaar is super cool, heavily inspired by the
intergalactic worlds Jack Kirby created for the comics way back in the day. By
the end of the movie you really feel like that’s a place you’d love to go
visit. Or maybe that’s just me with how weird I am. Oh well.
And last but not least, as is to be
expected with a Marvel flick the action is fantastic. Civil War’s airport showdown still rules the roost, but Ragnarok is full of great action sequences that
put both Thor and Hulk to great use. The coliseum brawl between the two
glimpsed in the trailers is easily the best part of the movie, and the opening
scene is one of the MCU’s best.
Let me put it this way: would you like
to see Thor smashing up monsters set to Led Zeppelin music? Because if so, you’ll
adore Thor: Ragnarok. This movie is
unashamed of being exactly what it is: a superhero sci-fi comedy about a space
viking and his massive green pal trying to escape a dumpster planet. The movie definitely
rivals the Guardians flicks as the
funniest MCU movie to date, and can take full credit for finally taking the Thor movies in a direction that emulates
the fun and excitement brought by the other Marvel franchises. While it isn’t
my favourite MCU movie, it definitely makes my top five.
FINAL SCORE
9/10
Amazing
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