In further efforts to keep myself occupied during these the days of our Ronapocalypse, I’ve been mainlining movies and TV shows like it’s my job. It isn’t, but I can do my job while things play in the background (yay working from home!), so that’s what I’ve been doing for the last several months.
Recently, I decided to go through the Marvel Cinematic Universe back-to-back, mostly because I never have. I’ve just watched them as they came and have only rewatched the ones I especially liked. Watching them in this fashion was something of a revelation for me. No, I honestly couldn’t keep track of where each of the Infinity Stones was at any given time, but it did certainly highlight the weaknesses in the overall story arc. There’s a Salt Mine post I could rant in about how much I disliked both Infinity Wars and Endgame for dismantling the brilliance of the individual movies that came before. I might still write it, but for right now, I’d like to make a case for my favorite of the franchise, Thor: Ragnarok.
Although, to be perfectly honest, after rewatching them all, it’s kind of a toss-up between Ragnarok and Black Panther, but I’ve already committed on Twitter to Ragnarok and I made a list, so here we are.
This movie has been out for three years now, but just in case, spoiler warning for major plot points ahead.
The Laughs
This is, I think, where Ragnarok edges Black Panther out of the top spot. Sure, there are some funny moments in Black Panther, my favorite among those being Shuri’s “WHAT ARE THOSE?” line in her lab. But there’s nothing quite like the quirky mind of Taika Waititi to really put a button on how much fun these movies can be, especially coming from the high and heavy Shakespearean drama that Kenneth Branagh brought to the first Thor installment.
I could spend the rest of this article listing off my favorite bits. Waititi’s turn as Korg, a “warm up” gladiator in the Master’s games was truly a thing of beauty. Thor’s interactions with both Hulk and Bruce Banner continue to delight. But there’s just something about the way that Tom Hiddleston and Chris Hemsworth play off each other that’s truly fun to watch, especially in this scene.
Not to mention, of course, everything that Jeff Goldblum brings to the table.
The Villain
I didn’t start this list out as a comparison with Black Panther, but this might be where Black Panther edges it out. It’s not often you see villains in comic movies that are just as correct and right as the heroes. In Killmonger’s case possibly even more correct than the hero’s, and that’s what made that movie so good and also so heartbreaking.
Hela, Thor’s older sister (and hasn’t Thor given off major middle child vibes this whole time? Honestly this revelation explains so much.) comes back from her exile upon the death of Odin, causing Thor to question his entire existence, what he knew of his father, and what the foundation of Asgard is truly made of.
It was fascinating to watch Thor discover the true history of Hela and Odin, like a son finding his father’s journal after he dies, this whole secret and shameful history he had never been privy to. I love watching adult children reconcile who their parents really are with who they’d always thought they were.
Cate Blanchett plays this character to perfection. Given her outfit, her dialogue, and literally everything about her, it could easily have overplayed into melodrama and weirdness, but instead Blanchett carefully walks the line between menacing and over-the-top, falling down perfectly on a super bad bitch who absolutely knows how to wield the overwhelming power she has.
The Hero’s Journey
For all that it makes me laugh most of the way through, this movie is also overwhelmingly about loss. Odin dies in the first quarter of the movie. Hela arrives and immediately breaks Mjolnir, Thor’s hammer.
In the first movie, the hammer was the McGuffin, the thing Thor had to be able to lift to prove his worthiness to rule. That entire story was about letting go of his ego to prove his ability to lead. The third movie is all about how you learn to be who you are without the thing that tells you who you are. When the hammer is broken, Thor is lost, both literally and figuratively. Escaping Hela, he finds himself on a far, out-of-the-way trash heap of a planet, fighting for his life and his dignity, desperate to get back to Asgard and prevent Ragnarok, the end of days for Asgard.
We see glimpses of who he can be in his first fight in the arena when he calls down lightning without the hammer, but he very much is not ready to confront exactly what that means or how that happened in that moment.
Which brings me to . . .
The Story’s Resolution
Who doesn’t love a resolution that basically tells us the power was within us all along? That’s all this is. Thor loses an eye, just like his father had, to symbolize the death of the rash, arrogant boy he’d been, and the birth of the king he would come to be. He comes into his power, realizing that the hammer was just a crutch and not anything that he needed to channel the power within him.
And then realizing that the way to save Asgard was to lose it, to ignite the flame and burn the crown and bring about Ragnarok, because the giant lava king Surtur was the only thing that could defeat Hela.
The resolution of this movie is so unlike any of the other MCU movies that it almost rewrites the entire game plan. Thor, literally one of the most alpha of the alpha dogs on the Avengers, doesn’t beat the boss and he doesn’t really save the day. He saves his people because, in the end, the people are what make Asgard, but he loses his home, his entire realm, to a giant lava monster.
And you guys, I just really like that. I love Thor’s acceptance that to win he must also lose. It’s so much character growth for him in just a short sequence of that film.
The Valkyries
You guys, I don’t even know how much I need to say about this. The Valkyries were so flipping cool that I would watch an entire movie of this sequence, even though all but one of them died by the end.
Tessa Thompson is brilliant in this. She is disillusioned and tough and never really strays from that characterization. She doesn’t betray some sweet underbelly of just wanting to be saved or validated. She’s who she is the whole way through. She’s not a romantic foil, she’s not there to make friends, and I really respected the hell out of her for that.
The Super Killer Soundtrack
Listen, I’ve already posted a clip of the final battle but what’s that? You would like to again hear the most amazing use of “The Immigrant Song” since that one scene in Shrek? Okay.
I even got you a different clip of it.
If there’s one complaint I have about this movie, it’s that they jumped all over their own joke about the Hulk being on this garbage planet. Imagine how much funnier it would have been if you didn’t know Hulk was the champion. Imagine Thor showing up on this planet, and they kept talking up this unbeatable champion. Thor marches out into the arena, freshly relieved of his hammer and under no illusions that he might be able to beat whoever he faces, and then it’s the frickin’ Hulk. I would have laughed all the way out of the theater.
Instead, it was in every single preview they showed for that movie and I ask you, what was the point of that?
But honestly, if stepping all over your own perfect joke is the biggest complaint about a movie, it’s pretty damn near perfect.
This is definitely one of my favorites of the MCU, for all the reasons you listed. And yeah, the use of The Immigrant Song was PERFECT.
What’s really wild is that it should feel overused by now, but it just didn’t here. So good.
This was the only Thor that felt like Thor to me, across the whole dang shebang.