2017 Films: #27. Thor: Ragnarok

Viewed on Friday November 3rd in Chicago, IL. The God of Thunder get his 3rd installment and based on the trailer, you know that Thor's hammer is destroyed, Thor fights the Hulk, Thor and Hulk team up, Thor gets a haircut, it looks like a city (perhaps Asgard), is consumed by fire and Hela is the villain because she's the one who crushes Mjolnir and wears a tremendous amount of eye make-up.

The film opens with Thor, who explains that he's been searching for the infinity stones, chained up in the clutches of the fire demon Surtur. Surtur monologues about how Odin is no longer on Asgard and that he will bring about the destruction of Asgard (foreshadowing). Once he reveals his one weakness, Thor pulls the old, "I allowed myself to be captured to learn the villain's plan" cliche and vanquishes Surtur. Thor returns to Asgard and almost immediately uncovers Odin to be his mischievous brother Loki. Thor and Loki travel to Earth to find Odin but the rest home where Loki stashed him is being demolished. While standing on the corner, Loki and Thor are brought to Doctor Strange's pad. This meeting is really just an extended scene of the Doctor Strange mid-credit scene from 2016.

Strange sends Thor and Loki to Norway to reunite with their dad. Odin then gives some much needed exposition about their sister, Hela that they never knew existed. Seems she was the 1st born and rightful heir to the Asgardian throne.

Capes are big in the underworld.

On a "take you daughter to work day", Odin and Hela conquer the nine realms. When Hela appears to be a bit more bloodthirsty than Odin would like, he banishes her to the underworld and erases her from history. He also mentioned that she will remain imprisoned until he dies. So what happens now in order to move the plot along? You guessed it. Hela is released, she battles Thor and Loki and makes her way to Asgard via the Bifrost Bridge while Thor and Loki are cast off into space.

Meanwhile, Thor ends up landing on Sakaar and is captured by Scrapper 142, a quick on the draw bounty hunter with a penchant for drinking. Kind of like the Waco Kid.

Scrapper 142 takes Thor to the Grandmaster so that he can put him in the arena to battle his champion. While in custody Thor runs into Loki who also crash landed on Sakaar but in a different time frame because he got kicked out of the Bifrost portal before Thor did (I am not really sure about the science on this but it moves the plot). Before Thor's big match with the champion he sees Scrapper 142 getting drunk at the bar and Thor notices that she has the tattoos of the Valkyrior, a group of elite female Asgardian warriors. Thor pleads with her to help him but she wants no part of it, despite the fact that the Valkyrior were sent by Odin to defeat Hela in the underworld and 142 was the only survivor.

So this leads to the big duke-a-roo between Thor and Hulk as seen in every trailer. After the fight, Thor eventually escapes with the Hulk, who turns back into Banner after seeing a video of Natasha Romanoff. Valkyrie, formerly Scrapper 142, shows up to help Thor escape and they all get back to Asgard for the final showdown with Hela (this backstory makes little sense. Sure it gives a reason for Scrapper 142 to reclaim the mantel of Valkyrie but it's not logical. Odin banishes Hela, he later decides to send his most elite unit down to the underworld to vanquish his daughter once and for all, despite the fact that she can only be freed by his death, the Valkyrior lose and that's the last of it. Odin never even tries to reform the Valkyrior).

Presently, this picture has a 93% Rotten Tomatoes rating, making it the highest rated Thor stand alone film, and has cleared over $154 million domestically at the box office since being released on November 3rd. To me this is by far the best Thor stand alone. It has a lot of the same plot elements that made the first installment successful, added humor and colorful characters. It's a fun movie even without the connections to the overall MCU.

The film is directed by Taika Waititi. I felt he did a real nice job putting scenes together and giving the cast the opportunity to make each character their own. Speaking of the cast; Hemsworth, Hiddleston, Hopkins, Elba and Stevenson reprise their roles (though Elba's role as Heimdall has been shrinking and Stevenson's Volstagg is on screen for barely a minute). Mark Ruffalo is the Hulk's alter-ego Bruce Banner, Tessa Thompson is Valkyrie (she's great and it's a shame that there are people out there who are up in arms because she's not the Valkryie from the comics), Karl Urban is Hela's lackey Skurge (Urban doesn't do much in the film, so it's a bit of letdown but that's the story's fault, not his), Jeff Goldblum is the Grandmaster (nicely played by Jeff) and of course Cate Blanchette as Hela. Blanchette's Hela is a bit like Galadriel when Frodo offers her the one ring ad she looks a bit like Siouxsie Sioux.

There's clearly a resemblance. Though one uses Aquanet more than the other.

Blanchette chews up the scenery as Hela. She appeared to have fun with the character, although she had to wear a motion capture suite instead of costume.

This is a really fun film. Sure there are some plot devices that make so sense that I mentioned earlier but it's to be expected. The film has a run time of 130 minutes but the pacing is quick and you're never bored. There's a lot going on but you never get caught up in anything as it all leads back to Thor and his mission.  Check out some of the youtube videos that delve into the Easter eggs and what not. That's fun too.