Thor: Ragnarok

Thor: Ragnarok

The trailer for this didn’t seem to me to bode well – the Hulk having a conversation and dressed in armour for a start – but as it is being heaped with praise far and wide I was ready to go along and not be disappointed.

And I wasn’t at all disappointed. I am not sure yet if I like it more than Wonderwoman or as much as Wonderwoman. It's very good indeed. 

Music

The director tells how he used Led Zeppelin's  Immigrant Song when pitching for the job and it then became integral. This tune has really stood the test of time and is a great fit for the action sequences it is attached to. Only a few years ago Trent Reznor's version served pretty well as backing to The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo's imaginative credit sequence.

Heart throbbery
These two are not really my cup of tea although I am warming to Chris Hemsworth. Tom Hiddleston is rather a funny looking dude really and he is very heavily made up in this movie with noticeable thick foundation. We see a lot of him side by side with his rather conventionally handsome co-lead and it does look quite nice I admit. No, I really don’t want to read slash fiction about them.



Women characters

I’m good at misidentifying actors (Cate Blanchett in a headdress and dyed dark with black eye makeup? Couldn’t place her.. Hairy Anthony Hopkins? Didn’t realise that was him either).so was happy to discover that I had indeed recognised the wonderful Tessa Thompson from seeing her in Westworld. 

I just loved the Valkyrie and the respect given to her character. 

Even Thor was shown to find her Valkyrie background extremely impressive. It was almost as though he was an ordinary man recognising someone as a member of the SAS. Thompson stood out as putting her heart into this role and really believing in it. I can’t praise her too highly. Her character was totally independent. Cate Blanchett as Hela was a fine villain with plenty of presence as an actor. Her headdress, originating in the strange artwork of Jack Kirby.

 

(influential on yet not overwhelming the designs in this movie: the curved horn helmet Loki loves is his too) was made to resemble a set of antlers and looked magnificent. How lovely to see a woman who is a little more mature playing a costumed character (a villain, but we have to start somewhere). It was a nice touch that she was not always in this headdress. Sometimes such items obscure or interfere with an actor's performance and block them from the audience.(cf the awful, awful, awful Klingons in the new Star Trek series who are totally encased in their constumes and masks).

 Makes me sigh a little that Cate's part is slightly undercut by her hero antagonist being of course young, fresh and lovely and Hela being described at one point as 'a hag'. Thompson is on record as saying she would not like to be thought of as the 'badass but beautiful' stereotype fighting female but I don't think she has avoided this altogether. 

The misogynists (well, some random commenters on a film site that I read as a sample) hate the prominence of Valkyrie which they feel to be at Thor's expense and view this exciting departure for Marvel with total negativity. Pretty disheartening to read. 

Comedy

This movie is without a doubt a full on comedy with action. I never was a fan of the Thor comics which were, at least in the 70s, pretty dire. Thor, and the other gods, spoke in cod Shakespearean English and Thor had absolutely no sense of humour. He couldn't even produce Spiderman's cheesy one liners. I found him a bit of a bore in comics, and to an extent likewise in his own movies - until now. Thor is the butt of a lot of humour, which will not endear it to some who like their heroes to be on top. To me it is really not a problem for Thor to be poked fun at. It's positively healthy.

Stan Lee's part in this movie is somewhat bigger than any of his Marvel cameos before. He has lines. He gets to cut Thor's hair against his will. It's a funny scene (though admittedly humiliating to Thor who seems far from godlike at this point).

Lovely guest appearance by Benedict Cumberbatch playing Doctor Strange provides more comedy as Thor gets zapped around the Sanctum Sanctorum with little regard for his dignity.

The director Taika Waititi writes himself in as Korg, a rock monster with personality, and his turn is very entertaining. Korg is such a reasonable sounding sort of guy with his New Zealand accent and you get quite fond of him and his friendly advice. He does look a bit like a grey Thing though, just saying.

The play

Suddenly I thought I was watching Game of Thrones...with characters watching themselves portrayed by players in a propaganda version of history. The idea does appear to be plagiarised. I have searched for a common ancestor but been unable to find any example that exactly matches, although there are many 'plays within plays'.

I didn't recognise Sam Neill as player-Odin but then neither did Rob Jones who was watching with me, so I feel less bad about that. 

Things I like a little less in this movie

Do I love everything about Thor Ragnarok? No of course not, you know me.

The wolf. It was so fake and badly executed. 

Jeff Goldblum - everyone was so glad to see him again. Don't know where he's been for the last 20 plus years since he starred in successful movies like The Fly, Jurassic Park and The Tall Guy. I liked him back then and wondered why his career apparently ran into the sand. But nostalgia may have clouded the judgement of some a little regarding his turn here as The Grand Master.  I found his performance somewhat too laid back, verging on lazy and heard myself thinking there were deserving actors out there who could have done it better. I didn't feel this quite as strongly as I did  about Kevin Spacey in Baby Driver but the irritating feeling was there that he was coasting on celebrity status.

The lady standing to his left in this picture looked mighty familiar to me but I couldn't trace her through the cast list so far. Has she been in Doctor Who? I'm sure I've seen her somewhere being good in something. Whatever, she looked as if she was just bursting to act and I kept expecting her to do something important. She probably ought to have been cast as Hela's henchperson.

 The Bruce Banner in this movie (Mark Ruffalo) is a useless character. I preferred him when he was like this

A scientist but also a hero and not a dork. However I guess Marvel moved far away from the original Jekyll/Hyde concept with things like him being Hulk for two years at a time and being able to speak in sentences. I think I am a Hulk reactionary. He should be a giant green out of control toddler having a tantrum when he is not a handsome, sensitive hero.

The following is probably a nit to most people but it bothers me. The word 'Mischievous' should NOT be pronounced 'Mischievious'. Thank you, Tom Hiddleston (I think, difficult to check without seeing the whole thing again).

Skurge - bit of an uninteresting character. Hela deserved a better henchperson (see above).

Heimdall (Idris Elba)

He was in quite a lot of scenes, doing good deeds vital to the plot but his part lacked excitement on the whole and asked little of him. I'd like to see something more for this woefully underused actor. Heimdall has never been a success as a character onscreen and what he does is not memorable, at least to me. Still needs work!

In conclusion - this is a funny and entertaining movie with well executed action scenes, a good gender balance and some racial diversity and I would recommend it to one and all.