directed by Taika Waititi
written by Eric Pearson, Craig Kyle and Christopher Yost
Six years after Marvel Studios introduced Chris Hemsworth to audiences as Thor, the God of Thunder, and four years after the mildly entertaining but ultimately forgettable sequel, indie film director Taika Waititi (Hunt for the Wilderpeople) delivers what many of us may have started to believe we would never see: a truly exceptional Thor movie.
The movie starts out with Thor neutralizing a serious threat to Asgard, only to finally discover the ruse that his brother Loki (Tom Hiddleston) has been maintaining since the end of the last movie: he was pretending to be the Allfather Odin (Anthony Hopkins). Thor and Loki journey to Earth, where they find the real Odin, who informs them of a threat that could consume all of Asgard: the wicked, insanely powerful Hela, who shows up shortly thereafter and, as has been widely seen in the trailers, destroys Thor's hammer. Knowing they are outmatched, Loki has himself and Thor summoned back to Asgard, only for Hela to knock them both out of the Bifrost in mid-transport en route to taking over all of Asgard. Thor finds himself on a strange junk-laden planet called Sakaar, where he is captured by the tough-as-nails, perpetually boozing Valkyrie (Tessa Thompson) who brings him before the planet's loopy despot, the Grandmaster (Jeff Goldblum), with whom Loki has aligned himself. The Grandmaster holds gladiatorial contests between various creatures from across the galaxy for fun, and tells Thor that he may leave, for as long as he defeats his champion. The complication, though, is that this champion happens to be none other than Thor's Avengers teammate the incredible Hulk, who, for some reason has not transformed back into Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo) for quite some time. Thor will have to overcome this challenge, return to Asgard and defeat Hela if he is to have any hope of saving Asgard.
The problem that has bedeviled the Thor standalone franchise since day one has been one of tone. The concept itself, i.e. space Vikings interacting with earthlings is just so inherently ridiculous that it's not really possible to do one of these films with a completely straight face. Kenneth Branagh's first film represented a pretty strong effort to address this problem, but even though the film was a good enough introduction to the character, the tonal problem persisted. The second film seemed content to coast on the success of the first, and of the massive success of The Avengers.
With this film, it genuinely feels as though the brain trust at Marvel sat down with their quirky director and really tried to address the problem, and their solution, which was to turn the absurdity of it up to 11, is a total winner.
I've noticed, reading even the glowing reviews, that there have been a few gripes about how Waititi's off-kilter vision is spoiled by the "generic" superhero aspects of the story, basically lamenting that the whole Hela/Asgard aspect of the film weighs down the wacky joy of Thor's and Hulk's hi-jinks on the planet Sakaar. I basically think they're reading it wrong. Introducing Hela into the story is a natural progression for this particular franchise; anyone with even a passing knowledge of the Thor comic book mythology knows how crucial Hela is to the whole narrative, and goodness knows the fan community had been waiting for her long enough (certainly more than they were for the utterly forgettable Malekith from the second film). In short, bringing Hela to the big screen was always a question not of if, but of when...and HOW. To my mind, having Cate Blanchett breathe life into one of Thor's iconic villains was exactly the way Marvel needed to go, but then there was still the aspect of Ragnarok being a bit of a downer. Make no mistake: as fun as this movie is, Hela gets to be Hela, the goddess of death, and racks up an appropriate body count. Anyone looking to bring small children should bear that in mind; the movie has its fair share of extremely violent moments. Could audiences have sat through two and a half hours of that? Of course not. Marvel might not even have made their coveted PG-13 rating, no matter how bloodless the various skewering scenes may have been.
And that's where Waititi's demented re-imagining of the popular 2006 Hulk story line "Planet Hulk" basically comes in and completely saves the day. It's the perfect counterweight to the grim cataclysm that is Hela, but at the same time would make little to no sense without it. Blanchett's Hela is still a wicked delight but could not have been this enjoyable had we watched her rain terror down upon on our Asgardian heroes throughout the entire film, which is why Sakaar, led by Jeff Goldblum's ultra-zany Grandmaster is exactly what the film needs to balance out that unrelenting grimness. On the other hand, without the urgency of the threat Hela posed, the film would have lost its emotional anchor and the craziness of Sakaar would have just felt a tad arbitrary. A delicate balancing act was required, and Waititi absolutely nailed it. In the 80s-flavored neon-colored Sakaar sequences, even the requisite CGI comes to life in a way that hasn't been seen before. There's a real joy in seeing Thor and Hulk dressed up as gladiators, exchanging some real haymakers; it's what many of us have been yearning for since their very, VERY brief exchange of fisticuffs in The Avengers five long years ago. Also, I'm reasonably confident that the people who remember the mutant dog fight from the disastrous 2003 Hulk solo movie will take joy in seeing the jade giant taking on a giant canine in a fight that's actually entertaining this time.
In discarding both Thor's trademark hammer and long hair, Waititi symbolically discards things the character has long been associated with and effectively severs the entire franchise from narrative slog that could easily have bogged it down with a case of the dreaded threequel-itis. The transformation is more than just physical; Hemsworth takes the opportunity to play Thor very differently from the Shakespeare-esque, tragic figure he cut in the first movie and the square-jawed hero he played in the second. Ironically, this is where Hemsworth gets to let his proverbial hair down, and one can tell he's really having a great time here. He's got great onscreen chemistry with his newfound best bud Hulk, and his alter ego Bruce Banner. Even the normally scene-stealing Hiddleston as Loki takes a step back, playing it a little more straight this time so as to let Hemsworth do his thing, and to my mind, it works like a charm. Speaking of scene-stealers, franchise newcomer Tessa makes a fantastic first impression as the nameless Valkyrie, a legendary warrior with a dark secret. She's a hell of a character, just brimming with potential, and I quite appreciated that she wasn't there to "hook up" with anyone. The shot of her striding in slow motion from a crashed spaceship, her trusty sword Dragonfang in hand, towards an army of undead Asgardians, is, as tiresome as this description may be, genuinely epic. Waititi himself turns in an inspired motion-captured cameo as the alien rock character Korg.
Not all of the cast are quite so memorable; Anthony Hopkins returns as Odin, and while his acting here is a genuine improvement over his phoned-in performance in the last film, it still falls far short of his striking turn as the Allfather in the first film. He does have a wickedly funny moment when he's playing Loki playing Odin, but that is all too brief. Also, the talented Karl Urban feels a little wasted as Asgardian ne'er-do-well-turned-henchman Skurge, though he does have a memorable moment involving two M-16 assault rifles. Idris Elba's Heimdall may be sporting a new look and a new sense of purpose, i.e. keeping Asgard's citizens safe from Hela, but he still feels like window-dressing. And the less said about the Warriors Three (Ray Stevenson as Volstagg, Zachary Levi as Fandrall, and Tadanobu Asano as Hogun), the better. Still, there does seem to be some consistency here with the general theme of out with the old, in with the new.
In the end, what's most noteworthy is that this isn't the Thor we have come to know; this is something genuinely, remarkably different, and the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe is very much the better for it.
8.5/10
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