Plot: After Avengers: Age of Ultron, Thor has set off on a mission to hunt down the infinity stones. Whilst this has happened he has seen visions of the future prophecy, Ragnarok. Thor is stranded on the planet Sakaar, a place for the lost and where no-one has ever returned from, whilst his sister – Hela the Goddess of Death – invades Asgard and Ragnarok on the horizon.
Thor: Ragnarok has to be in the top 5 funniest Marvel Cinematic Universe films in the franchises 10-year span of films, if not top 3 or even the funniest Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) film so far, and trust me there are some hard ones to beat. This shouldn’t be a surprise as Marvel almost always seem to get the role of comedy in their films perfectly and Thor: Ragnarok is another example of this as well as the brilliant addition of the masterful direction of comedic Kiwi, Taika Waititi. What Thor: Ragnarok does really well with the comedy also is that it doesn’t detract from the overall story that the film is trying to tell. The humour in the film is just an added bonus but the comedic timing and humour in this film were brilliant.
The direction in this film by Taika Waititi is excellent. The way the film transitions at times is exceptional. Just taking the 3-4 seconds where we go to the next scene and just making it a lot more interesting and clever can make such a difference in this film. The way the camera moves throughout the film is outstanding and the action set pieces are stunning for the relatively short amount of screen time they do get for a comic book film. This is some of the best acting we have seen in an MCU film as well, and is certainly the best we have seen from the cast that comes together for the Thor films that don’t necessarily play a huge part in the other MCU films. I think a lot of that is due to the directing in the film.
The cinematography in this film is pretty good also. A majority of the shots in the film look like they could be used in a poster and be framed. A large portion of the locations feel realistic as well. The film obviously doesn’t look nice when it isn’t meant to be but the film still manages to stay visually clean. There definitely feels at times to be a Lord of the Rings vibe but the film still has its own definitive look to it.
The film, however, doesn’t feel a lot like the title Thor: Ragnarok. There are certainly moments where the story does centre around Ragnarok but the whole idea of Ragnarok unravels into a different film as it feels like there are two different stories merged into one. You have the movie about Hela and her invasion of Asgard as well as the whole Ragnarok storyline and the film definitely seems to focus more on the Hela plotline than Ragnarok. This is not necessarily a bad thing I mostly thought that the Hela side of the movie was the more interesting side, what I’d say is that don’t just expect a movie all about Ragnarok as you are not going to get it in this film.
The story, however, I did like. All the components in the film made sense. The movie does a good job expanding the universe with more planets to see and what feels like a lot more creatures than almost all MCU films so far. The characters all feel fleshed out and each character got their moment and it never felt like there were too many characters in the film.
Unfortunately, Thor: Ragnarok doesn’t have the same style as the first two Thor films and feels very disconnected to the first two Thor films. This is not a film that wraps up a trilogy and this isn’t completing a trilogy that you would watch back to back. Thor seems to be a totally different character in this film than in any other MCU films we have seen. That lack of continuity really detracted from the overall enjoyment of the film for me as it didn’t feel like the same character.
A-
Thor: Ragnarok is by far the best Thor film to date. There is a great mix of comedy and story as well as great directing, however, continuity errors mean I can’t score it higher.
Review by Max Martin
