BEST MARVEL FILM SO FAR |THOR RAGNAROK REVIEW|
Intro:
This movie was one great flick to go and spend money on! From the story line to the consistent jokes with amazing action segments, Thor Ragnarok is sure to delight you and keep you entertained. Make no mistakes, the rotten tomato score did not over hype this movie is worth every penny. Marvel has finally found a way to make Thor a great character to see on screen and they were able to do that with witty one liners and pure comedic lines. With the apocalypse on Thor’s door, Marvel has succeeded in finding a balance between jokes and a heavy story arch that is sure to keep people on their times. Grab your mjlenor because this is my review of the comedic and action packed Thor Ragnarok.
Overview/Story:
Thor Ragnarok starts of with Thor trapped in a hellish environment talking to a skeleton, which immediately sets you up for the jokey tones of this film. Thor speaks with the master of this realm, Severen, and in an effort to keep Ragnarok from happening on Aesgard, he steals his crown after some funny back and forth. When Thor returns to Aesgard in an attempt to lock up the crown is greeted with Loki using his mischievous magic to pose as their father.
Thor soon gets Loki to admit to placing their father in a senior citizen home but when they go to retrieve him, Loki is snatched up by Dr. Strange who then helps Thor find Odin, in return for leaving earth. After a small back and forth between the two sorcerers after Dr. Strange pulls Loki from infinite falling, Dr Strange places the two in Norway where their father is waiting for them. Odin soon explains that the two have a sister, who was his first-born named Hella, the goddess of death. With his life force being the only thing keeping her trapped out of the realm, when Odin perishes in front of his sons, Hella appears almost immediately.
This little family reunion is anything but happy and Hella goes as far as to destroy Thor’s hammer during a scuffle. As Loki and Thor attempt to get away through the bifrost, Hella is able to get them both out of the light pathway and reach Aesgard alone. Unfortunately enough for Thor, the planet he ends up stranded on is where he first meets the last Valkeyrie, unbeknownst to him. She drunkly falls off her ship and quickly captures Thor and takes him to a planet called Sekar. When the two arrive on Sekar, Loki is a socialite and apparently has been there for three weeks.
Thor is sold to the grandmaster as a contestant for his champion but while all of this nonsense is going on with Thor, Hella is making a lot of headway taking over Asegard. As she overthrows the castles she starts to realize how Odin has erased her name from history and all of his evil deeds. Think of it in the same boat as American history books calling slaves free labor workers that came on their free will and the natives just letting people move in and giving up land totally free. Yes, it’s a thing. Google it. Moving on, Hella is not for that kind of weak mentality and is able to prove her claim to the throne when she removes the happy go lucky mural above Odin’s char and shows the true history of Aesgardians. During this moment between her and her new lacky Scourage and after raising the fallen warriors of Aesgard as well as he undying wolf, she notices that the sword from the bifrost has been stripped. Well with a leader like her you don’t have to use your imagination to understand she went on a full blown killing spree.
On the other end of the spectrum, Thor is suiting up to fight the champion where he meets a loveable rock being named Corg with a maggot friend with scissor blades whose name I cant remember. In a hilariously terrible flirtation scene between Thor and the drunk woman who snatched him up, he realizes that she is a Valkyrie and he begs her to aid him in his quest to destroy Hella. It becomes clear that Valkyrie has no intention of doing so because she was the sole survivor of their last scrape with Hella.
It is soon revealed that Hulk is the champion of Sekar and in a hilarious brotherly fashion the two team up to save Asegard with Valkyrie after Banner is able to take back over his body. With him being stashed away by the Hulk for two years while living on this alien planet, its not hard to understand why he’s not so happy about the idea of transforming back into the green protein pack. The Revengers squad makes their way to Aesgard to face off with Hella herself and her undead legion. During this time Heimdall is cornered by Hella’s wolf and her legion led by the treacherous Scourge.
After getting his eye gouged out while fighting with his sister and Loki shows up with Corg and friends, they decide to release the soul of Sever, the bringer of Ragnarok. He literally blows up the planet while facing off with Hella and completes his long awaited destiny. The movie ends with Thor, Valkyrie, Loki, and friends on a spaceship with a B-line to earth because as his father used to say “Aesgard is not a place, It’s where ever our people stand.”
