The Breakdown
Thor Ragnarok, isn’t the typical superhero movie, as it turns up the humor quotient up a notch, The one liners are very good, some of it is slap stick, and some of it is banter amongst the characters, that makes it a joy to watch.
Firstly the plot is simple, ’Bad Sister’, is all powerful as she is “Goddess of Death”. Then the story needs usual leap of faith from the audience, like the all powerful taking her time to destroy and find people on relatively small planet, and she can kill at least a thousand in one go, but still goes about killing one by one. All this so that good Thor gets time to work his magic, and good Thor needs some ’friends’ and as usual the central character needs an ’awakening’ to realize their powers, with the ’awakening’, the choice is obvious saving many people and something else, and ultimately saving people takes center stage.
So we have established here, that superhero movies are pretty predictable, and their plots are redundant. However, the attraction of the these movies is not the plot, the main attraction is the story treatment, and this time with director ’Taika Waititi’ comes underlying humor.
Somehow the jokes, though on surface seem very childish, and dumb, but in a theater environment, it is great fun, from the start. Thor rotating bound on chain, loses eye contact with ’Surtur’ interrupting the conversation (seemingly serious conversation), adds doses of laughter, as we wait for Thor to rotate back to facing Sutur. Right there the tone for the movie gets set, laughter underpins the movie.
The sequence with Dr Strange is a good addition. For me it was Loki that stood out, whether it was drama that he setup glorifying his death, and the way he sneakily befriends the grand master on an alien planet, and like soccer fan jumping after a goal, Loki’s jump when Thor is thumped by Hulk, leaves the audiences jumping of their chairs (if you get the context), and Loki caps it off when he appears announcing himself as “the saviour” towards the end of the movie.
Thor without hammer, relies on great deal of slapstick, and thankfully keeping in spirit of the movie, Thor doesn’t engage in long fight sequences, and keeps them short. Korg and Miek, provide silly gags in the movie. Hulk is funny in both forms, but has little to do, a gag, where he drops from the plane, but does not transform immediately.
Overall the movie is great fun. A packed theater experience, especially with followers of the franchise, makes it enjoyable. What the movie lacked was Tony Stark, usually Iron Man becomes the central character whom the rest refer to, and movie nicely rotates around him, In Ragnarok, many things that move parallel, so coherence is not there, Like 142 towards the end is just missing from action, Skurge’s intervention is just 10-15 seconds. “Revenger” is ’different’, – in what way?different, hence is probably refreshing, however those who expected an overdose of action will remain disappointed, no deep/dark philosophy, maybe ’Justice League’ will provide that Grey.. Thor is more about, Cheering, Jumping, having a good time, with fellow passengers of MCU
[…] with “darker” ideas embedded in the story. Guardians of the Galaxy and more recently Thor: Ragnarok broke the mould and gave us simple fun movies. Star Wars the last Jedi, casually flirts with deeper […]
[…] they provide, makes up the cinematic experience. Last time I felt that electric atmosphere with the Thor (Ragnarok) so this time I was up a week before release, booked tickets online, insisted on the IMAX […]
Yes!!! loved the article,, especially because this thor movie is my fav amongst all avengers,, it embraces humor like no other one in the franchise