'Thor: Ragnarok' Review

Thor: Ragnarok does most things better than any Marvel film to date. A fantastically, colourfully high watermark for the assembly line series. But it’s still a Marvel film. It has the same non-existent level of stakes as the rest. The same abundance of jokes, hollow drama, dreary exposition, winning chemistry, a shrug of the shoulders third act, etc. But what it has that no other Marvel film, or most movies for that matter, is Led Zeppelin’s "Immigrant Song" (twice!). And that immediately rockets it into a stratosphere all of it own, to be showered with adoration, gifts, and all worldly pleasures as the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s champion.

It’s such an obvious fit. A preordained calling that’s been held back because I really have no idea why. But the use here is so objectively thrilling and beautiful and manages to capture, in both sequences, the tone of the Thor films perfectly. They’re heavy metal album covers in glorious motion (look at the image above for proof). It’s substantial like fairy floss, and just as voluminous, which can’t be said for Thor’s shaved locks. In a way, it feels like this has been what the series has been building towards.

Not Thor’s journey from brash, gullible, muscle bound dope of a god to a more humble, more muscle bound, more reasoned and courageous dope of a god. Nor his showdown with Hela the Goddess of Death, played with absolute sardonic, laconic deliciousness by Cate Blanchett and an antler headdress for the age who has come to claim Asgard for her own. Nor is it the bromance between Thor and Hulk (Mark Ruffalo again hitting the duality of the character perfectly) that’s basically a game of oneupmanship between two invincible beings. It’s Zeppelin. Yes, there’s a hint of bias that that’s the highpoint. But there’s such a sameness to the Marvel films — even though their baseline quality is consistently passable, if somewhat forgettable — that using a song that literally has "hammer of the gods" in the lyrics fits like a glove.

A lot of the distinctiveness such as there is comes from Taika Waititi being at the helm. Yes, it’s lesser Taika film but that’s still eons better than where the Thor series has been lazily treading. His lightness of touch, the picking up of moments of oddness wherever possible, the cascade of the strange when Thor is imprisoned on the Grand Master’s planet that feels as close to a sitcom as any Marvel film has come before. It complements rather than suffocates. It expands the world (the universe?) of the film but doesn’t lose the character work to the periphery.

That’s where Marvel has had such an elevated level of success. Waititi lets Ragnarok’s bang on cast shine. Hemsworth finally feels like the star of the franchise. Tom Hiddleston as Loki is given less, yet is so much more efficient with his output. Newcomers like Tessa Thompson as Valkyrie makes the tired badass woman stereotype feel fresh again, and Jeff Goldblum does Jeff Goldblum things as the Grand Master. Blanchett gives us a Marvel villain that mercifully doesn’t feel like an afterthought.

Thor: Ragnarok is a buddy comedy with the loose webbings of a plot draped around it. What Waititi has done is throw off all pretensions of giving a damn about what happens, about infinity stones or the fate of Asgard, and let the film do its own thing. Remain as standalone from the rest of the overarching story as possible (which the film brilliantly glosses over at the beginning), and rest easy in the knowledge that you have a cast that works best when they’re having fun. It’s only near the end of the film that you realise you’ve totally forgotten about the aforementioned Ragnarok — the end of the world and all. That’s how little things matter here. But hey, Immigrant Song more than makes up for it.