Lord of Thunder

It's the End of The World as We Know It

Ah, the long awaited Thor Ragnarok. Largely a departure from the previous Thor films, as well as many of the other Marvel Cinematic Universe films (with the exception of Guardians), Thor Ragnarok is essentially a constant joke fest. The stakes couldn't be higher for the fate of Asgard, but the humor verges on slapstick at times. I thought it was great.

The movie is colorful, has intriguing and, yes, funny aliens. Jeff Goldblum might be the highlight of the film as the foppish Grandmaster, who runs a colosseum where Thor and Hulk end up fighting (I'm sure you've seen the trailer).

A note on the trailer - They were some adjustments to scenes depicted in the trailer that either didn't seem to happen, or were modified. For instance, the famous scene where Hela catches and destroys Mjolnir appears in the trailer to happen within a city, while in the film it is actually along the coast of Norway. Additionally, the trailer depicts Hela as destroying Asgard with a large blast akin to an explosion, but as I get to later, this didn't happen the movie.

We seem to be seeing an evolution of how studios use trailers to build hype and describe the story. More and more, it doesn't seem to be the case that the trailer can be trusted to actually described the outline of the movie, or even what concretely happens within the film (entire scenes left out, or radically adjusted as to be transformed). This probably isn't a fundamental issue, just something to keep in mind.

Before I get to the plot outline and some thoughts on the movie (spoilers ahead), let me say that this was a very enjoyable, well paced movie. I highly recommend it, even in particular if you aren't well connected to the rest of the Marvel movies. You might have some blind spots, but altogether this movie stands on its own as a hilarious action-filled spectacle.

Let's call this revolution a tie

It really is funny (Spoiler plot outline here)

Ok, so if the trailer wasn't enough, you could tell what kind of movie this was going to be from the very first scene. That is, Thor providing voiceover, explaining his dilemma. Stuck in a cage with a skeleton for company. He makes a comment at the skeleton, whose jaw thing drops down to it's ribcage, and falls off. This sort of physical comedy persists throughout the film.

Thor is there to defeat Surtur, a fire giant destined to destroy Asgard at Ragnarok. Following a comedic exchange with the fiery monster, Thor defeats him and returns to Asgard with the decapitated crown of Surtur. Here he finds Loki disguised as Odin, lounging on a couch, eating grapes and watching actors depict the many noble sacrifices of Loki (har har har).

Thor demands that Loki helps him retrieve Odin, and after a fantastic cameo by Stephen Strange (who teleports them to Norway to find Odin), Odin tells the boys that "his time is done," and that their elder sister Hela will be coming. Odin dissolves into the air, and sure enough a sickly green portal opens, and Hela steps through.

She demands their obeisance, does not receive it, and destroys Thor's hammer when he tries an attack. Loki panickedly calls for a return to Asgard through Bifröst to Thor's dismay, who recognizes that Hela will only follow them. This turns out to be true, and Hela continues the attack en route to Asgard. Loki and Thor are knocked out of the tractor beam, Hela arrives at Asgard and decimates the defenses there, assuming the throne.

Meanwhile, Thor crashes through the atmosphere of the Junk Aggregate planet Sakaar, landing in a trash heap. He is accosted by some scavengers, who are subsumed by the former Valkyrie "Scrapper 142," who captures Thor as her prize.

Thor is sold to the Grandmaster as a contender in his contest against the champion Hulk. Their contest is eagerly watched by Valkyrie and Loki (who has integrated himself into the Grandmasters graces), with Thor winning, but subdued by an electro shock tag used to control the prisoners.

Thor and Hulk make a sort of peace, and end up talking Valkyrie into helping escape and get back to Asgard to save the people from Hela. The Asgardian sentry Heimdall had secretly secured the people to a safe haven while Hela rolled into the palace, and used a bit of the eternal flame to raise undead champions, and her great wolf Fenrir.

Thor and party make a break for it while starting a rebellion amongst the slaves as a diversion. They successfully make it back to Asgard, where most of the Asgardians are rescued aboard a large transport ship that Loki secured along with the slave army. They are essentially defeated by Hela, who continues to grow in power as she resides in Asgard, and after a sort of spiritual communication with Odin, Thor decides that Asgard is where the people are, and not necessary the realm itself.

