Thor: Ragnarok

Directed By: Taika WaititiWritten By: Eric Pearson, Craig Kyle and Christopher Kyle (based on the Thor comic books by Stan Lee, Larry Lieber and Jack Kirby)Starring: Chris Hemsworth, Tom Hiddleston, Cate Blanchett, Tessa Thompson, Mark Ruffalo

It’s long been a distinguishing

feature of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, that comedic flair which underpins those lavish, CG fuelled action set-pieces and stirring melodrama. Ever since the effortlessly charismatic, incessantly zany, and quick-with-a-quip Robert Downey Jr. first donned the Iron Man suit in 2008, and with it fostered the rise of an entire studio and 16 resulting films, Marvel has long hung their hat on their ability to deftly blend tones of light and dark. Even when the Universe’s hottest commodities squared off in a calamitous brawl with mass political ramifications and which, somehow, along the way conjured near-tear jerking affect (2016’s Civil War), Marvel and their team of passionate writers and enthused directors still found ample room for humour.

Never has the studio championed comedy like they have with their latest however, Thor: Ragnarok, usurping even Guardians of the Galaxy for sheer larkiness. The film marks the third in what has assuredly been Marvel’s most innocuous properties until now, a saga which has been begging to take the plunge into the full-blown farce since its inception. Ragnarok marks that plunge– a timely one it is.

Until now, Thor has been the other Avenger: not as cool as Iron Man, not as bad-ass as Captain America, without the clout of a character like The Hulk. Previous dealings with the son of Odin have been easy and benign, but little more. Thor needed a change, a more defined personality, a refinement, and such necessity is enshrined in the Ragnarok mission statement.

Many of the supporting characters are either trimmed in screen time or cut completely, most notably Natalie Portman’s Jane, her absence nonchalantly explained away like she were a fly to be swatted. Gone too is Thor’s hair, those flowing blonde locks reduced to a gnarly short-back-and-sides. Earth is seldom mentioned this time around, Ragnarok instead pivoting between a scrap planet of dirty, eye-catching neon blues, greens and reds which might have been lifted from the imagination of Luc Besson, and the always grand home turf of the Gods, Asgard. Even Thor’s legendary hammer is dismissed, stricken from our hero’s arsenal early.

The paramount change is in the director’s chair however, with the unlikely recruitment of New Zealand filmmaker Taika Waititi and his ever quirky, joke-a-minute sensibility. The director’s comedic credentials are beyond reproach, evidenced by his work on vampire mockumentary What We Do in the Shadows and last year’s tremendous Hunt for the Wilderpeople. Less certain is just how well Waititi’s light and off-beat stylings would mesh with an action oriented studio blockbuster. Suffice to say, it’s an appealing dynamic.

Waititi strikes a riotous middle ground between quirk and spectacle, doubling down on the gags without skimping on the prerequisite carnage, his screwy eccentricities dancing through Ragnarok’s high octane set-pieces in the form of awkward physicality, flashes of crudity, bouts of zaniness, incessant irreverence, whilst always bearing that irrepressible, effortlessly charming New Zealand benevolence—typified in the film by Waititi himself, voicing a rock monster warrior as though he were an out-of-his depth kindergarten teacher.

Of course, Waititi has the tools to make it all happen. Chris Hemsworth, returning as Thor, puts to use that goofiness he has been cultivating from his time outside the MCU (Ghostbusters, Vacation), juxtaposing his almost cartoonish physical perfection with an underlining nerdy clumsiness.

Cate Blanchett plays the film’s villain, a punky dominatrix type who might have strolled in from a Tim Burton animation. She goes by the name Hela (The Goddess of Death), a figurehead in Asgard’s bloody rise to power, eventually banished for her increased obsession with power by Odin. Now liberated from exile, Hela returns to Asgard to claim it for herself and instil in it once more the hawkishness of its origins. Her first order of business: rid Asgard of its princes, sending Thor and brother Loki (Tom Hiddleston) to the aforementioned scrap planet, Sakaar.

There, we find the Grandmaster (Jeff Goldblum), the apparent cousin of Stanley Tucci’s Master of Ceremonies from the Hunger Games. Wacked out and make-up clad, Goldblum plays the unhinged Grandmaster with exactly the kind of Goldblumy derision one would hope, giddily sifting through his own trademark mannerisms, his glee at performing his own greatest hits infectious. As the dictator, the Grandmaster hosts gladiatorial combats in his very own colosseum, forcing new arrivals such as Thor to step up to the plate for his peoples’ amusement.

Among the Grandmasters’ featured warriors: The Hulk, (Mark Ruffalo when in human form, ie: Bruce Banner), the most destructive of all Avengers. And whilst the green wrecking ball more than satisfies his demolition quota, he too is looser and lighter than we have seen him previously, Waititi’s free-wheeling humour even landing the Incredible one at the centre of a penis joke.

Tessa Thompson as Valkyrie, a hard drinking bounty hunter working for the Grandmaster, but who at one time was a gallant Asgardian in her own right; and the ever-unpredictable Loki, continuing to serve as the saga’s most intriguing ingredient, oscillating between hero and villain (Hiddleston’s interplay with Hemsworth makes Loki particularly charming, despite our better judgments), round out the Sakaar crew who Thor attempts to enlist in an effort to return to, and save, Asgard.

If there is one regard where Marvel has proven unassailable, it is in their casting, continuing to fill the screen with personalities as colourful as the sets they populate. One would be tempted to merely turn these performers loose, let the sparks fly, and record the results, something which Waititi has apparently done, alleging 80% of the cast’s work to be improvised. That too signals a hearty risk. Seldom is that leisureliness employed when 140 million dollars-worth of budget lay on the table. I dare say the film’s return will be as handsome as its leading man.

The incessant flippancy of the exercise does come at a cost. When the true peril arrives and Asgard rests on the precipice of disaster, the film is without the necessary stakes, Waititi unwilling to grant the story’s more dramatic aspects the heft they sorely need. Never more is this felt than in Ragnarok’s final, destruction heavy stanza. The affect doesn’t do justice to the events, leaving us with little more than visually enticing yet emotionally muted mounds of debris.

Nor can the film avoid certain banalities. Ragnarok marks MCU episode 17, the narrative trajectory, as such, feeling inevitably familiar: booming opening set-piece, settle into exposition and character introductions, intermittent bouts of action, danger builds, valuable lessons of morality and self-worth realised, etc. Even Blanchett’s villain can’t help but feel generic. Whilst the esteemed actress brings as much malicious, over-the-top vigour to her role as she may, Hela is ultimately a Godsplaining mouthpiece who does run-of-the-mill bad-guy things—she kills a bit, establishes her baddie qualifications, lays out her diabolical plan, fights the hero. Hela pales in intrigue compared to Marvel’s prior cinematic villains of 2017.

But thankfully any familiarities are ultimately awash in Waititi’s manic, happy-go-lucky approach. 17 films in, and the studio hasn’t yet forgotten how to have fun– indeed, never have they appeared more up for it. Ragnarok has enough vivacious characters and laugh-out-loud gags for another 17 films, the punch lines of which I wish I could disclose, but of course I won’t. Even the film’s many cameos tick the right boxes, look keenly at the cast members of a play staged by Loki in a glorious display of narcissism. It all culminates in the breeziest blockbuster of the year, one that signals that this overworked franchise miraculously has light years left in its legs. The next destination? Infinity Wars.

Rating:

3.25/4