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Everyone’s least favorite Marvel franchise finally gets a thoroughly enjoyable entry after a mediocre first one and a sloppy second. Third time really is the charm for the Asgardian gang, even if Ragnarok repeats many of the same problems as Thor and The Dark World. Why do films ostensibly about Thor, Loki, Odin, and all of the rest spend an inordinate amount of time away from Asgard and on a completely different earth? Even The Dark World frequently forgot to include its namesake villains and their realm for much of the running time in favor of more Jane Foster and spending time on Earth.
Thor: Ragnarok is most successful when it sticks to Asgard, and lets everything rip with a freewheeling charm that indulges the gonzo-like nature of Jack Kirby’s imagination. It becomes the cinematic equivalent to joy riding in a van with a wicked airbrushed Thor raining down lighting on the side and cheesy, incredibly loud hair metal blasting out of the speakers. The full-fledged embrace of the ludicrous nature of the Thor films makes for the mountains of exposition to go down easier. Hell, it makes it down-right enjoyable as director Taika Waititi has clearly encouraged a certain tongue-in-cheek approach to the material that makes a lot of it feel like free associative riffing.
This is after all a film that combines Thor and Hulk on Sakaar, Asgard in strife as Hela returns to wreak havoc, Surtur waiting for his chance to make things go boom, Valkyrie, Skurge, and Heimdal all vying for supporting spots, Korg deadpanning, and a cameo from Dr. Strange. It’s bloated and many of these various characters and tones clash in discord or get completely forgotten as it goes on, but it still manages to make a lot of it a great deal of fun. Watching Strange, Thor, and Loki interact with each other for a few brief minutes is a pure distillation of the joy of reading comics as a kid come to three-dimensional life.
Still doesn’t mean that all of this humor, energy, and joy can entirely paper over the problems with the Marvel films. It becomes increasingly obvious that Skurge (Karl Urban, giving his all for not) was only included for two reasons. One of them was to recreate an infamous series of panels from Walt Simonson’s run, and the other was to act as someone for Hela (Cate Blanchett, clearly having a grand time playing a grand villain) to deliver reams of exposition to and provide someone for her to talk to that isn’t a gigantic CGI wolf or undead soldier. Skurge isn’t the only character given the shaft in this franchise as Lady Sif is nowhere to be found, the Warriors Three never got the spotlight they deserved, and Anthony Hopkins is clearly marking time until his contract is up.
Then there’s the curious problem of Thor: Ragnarok feeling like two different films smashed together just because. Maybe Marvel doesn’t believe that Hulk could handle a film entry on his own merits even with the talents of Mark Ruffalo in the role, but Planet Hulk segment feels like an overly-long distraction from the more interesting elements. The title plays into the mythological and prophesized destruction and rebirth of the Nordic god’s home world, and with Hela leading the charge but the middle of the film pulling focus away to become a buddy film with Thor and Hulk, she’s frequently left adrift. Marvel has a bad habit of smartly choosing villains for their films and then giving them nothing to do, or leaving them stranded as but one mere cog in a massive machine. Jeff Goldblum’s Grandmaster springs to mind, and he’s saved entirely on the strength of Goldblum’s oddity and asymmetric performing style. Goldblum manages to take a nothing role and turn it into something spectacular through sheer force of will and idiosyncratic performing style.
Cate Blanchett is a strong enough actress to nearly single-handedly succeed in masking this problem, but then your realize that the goddess of death would have laid waste to Asgard in half the time it appears to be taking here. Still, it does give her the chance to underline the lies and historical half-truths that have been fed down from generations about just how Odin claimed the Nine Realms and brokered peace. She’s a genocidal figure craving power and capable of sprouting a crown of thorns – I love her, both in the comics and in the movie. The single best sequence has to be Hela laying waste to all of the Valkyrie. Never before has any Marvel movie dared to even try a sequence as beautifully shot and composed as this. It looks like Jack Kirby panels as painted by Alex Ross come to life.
Holding it all together as best it can be held together is Chris Hemsworth. Who knew a life-size action figure would grow to become such a great comedic actor? There’s an arch way he has to playing Thor’s dumb-jock moments with wry, ironic quotes around the action that calls to mind the way Kurt Russell stumbled through Big Trouble in Little China. His chemistry with all of the major players (Tom Hiddleston, Tessa Thompson, Ruffalo, and Blanchett) gives a goofy, solid center to a movie that frequently plays out like a pinball machine having an acid trip.
It’s only when Thor: Ragnarok has to reign itself in and kowtow to the Marvel formula, which is too often for my liking, that things go horribly wrong. There’s a lot to like and enjoy about this movie, but the stumbles and diversions stand out. It’s best to just sit back and embrace the “why the hell not” nature of the whole thing. It’s not every day you get the chance to watch Goldblum liquefy a dude, Blanchett sprout horns, or Thompson play a drunken, bisexual mythological figure. All of that alone is charming enough to spend a few hours invested in.
