Thor: Ragnarok (2017)

By this point, there has been an established formula in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. There’s a reason they are so successful at the box office: people see them as a reliable option for being entertained at the movies. That’s not a bad thing by any means – I thoroughly enjoy every single one of these movies and plan to for the foreseeable future – but it does mean that each successive film in the franchise needs to stand out at least a little bit from the rest to keep interest high. This year, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 partially failed at that with its convoluted plot and somewhat rehashed humor; on the contrary, Spider-Man: Homecoming successfully rebooted a character that has had problems in past in film, giving me a film that I really enjoyed.

Thor: Ragnarok does something I didn’t expect in trying to change up the formula from the previous two films focusing on the character: it cranks the humor up to 11.

OK, there’s more to it than that, like the way the film strips Thor of all his Thor-ness and reduces him to a much smaller character or in how Thor’s universe is widened with characters outside of his world from the MCU (notably, Doctor Strange and the Hulk). Regardless, the most notable change in Ragnarok is the level of humor.

I was a little nervous about this, as even if the humor was done well it could have been too much of a good thing; after seeing the film, though, I think it was a smart move. The first Thor film did a pretty good job with a balanced tone, but The Dark World made things way too…well, dark and brooding. Completely reversing that made for a very entertaining movie, and it helps that Chris Hemsworth, Tom Hiddleston, Jeff Goldblum, and Mark Ruffalo (as well as the rest of the cast) have incredible comedic timing and chemistry. Director Taika Waititi has said that 80% of the dialogue in this movie is improvised; while I don’t know about that, almost every scene feels very natural like the actors are inhabiting their characters rather than reciting lines from a screenwriter verbatim. There’s very few moments where it feels forced (they’re there, but not often), and that helps the comedy a lot.

Speaking of Waititi, I love the way he directs Ragnarok. His vision for this project was deliberately taking Thor in new directions, and how he did that was the perfect way of doing so. Not only was the humor fast and furious but still loose and casual, but the film also creates a completely new world for Thor and the other characters already present to play around in. They are reacting to new situations and new people which develops their characters far better than would otherwise. That is what makes this film so exciting to watch.

I don’t have a lot of bad to say about Ragnarok, but the large amount of humor in the film does make me worry a little bit about Marvel’s future. All three Marvel films this year have done this to varying degrees, and while in these films it makes sense, I worry about what films like Black Panther and Infinity War are going to do with this shift. Both of them appear that they should be at least a little more serious in tone (especially from Black Panther’s trailer that played before my showing of Ragnarok), but with the way Marvel has been moving their entire lineup to a more comedic tone, I hope they still realize that there needs to be some dark to balance out the light.

Overall, though, Ragnarok is easily one of the most entertaining films I have seen this year. It’s better than the typical Marvel film because it takes its characters out of their typical elements, but it also marks this shift with a much more light-hearted tone than the previous installments of the Thor franchise. While it may not pay off in the long term for the MCU, in the short term it works very well and is worth seeing on the big screen.

My recommendation: Definitely see it, in a theater if you can.

Grade: 81