I can’t tell you how many concerns I had about Thor: Ragnarok prior to its release. Despite being originally painted as a franchise game-changer and compared to Captain America: The Winter Soldier by Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige back in 2014, Ragnarok’s marketing switch late last year seemed to indicate a lighter tone. As promotional materials and interviews with the cast and crew released this year, the consensus seemed to be that the third Thor film would be a raucous comedy. This seemed like an odd choice, given Feige’s previous claims, and that the subtitle was literally the name of the apocalypse in Norse mythology.
The Thor: Ragnarok logo (left), as revealed in 2014, compared to its new logo (right), debuted last year.
Now, I would be the last person that you hear criticizing every Marvel Studios film for having “too many jokes” or being “too childish.” I mostly very much like the tones and styles the Marvel CInematic Universe (MCU) has employed. That said, it’s perfectly obvious that there have been instances in which this reliance on humor has undermined the creativity, boldness, and dramatic weight of some of Marvel’s projects. Even a staunch supporter like myself had begun to feel fatigued by the incessant need to “lighten the mood” for fear of being too serious or sad.
Such was my concern when Ragnarok was pinned as a full-blown comedy, placing indie-comedy director Taika Waititi at the helm. Obviously, the first two Thor films were not incredibly well-received, but I never attributed that to their serious tone (in fact, The Dark World was hardly a self-serious epic, as it was riddled with half-baked humor from its secondary cast). They just weren’t great movies. The scripts were weak, the action was dry, and the performances were inconsistent. But, just like WB/DC seemed to learn the wrong lesson from Batman v. Superman’s failure, Marvel seemed to be thinking that Thor needed some levity to make his films work. I disagreed. He just needed good films.
So did Marvel’s lighter take on the God of Thunder pay off, despite my cynicism? Honestly, yeah. Thor: Ragnarok is a damn solid movie, and easily the best of the Thor trilogy. It’s not Marvel's best, by any means, but it could perhaps break into my top 5 for the franchise with repeat viewings, and in a franchise as massive and consistently satisfying as the MCU, that’s no small feat.
I do want to make clear one thing: Ragnarok IS funny, but skeptics like me can rest easy; it is NOT a full-fledged comedy like all the marketing and critics alike are making it out to be. It's certainly not as comedic as, say, Guardians of the Galaxy or Ant-Man, in my opinion. The comedy also feels completely organic the vast majority of the time. A lighthearted laugh-fest was definitely not what I wanted out of a third Thor movie (I wanted a hard fantasy action epic), but there is still plenty of action to go around, and damn good action at that—something long overdue for the character, whose action scenes often fail to capitalize on his demigod powers. And what’s more? Ragnarok still finds a few small moments for genuine character study and emotion. Not a lot, definitely not as much as I wanted, but it’s there and it’s worth noting.
This time around, Thor (reprised by Chris Hemsworth) finds himself stranded and enslaved on a strange, barbaric planet called Sakaar, where gladiator matches seem to be the premier form of entertainment. Initiated comic book geeks will recognize the parallels to Marvel’s classic comic story Planet Hulk. This is for good reason, as Thor soon finds himself reunited with the not-so-jolly green giant, who has apparently spent the last two years in Hulk form—a terrifying personal record for alternate identity Bruce Banner (a quivering, neurotic Mark Ruffalo)—after launching himself out of Earth’s atmosphere at the end of Avengers: Age of Ultron. Before arriving on Sakaar, Thor became aware of Ragnarok, the “twilight of the gods;” in other words, the apocalypse of his homeworld Asgard, brought on by the Hela, the Goddess of Death (Cate Blanchett). Thor must fight his way through the gladiator tournament and find a way off the planet if he wants to save Asgard from certain destruction.
The film certainly doesn’t shy away from a comedic, improvisational tone—an element which Waititi insists was a very deliberate part of production, suggesting that 80% of the film’s dialogue was improvised. It may sound odd for a cosmic/mythological apocalypse epic, but it really works quite well. The movie was surprisingly low on cringey, near-miss jokes that occasionally plague Marvel’s lighter films. I still assert that the film as a whole is not a total comedy, and perhaps not even Marvel’s funniest, but it might have the highest joke success rate relative to how many attempts it makes. The humor is a genuinely positive addition to the story. My only concern related to the prevalence of comedy in Ragnarok is its implications for the MCU on the whole. I’ve been desperately hoping for over a year that Marvel would have the balls to drop the laugh act for awhile and try to make some more dramatic and emotionally resonant films, especially as we approach the franchise culmination that is the next two Avengers movies over the next two years. I really don’t care to be laughing at those films. I worry that Ragnarok’s success will tell Marvel to keep up the jokes in every installment.
Some of the more grounded moments do feel a little bit undercooked, particularly the interactions between Hela and Thor in the third act, and the drama of the actual Ragnarok event is kind of lost due to the climactic battle leading up to it not properly setting the tone. Kind of in the same way that Age of Ultron’s finale felt (a) too fun and jokey throughout, and (b) too clean and nicely resolved in the aftermath, Ragnarok's feels sort of like an afterthought, as though the Thor/Hulk gladiator adventure on Sakaar during the first half, and the character interplay throughout, were given all the attention. It begins to feel a little video gamey and formulaic during the climax, which is a shame given how well-done and clever the rest of the movie is.
The Sakaar portions are pitch-perfect. As I said before, the comedy is on-point and not overbearing. The full-tilt action sequences early on and in the middle are both intense and fun. The heavily teased Thor vs. Hulk fight is about as entertaining as one could imagine, even if it’s a tad short. The addition of Tessa Thompson’s Valkyrie—a heavy-drinking, rogue Asgardian warrior, who finds Thor, binds him, and brings him to the gladiator tournament—is a major plus, bringing her own swagger and charm to the cast of “Revengers,” the ragtag band of warriors as named by Thor himself. Returning as Loki is Tom Hiddleston in yet another charismatic turn as the trickster god, though he plays a somewhat smaller role than in the previous two films. Visually, the whole movie looked a lot better than I anticipated, based on the grey and washed-out footage in the trailers; the colors and contrast are looking better, not only in Ragnarok, but also over these last couple MCU films (Spider-Man: Homecoming and Guardians, Vol. 2), and I desperately hope that trend continues. One issue the MCU has had for several years now is a bland color palette and murky, flat contrast in its images. To boot, this is a rare instance of an MCU movie with a musical score that’s actually fun to listen to. Michael Mothersbaugh’s synth-rock-orchestra hybrids make for fun deviations from the typical dreck that pervades most blockbusters. It’s not quite memorable in the iconic, thematic sense, unfortunately, but it’s something different.
Additional complaint: there were some weird editing jumps, like characters not being in quite the same position from one frame to another, or "skipping" over motions between shots. These are relatively minor issues in a film as fast-moving and energetic as Ragnarok, but it’s worth noting that they caused some slight frustration.
Overall, Thor: Ragnarok is just REALLY fun. The action is awesome, the comedy is surprisingly solid, and there isn't as much of it as I feared there would be. It’s a rampant and exciting buddy team-up movie that, while not really breaking the Marvel/sci-fi-action mold, does it a lot better than most. Despite my best efforts to want this movie to be something other than what it was, Ragnarok won me over.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GCk8nZhmy_g&w=585