Thor Ragnarok Movie Review: The Funniest In The Thor Series With Hilarious Scenes That Want To Please The Audience

“THOR: RAGNAROK” is obviously inspired by the “Guardians of the Galaxy” franchise that featured a lot of screwball comedy. Like “Guardians”, it also uses a borrowed soundtrack bookended by a Led Zeppelin song.

The new Thor is definitely much more hilarious and vibrant than the first two “Thor” flicks, particularly 2013’s dreary “Thor: The Dark World”, featuring a humorous showdown between Thor and Hulk as gladiators, when they used to be allies in “The Avengers: Age of Ultron”. Clearly, the third time’s the charm for Thor as this new movie feels like a wild and zany comic book that springs to life to make it an insanely fun ride.

The difference is in the new director, Taika Waititi, best known for the 2010 Kiwi coming of age movie simply titled “Boy”. He is a half Jewish, half Maori actor-director-comedian from New Zealand, now following in the footsteps in Hollywood of his kababayan, Peter Jackson of “Lord of the Rings”. He is eager to please the audience and is certainly a welcome addition to MCU (Marvel’s Cinematic Universe.)

The movie opens with the God of Thunder imprisoned by the fiery demon, Surtur (voice by Clancy Brown), but of course, he’s able to free himself from his captor and gets to return to his own home land, Asgard. He learns that his adopted brother, Loki (Tom Hiddleston), has impersonated their father, Odin (Anthony Hopkins), and now rules Asgard.

But Loki turns out to be peanuts compared to the entrance of another sibling, the first born Hela (Cate Blanchett, who really goes to town and is obviously having a blast playing this villain role), the malevolent Goddess of Death, who wants to usurp the throne and bring about Ragnarok, the prophesied demolition of Asgard and all its people. She even gets to destroy Thor’s powerful hammer into pieces. Thor says upon seeing this: “It’s not possible.” And Hela quips with much confidence: “Darling, you have no idea what’s possible.”

The movie features several cameo performances from Matt Damon, Sam Neill, Scarlett Johansson and even Benedict Cumberbatch pops up as Dr. Strange. A re-invigorated Chris Hemsworth gets to flex not only his huge biceps but also his comedic muscles to great effect, what with his trademark long hair now cut very short. It seems he learned a lot from playing male dumb blonde roles in comedies like the remakes of “Ghostbusters” and “Vacation”, which he does when he’s not playing superhero.

Even Mark Ruffalo is fun to watch as the angry green man aka Bruce Banner and the bromance between him and Thor is more amusing than ever. They will next be seen in “The Avengers: Infinity
War”, another assembly of various superheroes in one movie.

Tom Hiddleston steals some scenes as the God of Mischief while Tessa Thompson gives a mean spirited performance as the feisty Valkyrie who captures Thor but later proves to be an invaluable ally. Also giving excellent support are Jeff Goldblum as the foolish and flamboyant leader called Grandmaster who presides over a tournament of gladiators and Idris Elba as the leader of Asgardian rebels. As for the special effects, it’s definitely state of the art and holds you in a wonderful spell.