Thor: Ragnarok (2017)

How about this kids, I saw a new movie on opening weekend and I’m actually reviewing it.  Our plan of being completely caught up with the MCU before seeing it fell short by a few films, but yesterday morning we watched Age of Ultron and that’s about all you need to see for Thor: Ragnarok to make perfect sense.  So before I get too far into the details of the plot and spoilers I will say this, see the film.  If you’re looking for a generic Siskel and Ebert capsule let’s just say thumbs up and go to a theater (or bookmark this and read it whenever you get around to it).

So as mentioned before the film picks up after Age of Ultron, just two years later.  Thor is “caught” by Surtur and gets a good dose of plot exposition as he tells him of the prophecy that is Ragnarok and destroying Asgard.  One thing that becomes evident right away is that this film isn’t going to take itself too seriously.  Now every Marvel film has it’s share of comedic relief, but the last two times we saw Thor it was under much more serious circumstances.  That bizarre Thor in a cave skinny dipping scene in Age of Ultron loosely sets this up but it doesn’t stop that scene from being largely unnecessary in Ultron,we could have easily gotten a quick “I had a vision and Asgard is in trouble”.  

A few things happened since The Dark World though that are rather important in terms of the tone here.  The Dark World itself was gloomy and as the title might suggest dark.  It also didn’t make ALL the money as previous Marvel movies have.  Obviously Thor is a mighty important cog in the MCU and in order to set up his story Disney/Marvel still needs to turn a profit.  Guardians of the Galaxy happened after Age of Ultron and seemed to mark a major shift for the MCU.  Not only in terms of interacting with cosmic beings and taking place pretty much entirely far from earth, but also being fun and at times downright silly.

Thor now with 50% more Hulk

Ragnarok from early ads seemed to clearly be riding more on the Guardians success than The Avengers.  This was going to be a bright colorful space movie with some of your favorites and a few new people to be bad guys etc.  They even marketed the film as a Guardians-esque band of misfits that need to learn how to work together to defeat fill-in-the-blank monster of the week.  The first step in this conversion was hiring Taika Waititi to direct.  Well known in New Zealand, he is perhaps best known here for being half the acting/writing/directing team behind What We Do in the Shadows.  He’s definitely firmly established in comedy and his involvement here seems in direct contrast to the direction the first two Thor entries took.

Ragnarok has a pretty difficult time taking itself seriously at any point.  It definitely takes a few minutes getting used to the very different tone here.  Now perhaps we’ve reached that stage in Marvel movies much like action films in the late 80s/early 90s when things just got sillier and sillier.  Or perhaps everyone has noticed how no one likes the depressing downers DC keeps foisting on people and wants to set these up as polar opposites.  Either way the change here is certainly welcome.  I won’t mince words when I say Thor has been the weakest franchise within the MCU.  The first film was fun and decent enough but The Dark World might get my vote for the weakest Marvel movie thus far.  This doesn’t mean either of the first two Thor films are bad, but someone’s gotta be in last place and before Ragnarok it was easily Thor.

Now with that out of the way, let me say this is easily the best Thor film, and would probably rank somewhere among the top 5 of Marvel movies.  As with all of these films there are plenty of great Easter eggs hidden in plain sight, some of which I’m sure I missed.  For example Beta Ray Bill was one of the faces on The Grandmaster’s tower where Hulk lives.  I’ll be honest that my nerdiness didn’t recognize the others, but thank the internet.  I also got a huge kick out of Korg (voiced by director Waititi) mentioning that a particular gladiator weapon would only be good for three vampires in close proximity to each other, an obvious nod to What We Do in the Shadows.  For the record this might also be my favorite Stan Lee cameo, as he plays the man who cuts Thor’s famous locks.  

It’s hard not to link these films together and although you don’t necessarily need to have seen every MCU film for this to make sense or be particularly enjoyable it certainly helps.  The treatment of Surtur here reminds me a little of Mandarin in Iron Man 3.  What sets up as an epic legendary villain is kinda treated as a throwaway and even comedic.  *Spoilers* Surtur does get to fulfill his prophecy of destruction and isn’t a drugged up stage actor, but he is clearly another false villain.  This isn’t too surprising considering how Thor treats him in the opening scene.  

Video game boss battle #17

 

Our main villain is of course Hela, played brilliantly by Cate Blanchett and she’s awesome.  As Odin’s first born she is quite powerful and quickly fucks shit up.  Now I gotta admit I was a little bummed with how effortlessly and anti-climatically she dispatched with the Warriors Three.  There is certainly precedent in Marvel movies that no one ever really stays dead, and Loki was a prime example of that in Dark World, but there isn’t much to indicate any of the dead Asgardians will come back.  Surtur kinda put a permanent end to the planet as well so I don’t think they brought along their fallen.  

