Thor: Ragnarok Is The Funniest Superhero Movie Of The Year
Thor: Ragnarok does everything we’ve come to expect from a Marvel flick: it’s got action by the bucket loads, larger-than-life characters and spectacular otherworldly visuals, but beyond that it’s a film that understands quite well what it is from minute one and that is what separates it light years from the rest.
Let’s take the obvious out of the way: in the great pantheon of Marvel’s film offerings, Thor stars in two of its lesser loved entries. It didn’t matter who he faced against, ice giants or sentient robots, Thor Odinson has always been portrayed by Chris Hemsworth as a character with great potential to make us laugh, but marred by a stubborn need to be regal and stoic. Thor: Ragnarok shatters that perception of our hero-both for himself and for the audience-from the very first scene and suddenly his world is different and now I want every Marvel movie going forward to be like this.
Written by Eric Pearson, Craig Kyle and Christopher Yost, who also helped to write Thor: The Dark World, the latest entry with our Asgardian hero is proof that the hand of a director can lift even the heaviest of underdogs from boredom to greatness. In this case that hand belongs to Taika Waititi, the prolific New Zealander director, whose touch for comedy among unlikely friends and family is what makes the characters in this film stand out so much.
The film knows that it is an action comedy at its core, sometimes with family and sometimes with buddies, but a comedy nonetheless. Waititi, who has made a name for himself in the indie film scene by showing the humor that comes from the awkwardness in relationships, puts that same sensibility to work in the films most dramatic moments, even if they occur during absurd situations and that are funny on their own.
When we last left our hero, Thor had gone out into space on the hunt for the Infinity Gems. The story kicks off sometime after that, with Thor trapped deep within the lair of Surtur, sworn enemy of Odin (Anthony Hopkins) destined to bring about Ragnarok: the end of Asgard and all immortal gods. Surtur reveals that Odin is no longer sitting at the throne in Asgard and threatens the end is near.
In this introductory scene we see the Thor we know, funnier and more powerful than ever, in the best display we’ve seen of his powers since the very first Avengers movie. The visuals in this scene are already awesome, but they get even better when Led Zeppelin’s “Immigrant Song” begins blasting in the background, and for a moment it seems the god of thunder can be cooler than Tony Stark or Spider-Man put together.
Thor manages to defeat Surtur and return to Asgard and confront his brother Loki (Tom Hiddleston), whose been impersonating Odin all this time. The two siblings set out to find Odin and their search will take them to Sakaar, a new and bizarre world controlled by the freaky Grandmaster (Jeff Goldblum), who rules over a gladiator event in which our hero will stumble upon faces both new and not so new.
By leaving Asgard without a ruler at the throne, the sensuously evil Hela (Cate Blanchett) shows in the scene to burn down the whole universe, starting with Thor’s home. Where other Marvel villains take their sweet ass time scheming behind curtains and moving around like chess pieces, Hela is a most welcome change that wastes no time taking the lead and killing fools, making us see just how powerful and evil she can be.
The film splits its narrative in two paths, showing us what happens to Thor in Sakaar and then dialing it back to Hela in Asgard. Although it takes a little bit of time to get used to the barrage of information they dump on us, the plot is never overwhelming or tedious. Not every scene propels the plot forward, but even in those where it feels we’re slowing down there’s always a funny moment, and this is an important point I need to comment on.
There is no doubt this movie is funny. Jokes fly left and right fast, ensuring almost nobody will catch them all in the first viewing, which is great and bad at the same time. The problem here is that with so many jokes, there are rare serious moments which never seem to stay with the audience because they’re quickly eclipsed by a new joke. The film could be better balanced in this regard, but it doesn’t stop being a fun ride just because it actively tries to be funny. It simply is a much more superficial film than say Civil War or Iron Man 3.
The Hulk (Mark Ruffalo) and Valkyrie (Tessa Thompson) are the breakout characters of this story, but Valkyrie steals the show hands down. Starting out as an opportunistic bounty hunter, Valkyrie is the character we get to know the most throughout the film. Thompson plays the character like a badass from the start and her evolution all the way to the credits feels well thought out and natural.
On the other hand, Bruce Banner is the comedic support on which Thor leans on when the plot decides to fire on all cylinders. Unwillingly, Banner has been stuck in Sakaar for the last two years after leaving the Avengers in a Quinjet at the end of Age of Ultron. After all this time being The Hulk and fighting as a gladiator, a confused and scared Banner becomes the living representation of the audience on screen, full of questions and funny reactions to everything going on around him. It’s perfect.
Peppered through the main arc we get new characters like Skurge (Karl Urban) and Korg (voiced by Waititi himself), who have their own inner conflicts and get pivotal scenes of their own toward the end. Heimdall (Idris Elba) appears as a badass swordmaster who actually gets to show his fighting skills this time around during the third act of the film. Perhaps the best change is the addition of Hulk’s ability to speak, which will surely prove to be the source of many funny moments when he reunites with the rest of the Avengers.
Visually, Thor: Ragnarok is the MCU film that most faithfully resembles the look of Jack Kirby’s comics, down to the shape of buildings, the spaceship design and character outfits. All of these elements look astonishing and pop out of the screen thanks to Javier Aguirresarobe, the Spanish director of photography who surely took some hints from Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 to give us a vibrant film that keeps your eye on the most important things at all times.
Everything is put together by Mark Mothersbaugh’s brilliant score, which mixes some of Thor’s original themes from the previous films with wild guitar riffs pulled straight out of an 80’s action flick. The heroic moments are really moving and the comedy beats are there, but they never get in the way of what’s happening on screen.
At the end of the day, Thor: Ragnarok effectively subverts its audience’s expectations, taking us on the journey of Thor’s reinvention and leaving a wide open road for more adventures. The god of thunders we see going into this machine is definitely not the one we see coming out the other end, and this change puts him back at his rightful seat in the Marvel movieverse while also turning him into one of the characters who could truly surprise us come Infinity War next year. That is a might achievement in its own right.
Originally published at https://en.astromono.com on November 1, 2017.
