Sarcastic Movie Review: Thor Ragnarok

Thor: Ragnarok is probably one of the best superhero movies, a strong contender for the best Marvel movie and easily the best Thor Movie ever made. Here’s the thing, Thor’s standalone movies were always quiet…Meh. The first one, though it had a fun, fish out of water perspective; it also had quite a predictable story structure. It wasn’t a bad movie but nothing special either. The second Thor movie was so dull I honestly don’t remember a thing about it (I think it had elves in it, but again I could be wrong).

But I’d be lying if I said that the first trailer for Ragnarok, with its amazing visuals and almost tailor made Led Zeppelin soundtrack didn’t have me hyped. But I had been hurt by amazing trailers and subpar movies before (Looking at you Suicide Squad) so I still remained a bit skeptical.

Right of the bat with its initial scene even before the titles rolled out, it sets its tone perfectly as a larger than life epic with stunning visuals, wit and enough comic book references to make the die-hard fans have butterflies in their stomach.  In short it’s another movie that follows the MCU’s tried and tested formula, but with enough tweaks that it still feels fresh and epic all the while not taking itself too seriously.

Story (spoiler warning)

The movie begins with some banter between a captured Thor and a knock off Satan looking dude called Surtur which mainly acts as exposition. And right from the start Thor seems to have become more… mouthy, like he was bitten by a radioactive Deadpool (that’s like 2 Marvel references wrapped up in one). Anyway, after Thor finds out that his dad’s actually missing thanks to his adopted brother and the cover boy for misunderstood emo villains: Loki, He quickly sets up a family reunion in which Odin reveals to his sons that his time has come. And also revealing that with him gone it would release the goddess of death, Hela who (Gasp!) is also his firstborn and Thor’s sister.

Odin: The God of shitty parenting

From here on it’s the typical heroes journey which begins with Thor’s hammer being destroyed by his sister, who never grew out of her Goth phase and ends with the thunder god discovering the power was inside him all along (but in a totally badass way with thunder and punching)

Characters

If there’s one thing Marvel knows how to do, it’s create likable characters and Ragnarok too is chalked full of them. The new improved Thor with 20 percent less arrogance and 30 percent more witty banter really works and is held together nicely by the supporting cast.

We get more screen time with the Hulk than most Hulk movies with Banner being the one to take the back seat in the relationship for a change. And the angry green giant is just adorable (hard to picture…I know) with his interactions with Thor, whether it be the fight sequences or the comedic banter being the highlight of the film.