 Now rehashing the plot is pointless if you saw the film so let’s talk about some other things.  I don’t know how else to phrase this but Jeff Goldblum is becoming the new Bill Murray.  As those dreaded 90s kids are getting older they are fondly remembering the man who brought them Jurassic Park and Independence Day.  The internet has likewise fallen in love with Goldblum as evident by the stupidly popular Facebook group “The same photo of Jeff Goldblum every day” which currently has 316,000+ members.  He’s enjoying that subtle reintroduction into the limelight, and I’m sure it doesn’t hurt that he also is a semi-regular in Wes Anderson’s films, making him cool for all the hipsters.

As far as his performance as the Grandmaster it is everything you think it would be.  The man has become an icon by essentially playing a variation on the same character since forever, and he’s as erratic and random as you would expect.  If you’re clever enough to spot the resemblance to Benecio Del Toro’s Collector from Guardians of the Galaxy that is because they are brothers.  Along with the Infinity Gems that have been popping up here and there, this is one of the first minor links between the franchises, and I’m sure they’ll have their own reunion down the line.

So a few late spoilers ahead, let’s talk about the end.  No matter how many Marvel movies I see in theaters there is inevitably several people who leave the theater immediately.  When will these people ever learn?  Anyways once King Thor and Loki are discussing their plan a ship appears.  Now thanks to the wonders of nerds on the internet it leads us to believe it is Thanos’ ship, or at least connected to him.  Thanos has been a post credit tease twice before, so perhaps not showing him directly was a conscious choice.  It does answer one super obvious question which is whether or not Loki took the cube/Infinity gem when he went to resurrect Surtur.  We’re also left to assume that there might not be any more Bruce Banner and only Hulk from here on out, and the final scene certainly indicated that Hulk was sticking around for awhile.  Considering the precedent for Hulk going to sleep to bring back Banner, I look forward to Mantis eventually meeting Hulk and using her own powers on him.

I’d like to close with a little of my patented what I liked and disliked about the film.  I’ve gone into what I liked about the film quite a bit but I want to say officially I loved the cast.  Goldblum being Goldblum definitely worked for the Grandmaster.  I definitely love me some Hulk and this is as much Hulk as we’re likely to see in a movie for quite a while.  There might be a few gripes about Valkyrie looking considerably different from her comic book counterpart but the performance by Tessa Thompson here is pretty excellent and should shut up most people.  I also loved Anthony Hopkins as Odin being impersonated by Loki.

We all need more Goldblum in our lives

To be honest there is a lot I loved about Ragnarok, and much of the comedy worked well.  Seeing Banner fall flat on the Rainbow Bridge was hilarious.  It was damn satisfying seeing Thor embrace his God of Thunder moniker and shoot lightning bolts all over the place.  The fact that Loki hasn’t changed a bit works on two levels.  One it reinforces the character as the god of mischief and trickster that he is.  It also helps to show that as a villain/antagonist the MCU is evolving beyond him.  His designs aren’t grand enough especially once Hela, Surtur, or Thanos start wrecking shit.  I do feel like the films have significantly downgraded his powers, and would probably be done with him if he wasn’t so popular.

Now some nitpicking with the things I didn’t care for.  I feel like Odin has been dying since the first film, and he looked mighty healthy when he just disappeared in Norway.  Not sure if he should have been killed off in battle but dying of old age doesn’t seem like something a god can do.  Perhaps I missed something earlier but when did Thor and Jane Foster break up?  I don’t care too much because frankly their romance was awkward and reminded me way too much of Portman and Anakin Skywalker in Attack of the Clones.  Another nitpicking moment is when could the Avengers Quinjet fly in outer space?  I previously mentioned the warriors three being dispensed with far too easily, and I felt like as characters they were a little more important than their instantaneous death would indicate.  I also imagine most people who haven’t seen the first two Thor movies since their theatrical run might be a bit lost as to what the hell was going on.

These are all minor things, and at least the hype of a new film didn’t disappoint.  Perhaps a future viewing might clear up some things or expose other flaws. Now for the big problem, the formula.  This is MCU film number 17 by my count and every single one of them is a monster of the week.  Bad guy shows up, is super powerful, and is hell bent on taking over the world/universe or destroying a person/city/planet/universe.  Hela was no different and Surtur took that to the extreme.  I thought The Grandmaster was a far more interesting antagonist because it would’ve had Thor and Hulk teaming up to overthrow him and free the planet as opposed to dispatching of him largely off camera and going to fight the monster that’s threatening Asgard.  A Running Man-esque tournament of champions would have been a far more interesting film that could have almost entirely ignored Asgard.  I’d say all but the most simple minded of movie goers are still impressed by a video game boss battle, and all the fight scenes are the equivalent of watching some really good gamer on Twitch.  

Video game boss battle #18

I would say it’s comedic tone might alienate a few people who like to take these things seriously.  To those people I might suggest lightening up and maybe giving it another go later on.  Revisiting the MCU before this film has taught me a few things about how these films hold up.  Nearly all of them are worth watching more than once, and a lot of things make more sense in light of future pictures. Sometimes my initial enthusiasm wanes a bit on closer inspection so before I start crowning this film I’ll see how I feel about it in the coming weeks/months.  I hadn’t been this excited for a new MCU film in years and this didn’t disappoint at all, so yeah go see Thor: Ragnarok.