Strengths:
Oh where to begin with this amazing film. Let’s start with the tone. Yes this is a superhero flick and yes we are used to jokes being spewed throughout Marvel movies, but I don’t think we have seen such a great meshing of the two. Marvel’s Thor Ragnarok is the perfect blend, neither style over powers the other like how bananas over power your strawberry banana smoothie. This comedic approach gives Thor a real personality all his own! I think most people could not relate to Thor seeing how he is quite literally a god, but this new approach to jokes, brotherly bonding, friendships with the Hulk, and his quite admittedly awkward flirting with the only chocolate on screen, I do think Thor has way more personality to boast than in his previous films.
The story itself was just all around great. I am a huge history buff if you didn’t know. I spend a lot of my time reading books like the geek I am and watching documentaries from everything ranging from the original spoken language all the way down to mythology and the beings within them. It was freaking spectacular to see the real life mythos behind Thor come to the big screen. Hella, being the main antagonist and her bad ass wolf, are straight from Norse lore and trust me their blood thirst is just the same. I always say “Peace is not earned through Peace,” so of course in my mind I always thought Odin must’ve had a bloody crusade to create such a utopia (which I already knew because again I study mythology a lot) but it was great to see Marvel show the grey area in their movie. A lot of the times Marvel villians are just innately evil with a black and white kind of outlook, but I think Thor Ragnarok does a great job of forcing the viewer to understand that there are a lot of grey areas when it comes to leadership. So at the end of the day was Odin a type of villain? Or just a king trying to secure his peoples place in the world? That’s a moral question with a lot of different answers but its up for you to decide.
The family growth between Loki and Thor was great. It gave both characters a good character arch that required them to mature as people and learn to accept each other. Not only that but the brotherly love between Thor and Hulk was also great. Not to mention the fact that the directors were clearly super inspired by Planet Hulk. It was awesome to finally get a version of Hulk that I loved as a Kid. I genuinely enjoy the idea of Hulk having enough control to take the reigns completely from Banner and live his best life. On Sekar, Hulk was clearly happy, something that he’s not able to get on Earth. If you’ve watched the animated film or read the comics its not hard to tell a lot was left out but I don’t think we will ever get a live action Planet Hulk film so I think this was a good strength of Thor as well. It allowed the viewers to explore Hulk’s story arch and possible set him up for more in the future.
Can we just all agree that Valkyrie is a total bad ass. She was able to collect Thor in a drunken stupor and then at the end of the day decided that she couldn’t betray who she was, a Valkyrie. Although she did not agree with Odin’s methods it seems she may have a bit of a soft spot for goofy in-eloquent Thor as well. Honestly I wouldn’t mind seeing Tessa Thompson have her own Netflix spin off series. I think she carried her character well and her presence on screen never felt like Marvel was just filling the black girl quota. She was genuinely likeable and felt in well with the chemistry of the rest of the characters.
I can go on forever but to summarize, Hella was awesome, the graphics were stellar, the story was wonderfully intertwined, Thor Ragnarok sets up the Avengers: Infinity Wars that is impending, and overall this is just one really solid film that anyone should go see so go see it!
Weaknesses:
Granted, although I do believe this film is really, really solid, I think there are some people including my camera man HassManChris, who will be slightly put off by the tone. If you go into this movie hoping for a serious tone the entire way through, you may not like this film. I don’t see this personally as a weakness but I am sure this would be one caveat that some fans could differ on and could consider a weakness especially because the end of the world as Thor knows it is a super heavy story line.
That’s the only issues I can think of with the movie overall.
Overall:
Thor Ragnarok was at this very moment, because Black Panther hasn’t come out yet, the best Marvel movie out in my personal opinion. It was the perfect melding of comedy and action. Albeit as it may, if you’re looking for a more serious tone like the two previous iterations then this film may not be for you, but if you go in open minded you are sure to not be disappointed. Every character had something to do on screen, the story never once felt stagnate, and the overall tone of the film was just freaking amazing. I loved the humor!
Seriously! Humor with a character like Thor is so important because he is a literal god and I think the problem with Thor not just in the movies but in the comics was the fact that most of us cant relate to a god. He is the heir to a heavenly like throne with a accent thicker than buttermilk biscuits with a body to match. This film gives Thor some much needed humanity and a show of brotherly love not just between his blood sibling, but Hulk as well. For all these reasons and more, Thor Ragnarok gets a 9.5/10 from me!
