SCFT Reviews: Thor:Ragnarok

Thor:Ragnarok opened to high expectations in the USA on Thursday 11/02/2017

Like a hammer deftly zooming over the horizon with incredible speed as if it were  on some predestined date with destiny, Thor:Ragnarok hit movie theaters in the USA last Thursday and it's impact echoes back over all of 2017's mostly excellent superhero films resonating all the way back to 2015's Age of Ultron. Even those of us who cannot remember what happened in the first two Thor movies are wanting to go back and see what we might have missed.

After the Scarlet Witch put a vision in his mind, Thor heads off to the Waters of Remembrance in the Age of Ultron

At the end of 2015's Avengers: Age of Ultron, Thor booked off as he had had a vision of Asgard burning and being heir to Odin's throne he just had to find a way of stopping it. And in the opening moments of Thor: Ragnarok, he does it! He stops Rangarok! Cue credits! Not even time for a Stan Lee Cameo, end movie!

Couldn't find any pictures of Odin reclining and watching theater so this will have to do

Oh, wait, upon arriving in Asgard, Thor discovers that Odin is missing and Loki has been masquerading as Odin for the last three years. Oops!

Thor unmasks Loki and makes him take Thor to Odin's last known location, but upon finding Odin, Thor is told that Ragnarok is inevitable, nothing is solved because Thor's long lost sister is back. She is  Hela, the goddess of death and she desires to rule Asgard.

Odin's eldest and Thor's moody sister, Hela, goddess of death.

Thor and Loki try to make an escape to Asgard as soon as Hela shows but Bifrost ends up sending them to Sakaar, ruled by Jeff Goldblum as played by the Marvel's The Grand Master. Sakaar is kind of like that big ring of plastic in the Pacific Ocean, all the cosmic debris just ends up there. Once there, Thor is reunited with the Hulk! Only the Hulk is a gladiator and he loves his job so Thor gets the same treatment Loki got all the way back in 2012's The Avengers. It's a callback!

Thor and Hulk chillin'

But fun and games aside, Thor needs to get back to Asgard to defeat Hela so he convinces the Hulk and a Valkyrie named, conveniently enough, Valkyrie, to head back to Asgard after incapacitating a treacherous Loki who eventually escapes and joins Thor and the team on Asgard.

Loki is not in a good mood

Once back in Asgard, Thor finally understands what Odin was on about, you know, the folly of trying to avoid Ragnarok, and gives Loki permission to set a fire demon named Sutr loose so the prophecy of Ragnarok can be fulfilled.

Thor:Ragnarok has a lot going on, not the least of which is an overload of Dad and Auntie humor, it's almost as if the director, Taika Waititi, had no idea how to make a believable superhero movie so he just decided to go all in on the ridiculous jokes. I have a highly refined sense of humor and I found quite a few of the jokes to be painful but around the time Thor and co. makes their escape from Sakaar, I realized I was having a great time in spite of the bad jokes.

I had made an imaginary video in my head before going to the movie, making predictions of what I would see, and the number one thing I thought we would see was a more talkative Hulk. All I can really recall the Hulk saying in the previous movies is "Puny god" all the way back in the first Avengers movie but in this movie we finally have the comic book Hulk, at least so far as I can remember. The Hulk can talk and the talking Hulk was among the greatest moments of the movie for me.

Jeff Goldblum as played by the Grand Master. He likes games.

But  the number one character in this movie is Jeff Goldblum as played by Marvel's The Grand Master. Jeff Goldblum is the kind of villain who is so confident he doesn't feel the need to intimidate you. He's like, "Even though I stammer sometimes, you know I'm a bad-ass and I will destroy you if it suits me." In a way this is a return to Jeff Goldbum's roots as the rapist gang member in the first Death Wish movie.

And while Jeff Goldblum is a delight every time he is on the screen, the filmmakers seem to know not to over-use him. He really only has three or four scenes and an end-credit. It's brilliant!

While, at times, I found the poor humor to be soul-crushing, the movie won me over for the most part and I give it an 8 out of 10.

Hulk, Thor, Valkyrie, and Loki pose for a group shot on Bifrost

Okay, so you don't like comic book movies, you're not going to like this one either. But if you've been along for the ride over the 17 movies released in the MCU thus far, you're going to see this anyway. And even if the humor puts you off, you're going to still love it despite yourself, even if you can't admit it to anyone.