He asks Loki to resurrect Surtur in the Eternal Flame, who obliterates Asgard along with (apparently) Hela, who tries to fight him as the Asgardians escape. Thor is recognized as kind, and they begin the journey to Earth to start anew.

It's going to be a hot time in the town tonight

The Good

Perhaps the best part of this movie was the great bit of comedy involving Surtur. He seemed to be this proud demon thing, brooding on the nature of his destiny. That is, to destroy Asgard. When this doom is realized, it is only to serve the purposes of the Asgardians. It was almost sad when Surtur reared up "as large as a mountain" and began bellowing about destroying Asgard with his great fiery sword. His dreams realized, but only upon an empty, abandoned world.

I have no idea if this is realized at all in the comics, but to me it was such a nice bow on the whole movie. Comedic irony that was absolutely on point with the themes throughout the film.

The rockman slave combatant Korg was delightful. He had this light voice in a (it turns out) New Zealand accent. Sort of seemed to be a gentle giant that had amazing comedic interplay with Thor, as well as his "knife for arms" companion Miek.

Not an actual image of Miek's depiction in the film, but you get the idea. Swords for arms

Every time Miek was in the shot he was jumping around, brandishing his blade-arms. Something about this was hilarious every time. Like, it's the geekiest nerdiest thing. He reminded me of something like the lightsaber-kid video from years ago.

These were a couple of great characters that I hope continue to show up as things get super serious with the upcoming "Infinity War" sequence of the Avengers.

We work together!

The Bad

So yeah... I really tried to wrack my brain for any sort of criticism in this movie, but can't come up with anything. The characters are engaging, the movie is hilarious, the atmosphere and effects were delightful. As I mentioned earlier, the pacing was spot on, didn't feel like any moment really stayed past its due.

Perhaps if I would complain about anything, it'd be the character of Skurge -

I guess he has an expanded role in the comics, but in the film he seems to be something of a scummy Asgardian that turns-coat when Hela shows up, initially working for her with some trepidation. This movie wasn't full of many surprises (once again, the bit with Surtur at the end was awesome), but it was pretty obvious how Skurge would play out, heroically sacrificing himself at the end in defiance of Hela.

I'd say his inclusion in the plot seemed somewhat pointless, but he did serve a sort of mechanically convenient purpose of giving Hela someone to talk to, allowing for plot exposition in this way. Otherwise it would have been just Hela staring at Undead Soldiers.

Again, nothing really bad, which says a lot on how great this movie really is.

Misc

• "The Devil's Anus" as the largest portal at Sakaar. :D
• Not shocking at all the Thor ended up losing an eye, although I'm surprised they didn't spoiler that in any of the trailers, or any of the marketing materials.
• The "Thor wakes up super-charged and blasts everything with lightning as the Immigrant Song starts up" was somewhat cheesy.... but moreso was incredibly awesome. It had me laughing out loud in astonishment, and a fist-pumping sort of enthusiasm. It was a scene of utter badassery, which literally included fireworks going off.
• Luke Hemsworth playing the actor Thor within Thor was great. Ditto for Matt Damon as Loki, and Sam Neill as Odin.
• The constant play of Lord of Thunder vs God of Thunder between the Grandmaster and Thor might be a bit overplayed for some, but I thought it was funny everytime. Ditto for all the "whose the stronger" avenger stuff between Thor and Hulk.
• If Thor can channel lightning, what was the deal with the zapper tag thing able to paralyze him? Plot hole? heh
• Hela used HUGE spears, flung from the ocean in her attempt to confront Surtur at the very end. They seemed to have something of an impact on him, but I'm a bit confused as to why she just didn't do something similar in her fight with Thor and pals. These spears were about as big as the ship they were escaping on.
• Obviously Loki stole the Tesseract before getting out of there. In fact, he probably used the Tesseract to teleport onto the ship and escape the destruction of Asgard.

In conclusion

Anything I missed? What did you think of the movie? Let me know in the comments :D