Skip to main content

Thor Ragnarok -- a review


Thor Ragnarok is the third in the Thor series of superhero movies. Thor, the God of Thunder, was always a strange idea for a superhero. But director Kenneth Branaugh (Henry V, Much Ado About Nothing) did a great job at humanizing this character and making him relatable in the first Thor movie, by pumping up the Shakespearean aspects of the character. And while the second Thor film has its detractors (and understandably so) I still enjoyed it--despite the fact that it lacked the charm of the first film. For the third Thor flick, director Taika Waititi (What We Do In The Shadows) was brought in to bring a different take to the end film in this trilogy. And he did this in spades.

He made a comedy.

Thor: Ragnarok refers to the end of the world--namely the legend which refers to the end of the enchanted land of Asgard, Thor’s home, which falls under the domination of Hela, the goddess of death who is very well played by Cate Blanchett. Clad in a creepy/cool outfit that sprouts antlers from her head whenever she goes into battle, Hela easily takes over Asgard while Thor is off tying to find his father Odin (Anthony Hopkins) with a little help from Loki (Tom Hiddleston) and Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) in a sequence that made me wish we could have stayed with the good Doctor a little longer. Strange’s scene here reminded me of another Marvel superhero movie that I enjoyed far more than I did this one.



I really don’t mind comedy, nor do I mind if a film has a more lighter tone than its predecessors. But the Lethal Weapon films are funny while still being true to their action film storylines. That’s not the case with Thor: Ragnarok. Waititi is so hell-bent at bringing on the humor that he throws characters and entire situations under the bus just to get a laugh. Characters from the first two films (who are already reduced to cameo appearances) are dispatched here with a joke--and even a dire situation which should be properly solemn is ruined by a quip from a secondary character. It’s almost as if Waititi is desperate for his audience to keep having happy thoughts, no matter what.


And while Hela is the first truly impressive villain in a Marvel superhero flick, her potential is ruined because she disappears in the mid section of the film, where Thor winds up on a casino-like world that’s run by the Grandmaster (Jeff Goldblum, who’s more funny than threatening). The Grandmaster pits Thor in a gladiatorial fight against the Hulk, which is admittedly pretty cool to watch but offers nothing to advance the main plot. Hela should have remained the focus of the movie, instead of getting stuck in this gladiator world, a place so gaudy and glitzy that it feels more like an idea for the next Disney theme park. At least Thor Ragnarok is visually impressive, as well as being loaded with laughs. But if the filmmakers are not going to take their own story seriously, then why should I? --SF





Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Jack Reacher Never Go Back -- a Review

I was first introduced to Jack Reacher through the Tom Cruise movie of the same name that was released back in 2012. I liked the movie well enough, despite a few nitpicks here and there--but I really enjoyed reading the novels by Lee Child. Jack Reacher was a former US Army officer who retires and becomes a drifter, roaming from state to state in the country that he fought so hard to protect. And Reacher is still protecting us, taking on a variety of villains, from backwoods mobsters to big-city terrorists from book to book. The stories in the books are well-told, with great attention paid to the smallest of details. I think of them as 1980s action films, only without being insulting to your intelligence. What a perfect series to adapt to movies, right? Well, Tom Cruise looks nothing like how Jack Reacher is described in the books. And while I thought the first Jack Reacher film was good, the second, Jack Reacher: Never Go Back , is very badly flawed. Based on the JR novel of the sa...

The Holdovers -- a review

It’s always a joy to watch someone who’s a master at their work, whether it’s a musician, an artist, or an actor. Most great actors make it look easy--which is not to say that I think acting is an easy job. I know from personal experience that acting is very hard. It’s a skill that the talented make look very easy, and one of the most talented actors working today is Paul Giamatti. If you’ve watched some movies over the past few years, chances are very good that you’ve already seen Paul Giamatti. He was the jittery earthquake expert in San Andreas , the sympathetic police chief in The Illusionist , and as the titular John Adams (a part that got him the Emmy and a Golden Globe) in the 2008 HBO series of the same name. Recently, I saw Paul Giamatti in the superb The Holdovers , a movie that I wasn’t planning on writing up, but I kept thinking about it--and all of its characters--long after I saw it. In The Holdovers , Giamatti plays Paul H...

Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice -- a review

Despite coming out thirty six years after the first film, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice , once again directed by Tim Burton, wound up being vastly entertaining, adding lots of pleasant surprises, like the use of stop-motion animation. The sequel takes place within the same real-life time frame, with Lydia Deetz, played with wry humor by Winona Ryder, now the host of a ghost hunting show. She’s also the mother of Astrid, a teenager played by Jenna Ortega. They live with Delia Deetz (the always great Catherine O'Hara), Lydia’s step-mother and Astrid’s step-grandmother. After the death of Charles--Delia’s husband and Lydia’s father--during a bird-watching accident involving sharks, the Deetz ladies must go back up to the creepy house in Winter River, Connecticut for his funeral. This is the same place where Lydia first encountered Beetlejuice all those years ago, and she is understandably reluctant to even mention his name, lest she accidentally calls forth Beet...