We’re not sure if we are getting older, but we seem to have gone off comic book films, they all look good and we are entertained in the whole for about 2/3rd’s of the film but then they all turn into a big CGI mess of a finale, yet we knew we wanted to see Thor: Ragnarok.
Thor seems to possibly the least liked of the Marvel film characters but with this film being directed by Taika Waititi, who gave us the excellent Hunt for the Wilderpeople as well as What We Do in the Shadows and Eagle vs Shark, we had high hopes going in.
One thing for sure, this film offered a lot more laughs than we normally get from these films, thanks in part to some inspired casting, to add to the already strong cast we last saw in Thor: The Dark World (as well as a brief cameo in Doctor Strange and Avengers: Age of Ultron)
We first meet Thor (Chris Hemsworth) as prisoner of the fire demon Surtur (Voiced by Clancy Brown)
Surtur warns Thor of the impending Ragnarok which legend tells, will destroy Thor’s home world of Asgard. Thor manages to defeat Surtur and believing he has stopped the impending doom, returns home to Asgard.
Here, Thor teams up with his brother Loki (Tom Hiddleston) and they both seek out their now dying father Odin (Anthony Hopkins) with the help of Dr. Strange himself (Benedict Cumberbatch)
Odin, not only confirms the threat of Ragnarok is real, it is led by Hela (Cate Blanchett) his firstborn who he exiled, yet she has now escaped from prison and she hopes to take Asgard for herself.
Her first meeting with Thor results in her destroying his hammer, so we know the threat is real! Thor and Loki flee to a garbage and scrap planet known as Sakaar to regroup. It is here that Thor is forced to become a gladiator in prize fights for the Grandmaster ( A scene-stealing performance from Jeff Goldblum)
As Thor awaits this fight to the death, he manages to make relationships with a former Asgard warrior, Valkyrie (Tessa Thompson) and Korg (voiced by the director) who fights on the undercard.
Thor enters the battleground only to find his opponent is The Hulk (Mark Ruffalo) and with the big green fella in tow, they are ready to take on Hela and save Asgard from Ragnarok.
This is a fun film but like most modern day blockbusters, we do not understand its need to have a run time of over 2 hours.
The cast are all great, even smaller roles like Idris Elba as Heimdall, who we follow to see what is happening on Asgard whilst Thor is away, returning also as Skurge is Karl Urban who is also great as he chooses to follow Hela and Goldblum is great as the mad Grandmaster. Korg will, however, divide audiences, many seem to dislike him, whilst many consider him be excellent.
The film is a lot of fun, in particular the scenes with Thor and Hulk but yet again gets bogged down in an OTT CGI battle at the end, which feels the same as Wonder Woman, Guardians of the Galaxy 2 and every other superhero film you have seen. Perhaps we are just getting old but for these films to still have an impact, they need to stop trying to make us feel like we are watching a computer game!
This film is a lot of fun, we just don’t think it offered anything new to the superhero genre, which is a real shame. Comic book films are certainly here to stay as they do continue to make lots of money but we do have to wonder if this is preventing us getting more original films?
You can see Thor: Ragnarok in 2d and 3d
You can view the trailer here:
You can get the film from Amazon here:
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