Thor: Ragnarok movie review

The whole comic book movie genre has evolved over the years, it’s adapted to speak to a wider audience as they have take over the whole cinema industry. With the rise of streaming services like Netflix less people have been going to see a movie on the big screen unless it’s part of a popular franchise or has a massive fan following.

Thor Ranarok is easily the best of the three Thor movies and could also be one of the top three or four Marvel movies.  It’s taken elements from other movies like the retro feel and humour from Guardians of the Galaxy, incorporated the cutting edge graphics of aliens worlds from Star Wars, now the movies CGI are made in the same building I guess it’s easy. It also has a few really simple but important stories to tell.

In Marvel comics Ragnarok is an event which marks the end of Asgard. As far as I know it has happened before several times and is destined to happen again in the future. It’s a cycle which brings death to the gods and a rebirth to Asgard as a home.

This could very well be the most entertaining movie I’ve seen in a long time. From the start were following Thor as he tried to find the Infinity stones throughout the galaxy but unfortunately can’t find them as he’s haunted with visions of Ragnarok. As Ragnarok marks the death of the old gods we see the end of Odin. He’s tired and is lost without his wife so with Loki’s help moved to Earth for a final visit. This setups up the movie as his life force kept his first Born Hela (Cate Blanchett) in exile, but with his passing she now has the power to return.

Hela is angry for being imprisoned for so long especially when she finds Odin has tried to wipe all traces of her from history. Her main motive is to bring back the warring days of Asgard and to conquer the the universe much like Ego wanted to. Thor and Loki set out to stop her but are initially beaten in the first fight where we see Thors hammer destroyed with little to no effort from Hela. The three move the battle towards Asgard via the Bifrost but Thor and Loki are thrown from wormhole and end up  in Sakaar a world where all the lost things in the universe end up.

The whole Sakaar part of the story is where we see a bit of the World War Hulk comic come into play. The whole story is so well put together in the way it pulls inspiration from different comics, some published over decades and roles them all up into one movie.

On Sakaar we see Thor thrown into a battle arena whole Loki manages to talk his way into the audience. Long story short they find the Hulk where to him it’s been about two years and he’s been the Hulk the whole time. This section of the movie we see Thor sold into slavery, battles to the death, family ties being broken but yet it has some of the funniest material I’ve seen in a movie without Will Farrell in the cast.

But what makes this movie so great is the subtle nods to today’s politics as Asgard, a land thought to hold the most advanced and peaceful society is built on a lie. It illustrates what so many countries have paid over the years to have what could be considered a peaceful time today. Asgard has a dark past and it’s come back to bite them.

Looking back on the movie I’m surprised they managed to fit so much in. We see the death of Odin. Doctor Strange has a decent cameo in the movie. The introduction of Hela and Valkyrie along with a lot of equal screen time between Thor, Loki and Bruce Banner / The Hulk. I’m not sure how long they were working on the screen play but it was all worth it. The movie has even had a lot of re-shoots of important scenes like the destruction of Thors hammer. Originally it was set in New York as we saw in an early trailer but in the actual movie we see Odin return to Norway to say his final goodbye.

At the end of the movie I left pretty satisfied as we saw a lot happen, it’s not one of those movies which didn’t move the plot forward. In some ways it’s reinvented Thor as Asgard. Thor now has the power of Odin and no longer needs his hammer to focus his strength. The Asgardians are on their way to a new home and overall I’m left really excited for the Infinity War movies.

The movie has something for everyone, I can’t imagine someone coming out of the cinema not wanting to see it again. I’m at the point now where I’m almost certain Marvel will have to do some sort of reboot after the Infinity War event takes place. They have developed an almost perfect movie formula. The whole process from writing the script to filming and promotion seems to to have been mastered by Marvel Studios. I’m not sure how they have made twenty or so movies all overlap and still feel so connected. Developing these trilogies where we have seen each character from Iron Man to Thor evolve into into a superhero.

Posted by Adi Mursec on October 28, 2017