Obvious Warning: Spoilers Ahead!
I have been looking forward to this movie since the release of the first trailer! Seeing the Hulk come crashing into the arena and the visual of Hela destroying Asgard to the score of Led Zeppelin’s classic “Immigrant Song” had me hooked from the beginning!
“Guardians of the Galaxy”, “Suicide Squad” and now “Thor Ragnarok” are fine examples of how much movie marketers stick with a winning formula once they find one. The latest being to score comic book movie previews with classic rock tracks that were recorded years (possibly even decades) before many of the movie goers were even born.
My brain will now permanently associate Led Zeppelin’s “Immigrant Song” with Thor Ragnarok. Much like how, even twenty years later, whenever I hear Van Halen’s “Right Here, Right Now” my taste buds crave a Crystal Pepsi!
The Good
Chemistry Of The Cast
As we have seen in the previous films, Chris Hemsworth (Thor) and Tom Hiddleston (Loki) have excellent comedic chemistry and play very well off each other. But in Ragnarok, the comedy went beyond this duo to include the entire cast.
The CGI created Korg, voiced by Thor Ragnarok’s director Taika Waititi, was my favorite new character and provided laugh out loud humor to every scene he was in. You will leave the theater “liking the New Doug”.
Hiddleston also continues his track record with his scene stealing charismatic portrayal of the God of Mischief. He is so well cast for this role it is hard to envision him portraying any other character.
Comedy
The producers of Thor Ragnarok successfully took the movie much further into the realm of comedy than previous Marvel movies (including Guardians of the Galaxy). Loki’s reaction to seeing the Hulk was hilarious, Thor giving Banner his interpretation of his battle with the Hulk was well done and did I mention the new character Korg?
Thor and Hulk’s interactions provided some of the funniest moments of the film. Of all of the Hulk’s appearances in the Marvel cinematic universe, I thought his best portrayal was in the first Avengers movie…until now! When Stan Lee first created the Hulk, he was going for a Frankenstein style misunderstood child and this film’s creators nailed it!
It almost seemed as if the script was handed to Seth MacFarlane at one point and he was told to make it more “Seth MacFarlane-esque”. Frat humor inspired scenes such as an intoxicated Valkyrie falling off the ramp, Korg carrying around his dead friend and Bruce Banner plummeting onto the Bifrost bridge seemed as if they could have been lifted directly from “Family Guy” or the “Orville” and were all hysterically executed.
Some scenes appeared to be written in for the sole purpose of adding in humor, rather than to advance the story (cough…Dr. Strange..cough) but were still done well and didn’t feel forced as they were in Avengers: Age Of Ultron or Superman V. Batman.
The Bad
There were very few components of this film that I would consider “bad”, but there were a pair things that I was not a huge fan of…
Remember, I warned you about Spoilers ahead!
Mjolnir Is Bupkis
In the previous movies, we learned that Thor’s hammer Mjolnir was one of the most powerful weapons in the Marvel Universe. Some fan theories went as far as suggesting that Mjolnir contained one of the Infinity Gems Thanos is seeking, yet Hela was able to thrash it with the same ease my one-year-old is able to destroy a diaper after getting into My Taco Bell meal.
This was then explained away by Odin to Thor in the same manner that Yogurt explained away the ring of the Schwartz to Lonestar in Spaceballs. The lightning was always inside Thor and Mjolnir was merely used to focus the power.
Warriors Three
I enjoyed the characters of the Warriors Three and Lady Sif from the previous Thor movies. I understand Jaime Alexander was unable to reprise her role of Lady Sif due to scheduling conflicts with her current TV show “Blindspot“, but why dispose of the Warriors Three in under three seconds?
A certain amount of shock and awe was needed to establish to the audience exactly how powerful Hela is and I guess what better way to shock the audience than with the unexpected death of established characters. But, at the same time, there must have been a better use of these characters, especially with how Thor Ragnarok ended (mid credits scene).
The Unexplained
Sibling Rivalry
We learned early on the Hela: The goddess of Death is the daughter of Odin. We already knew that Thor: The God of Thunder is the son of Odin. Which my public school education leads me to deduce that they are siblings.
If the two are siblings, why is Hela incredibly more powerful than Thor? Because she was simply the first born? Was her mother revealed to be different than Thor’s and I just missed it? I have an older sibling and he is not that much more powerful than I am. In fact, I think I could probably kick his butt in anything other than maybe assembling furniture purchased from Ikea.
Hela’s Exile From Asgard
Hela disposed of the Valkyries with the same speed and ease that I dispose of cocktail wieners during the hors’derves portion of a wedding.
So how was she exiled from Asgard? And how did the passing of Odin suddenly allow her to return? Some type of magical spell? My suspension of disbelief allows me to overlook a lot in comic book movies, but this mystery left me baffled.
The Result
I really enjoyed this movie and would (and most likely will) pay to see it in theaters again (which is the definition of a very successful movie).
As I pointed out earlier, Thor Ragnarok was loaded with more comedy than I expected and felt much more like a Guardians of the Galaxy movie than a Thor movie, but that is fine. Thor and Loki were true to the characters that we fell in love with in the previous movies, multiple enjoyable new characters were successfully introduced and the entire film felt that it belonged in the ever expanding Marvel cinematic universe.
As with all Marvel movies, make sure you stick around for the mid and post credit scenes. The mid credit scene (which was foreshadowed when Loki stole a glance at the tesseract in Asgard) should bleed directly into next year’s release of Avengers Infinity War!
Thor Ragnarok rated a 5 out of 5 on the Geeky Daddy Movie Rating Scale and a Kid Friendly on the Geeky Daddy Sidekick Safe Scale.
