Thor Ragnarok is easily the best Thor film that they’ve come out with, from the opening scene to the grand finale is filled with unabashedly fun action and multiple fan service scenes that I won’t spoil here. This is going to be a difficult review to do because this feels like a completely different Thor film and it’s really for the best. The tonal shift from Thor : The Dark World would be really jarring if you watched them back to back but it’s honestly because Dark World was, for lack of a better word, next to joyless and the colors were very dark and moody. Ragnarok on the other hand is bright not afraid to joke around with the audience. Getting this out of the way, The humor is probably the only real problem I had with the film and it’s probably just me nit-picking but I feel like it shoudl be said that there were a few moments where it was overdone. They did one gag a few too many times that I’ve never really enjoyed where there’s a serious moment and then someone cracks a joke about it, this works in Guardians Of The Galaxy when Rocket says “Just a bunch of Jackass’ standing in a circle” but doesn’t work in Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 2 when Ego turns into David Hasslehoff right after dropping a huge part of information that changes the entire film. There’s a scene towards the end that should’ve been a very somber moment for fans of the series but it doesn’t happen that way because they make it into a joke. Like I said, this is clearly nit-picking but it is something that I feel like some people won’t like…however the rest of the film was great!
FIrst up, the returning characters are all just perfect here. Chris Hemsworth as Thor and Tom Hiddleston as Loki are just incredibly fun to watch throughout the film and their interactions with each other are some of the best of the series. These two have been the main consistent thing about the series and it’s clear to see why in this film. They have a few moments that are some of the best things they’ve done as the characters and I could watch Hiddleston as Loki for an entire film.
Anthony Hopkins as Odin honestly delivers his best performance of the series. He doesn’t quite play him in the same way as he did during the last two films but it improves his role quite a bit.
Mark Ruffalo as Hulk really shines through here since this is the first time that we’ve really seen him speak and interact with other characters as the Hulk. It works really well and there’s a few scenes that definitely shine through for the CGI department. He has some really great character moments when they start recapping what’s happened to him since Avengers : Age Of Ultron and it makes you feel for his character even more.
Idris Elba as Heimdall had some really great character moments and he’s basically just a solid action hero in this one which I thought was a great change for his character as opposed to the slightly more subdued role he took in the previous films.
Next up we have all of the new characters and there’s a few that were surprises for me so I won’t mention those but I will discuss the few characters that were shown in the trailers and other promos :
First up is Cate Blanchett as Hela. Blanchett delievered a great performance as she always does and I personally thought she was a great villain. I really enjoyed how they changed her character just a little bit from the comics for the sake of the film. As discussed before, I’m typically a tradionalist for my comic characters but this one actually made a lot of sense for the film and improved her as a character.
Karl Urban as Skurge was an interesting character because he’s basically just there for fans of the Walt Simonson run on Thor. I enjoyed his character arc but it was primarily because I had read the comics. The group I went with that hadn’t read them basically hated him as a character so it’s clear to see that he was the one that suffered the most from the film just having a bit too much in it.
Jeff Goldblum as the Grandmaster was one of the best side characters they’ve had but I have to admit it was primarily because Jeff Goldblum is just amazing. He’s honestly just a jerk the entire movie but that’s why he works as a character.
The standout of the film was Tessa Thompson as Valkyrie. Her character arc was great and she was just so much fun to watch throughout the film. I’m really hoping she comes back for future films cause I defintely wanna see more of her.
Overall the film was great and I’m not sure where it fits in my top films of Marvel but I know it’s pretty high up there.
