Thor: ragnarok
Hammer and rib-tickle…
Marvel’s muscular heroes laugh it up. Hela cool.
When a Twitter follower asked Thor 3’s director if a certain job opening in another major saga might lead to a “@TaikaWaititi #StarWars movie”, his reply was chucklesome. “Lolz. I like to complete my films.”
Despite the Thor saga’s past issues with departing directors, Taika Waititi completes his Asgard trip with style. While Ragnarok delivers the mythical soap-opera business expected from the MCU, Waititi blows away The Dark World’s indistinct hammer thuds with blasts of comic air. Those ‘Asgardians Of The Galaxy’ puns will stick: Ragnarok is the MCU’s funniest outing yet and its clearest beneficiary of a playful director’s voice since Guardians.
The drollery arrives fast with a belly-laugh piss-take of monologueing monsters and a mock-macho meeting with Karl Urban’s Skurge. Anthony Hopkins also has fun impersonating Loki impersonating Odin, before returning as real Odin to warn Thor (Chris Hemsworth) of a bigger menace than Loki (Tom Hiddleston, refreshingly re-deployed as an ensemble player).
Enter Cate Blanchett’s Hela, Goddess of Death, who crushes Thor’s sense of his manhood (his hammer), occupies Asgard and – effectively – boots Thor/Loki to the retro-hedonist planet that time forgot: Sakaar, where ancient Rome meets Studio 54.
Between Jeff Goldblum’s delirious Grandmaster, his goofy guards and the mismatched colour schemes, this gleeful planet-disco sojourn sends Ragnarok’s camp dial shrieking into the red. It’s like the Flash Gordon reboot you never dared hope for, complete with a power-boosting synth score from Devo veteran Mark Mothersbaugh.
Ragnarok finds its supremely funny footing here, starting the minute Tessa Thompson’s perma-drunk Valkyrie swipes Hiddleston’s comic scenestealing crown. Hemsworth is also terrifically tapped for self-mocking mirth. After a riotous workmates’ reunion in the gladiator arena, Thor and Mark Ruffalo’s best-movie-Hulkyet maintain the mock-male comic momentum beautifully as sniping men-children in their apartmentsharing intimacy, knob gags included.
A buddy romp folded into a pop space opera, it’s a setup that recalls Waititi and Jemaine Clement’s vamp-com What We Do In The Shadows. And, lest you doubted his ownership, Waititi makes every one-liner kill as the voice of rock revolutionary Korg the Kronan, whose misunderstanding (perhaps…) of Thor’s special bond with Mjölnir numbers among the many gags you might miss through the laughter.
Blanchett, meanwhile, faces her own gladiatorial battle: with the curse of the squandered Marvel villains. She wins by dint of blazing charisma, but is underused, reduced to oozing malignantly around Asgard. Aside from a brought-to-heel Skurge, Hela lacks someone to bounce off.
But every character gets to shine in the end-stretch. Waititi’s variant on Marvel’s climactic mega-rucks suffers from ‘giant CGI thing’ cliché, but it gives each lead their moment, lands Hulk’s best sight-gag yet, and opens vistas of promise for Thor’s return in Infinity War and beyond. Here’s hoping Waititi returns for Thor 4, assuming he’s free. After this rocket up Asgard’s rump, he’ll surely be in heightened demand, whether Star Wars wants him or not… Kevin Harley