‘Thor: Ragnarok’ movie review: We Will Fight Them on the Rainbow Bridges

While Kenneth Branagh’s 2011 Thor garnered some critical acclaim for its Shakespearean scope, the Thor movies have at large failed to achieve the widespread admiration enjoyed by the likes of Captain America or the Guardians of the Galaxy. But with Thor: Ragnarok, Taika Waititi has delivered certainly the best Thor movie to date (and this is coming from an ardent defender of the franchise), and arguably one of the MCU’s best since Iron Man kicked off the party nearly a decade ago.

Plus it has a seriously badass poster…

Spoilers ahead for Thor: Ragnarok

When we first find Thor (Chris Hemsworth), he’s the captive of the demon Surtur following a largely unsuccessful search for the remaining Infinity Stones. After Surtur reveals that Odin (Anthony Hopkins) is no longer in charge of Asgard and the Nine Realms and that Ragnarok, the destruction of Asgard, is pretty much inevitable, Thor hot-foots it outta there to confront his meddlesome brother Loki (the ever-delightful Tom Hiddleston), who is posing as Odin on the Asgardian throne. From there begins a delightful series of events – featuring an extended cameo by Benedict Cumberbatch as Doctor Strange – which ends with Thor being held prisoner by the Grandmaster (Jeff Goldblum) on the planet of Sakaar, forced to fight for his freedom in a gladiator style battle against fellow former Avenger the Hulk aka Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo) – the Grandmaster’s undefeated champion. All the while, goddess of death Hela (Cate Blanchett) wreaks havoc on Asgard, abandoned by its champions. And thus Thor assembles a team of warriors to take on Hela, save Asgard and – he believes – prevent Ragnarok.

Part of this team is the Grandmaster’s right hand and former Valkyrie (legendary warrior women sworn to protect the throne of Asgard), the scavenger known as Scrapper 142 (Tessa Thompson). Although she’s never referred to as such in the film, the character is listed on official records as Valkyrie, so I’ll just refer to her as that going forward. And can I just say, it was SUCH a breath of fresh air to see a woman of colour kicking copious amounts of ass in a superhero film – a Marvel film, no less (read: Spider-man: Homecoming). Furthermore, she wasn’t a love interest for our hunky lead either. Well, not really anyway. Having said that, the film is primarily about the broken brotherhood of Thor and Loki, which didn’t leave room for a huge arc for Valkyrie, so I’m tremendously glad to read that Thompson has reportedly signed a multi-picture deal with Marvel. I’d love to see more of her backstory, particularly considering that her canon bisexuality was removed from the film in all ways but an incredibly light implication that, being honest, I probably only noticed because I went into the film with my queer-character goggles firmly in place. This is particularly significant considering that the film side of the MCU is currently completely devoid of explicit queer representation of ANY KIND. Oh well, I can dream, right? And hope that one day the world Marvel movies will do better. And besides, Valkyrie’s character – bi or otherwise – is tremendous, both in terms of representation of strong women of colour and just being an awesome character in general. She, like many of the film’s leads, has become disaffected with the apparent majesty of Asgard. But she still fights for its people (after quite a bit of persuading from Thor, anyway). Because, as Thor said in the opening scene, that’s what heroes do. And, as he concluded in its closing sequences, because Asgard isn’t a place, or even really a history. It’s a people, and the story they tell together. And they deserve saving. This is a realisation that all of our heroes come to by the end of the film, evidenced by Thor and Loki’s decision to unleash Surtur on Asgard in order to stop Hela from destroying its people. Ragnarok, in the best way.

As ever in these movies, Hiddleston is an instant standout, and his chemistry with Hemsworth is so well-developed at this point that we as an audience can seriously buy into the incredibly complex and damaged – but still fun and light when it needed to be – nature of their relationship. The absence of Jane Foster, as played by Natalie Portman in the previous two movies, allowed Thor’s relationship with his brother to take front and centre like it always should have done. And what a delight it was.

Cate Blanchett is easily one of the best actors working today, and while Hela is far from the most intricate character of her career, she is absolutely on the upper end of Marvel’s pantheon of villains, and you can just imagine the fun Blanchett had on the set of this movie. Her motivations were clear and unoriginal, but the threat she posed was present and dangerous throughout. And her interplay with cowardly right-hand man Skurge (Karl Urban) made for some of the funniest lines in the movie.

The focus of the story, however, was rightly on the titular hero. As Ian Martin posited in his Wonder Woman review, the best superhero movies are those that pose a challenge to the protagonists ideologies as well as their abilities. When confronted with those disillusioned with the vision of a glorious Asgard presented to them in history books – a falsehood Hela takes great joy in uncovering – Thor must make a choice: whether to defend Asgard the place and everything it represents (or at least what it is supposed to), or to sacrifice it to save its people in an effort to restore that dream. This is perhaps fitting, considering our own predicament. As an outsider looking in, America seems bafflingly over-zealous in its patriotism, but when the ideals that the United States is supposed to represent are being trampled by a chaotic government led by a narcissistic comic-book villain with zero political subtlety and a world view that flies in the face of everything America has always claimed to stand for… I am forever in admiration of those standing up, not just to the demonic President but to the elitist establishment that created him. Because they choose as Thor did. Because what is America without Americans? And what is Asgard without Asgardians? Nothing but a fairytale.

Aaaaaaanyway, I digress. The ideological challenge Thor faces is undermined a little by the fact that it was always blatantly obvious what he was going to choose. Thor is and always has been unquestionably heroic. Instead, the more uncertain element was Valkyrie, and even more so, Loki (did I mention they were my favourites?). They began as adversaries of Thor but in the end chose to do the right thing. Backed by Heimdall’s (Idris Elba) revolution, the three heroes (sidebar: RIP the Warriors Three), joined by Hulk, united to do right. By destroying Asgard, they saved it.

Thor: Ragnarok was my most anticipated film of the year, and while it was surpassed by Wonder Woman and Logan it is for sure Marvel’s most impressive entry of since Captain America: Civil War, the last MCU film to truly blow me away. While Doctor Strange and Ant-Man were fun, and Guardians of the Galaxy vol. 2 was for me an improvement on the first in a number of ways, the MCU is beginning to look a little grey. The fact that my two favourite films of the year were superhero flicks not produced by Marvel Studios is testament to something; whether that is the MCU’s growth towards staleness or just my own increasing pickiness, I’m not entirely sure. But while Thor: Ragnarok isn’t perfect, it has restored my faith in Marvel Studios and actually has me getting excited for the impending Avengers: Infinity War for the first time in a while. And it served as both a fantastic conclusion to a problematic but ultimately enjoyable – to me at least – trilogy, and a tantalising taste of what might be to come for the MCU. It is most definitely a bravo from me.

Thor: Ragnarok stars Chris Hemsworth, Tom Hiddleston, Cate Blanchett, Idris Elba, Jeff Goldblum, Tessa Thompson, Karl Urban, Mark Ruffalo and Anthony Hopkins, and is in cinemas now.

Review by Louis Hindle.