Why so serious?No need to ask that of the folks running Disney-owned Marvel Studios.
Its Marvel Cinematic Universe long has had a strong comical component to go along with all the action- and effects-driven spectacle. Yet it seems that lately – now that Warner Bros. Pictures and DC Comics are competing with the at-times dreadfully serious DC Extended Universe – Marvel is piling on the funny.
The previous three films – “Doctor Strange,” “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2” and the best of the bunch, this summer’s “Spider-Man: Homecoming” – have loaded up on laughs.
That trend continues with “Thor: Ragnarok.”
Look, this third adventure centering around Thor (Chris Hemsworth), the hammer-wielding Norse god of thunder, is very entertaining. However, it ratchets up the comedy, tiptoeing along – and occasionally crossing – the line of being too silly for its own good.
(It’s like, yes, Thor’s homeworld, Asgard, is in grave danger, but the most important thing is that we all have a good time, OK everybody?)
The film opens with a clearly captured Thor talking to skeleton who is standing in for us, the audience.
“I know what you’re thinking,” Thor says. “‘Thor’s in a cage! What happened?”
He then falls out of the bottom of the cage and hangs below it, wrapped in chains. He has a playful conversation with his captor, the big, mean-looking Surtur (voiced by Clancy Brown of “The Shawshank Redemption”), and soon enough is reunited with his mighty hammer and fighting Surtur and his demonic minions, all to the appropriately thundering sounds of Led Zeppelin’s “Immigrant Song” (“… the hammer of gods …”).
When Thor gets back to Asgard, he finds his ever-duplicitous adopted brother, Loki (Tom Hiddleston), is posing as their father, Odin (Anthony Hopkins), and running the place. This leads to a trip to earth for the brothers to find pops, who’s milling about on some lovely oceanfront property in Norway.
(Before they get to Europe, however, Thor has a fun meeting with powerful sorcerer Doctor Strange – still played delightfully by Benedict Cumberbatch – who provides him a large, magically refilling mug of beer and nudges him toward collecting his father and getting Loki back off the planet before he can do any more damage.)
Odin tells his boys they must prepare for the coming of their big sister, Hela (Cate Blanchett), who, unfortunately for them and all of Asgard, is the goddess of death. Long ago and ally of Odin, he later imprisoned her when she became a problem.
The first encounter Thor and Loki have with Hela goes, well, very badly. This is when “Thor: Ragnarok” takes a bit of an odd turn. While sis goes on to Asgard to commit all sorts of evil doings, the boys find themselves magically transported to another world.
While Loki works to ingratiate himself with the planet’s odd and playful, if also dangerous, Grandmaster (Jeff Goldblum, being rather enjoyably Jeff Goldblum-y), Thor finds himself imprisoned and made to fight as a gladiator. And, as we know full well from the trailers, he soon will be forced to fight a fellow Avenger, the big, green and certainly incredible Hulk. (The coincidence that Hulk is on this very same planet is one of a handful in the movie you’re just going to have to swallow.)
“Yes!” Thor exclaims, in a great moment heavily used to promote the movie. “We know each other! He’s a friend from work.”
Well, maybe so, but the big guy really wants to beat the snot out of Thor, and the clash of the two is a fun, action-packed sequence that anchors “Ragnarok.”
With Hela on the loose on Asgard, we know the action must eventually return there, the mechanics of which are tied to Valkyrie (Tessa Thompson of “Westworld”), a former Asgardian warrior who captured Thor for the Grandmaster and who spends much of her time lost in a bottle. And then there’s Hulk’s alter ego, brilliant scientist (ahem, seven Ph.Ds) Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo, “Spotlight”), who hasn’t been in control of himself since the events of 2015’s “Avengers: Age of Ultron,” we learn.
“Thor: Ragnarok” is structured rather unusually by writers Eric Pearson, Craig Kyle and Christopher L. Yost, the latter two having worked on the highly forgettable “Thor: The Dark World” (2013). The film plays like a short gladiator movie bookended by the Hela problem, which makes sense considering Pearson is said to have borrowed from a storyline in the comic book “Thor: God of Thunder” and another Marvel storyline called “Planet Hulk.” The amalgamation works, but not all that well.
Director Taika Waititi, a New Zealander best known for the well-received 2014 vampire mockumentary “What We Do in the Shadows” who also has worked as an actor and comedian, keeps the laughs coming so quickly that most are unlikely to notice the weird way in which the film is built. It’s certainly an interesting choice by Marvel to go with a comedy director here, and one that mostly pays off, with “Ragnarok” delivering well enough in the action department.
It helps that Hemsworth, a star who has played if for laughs in recent years as supporting characters in “Vacation” and “Ghostbusters,” has decent comedy chops. All of Thor’s jokes – and there are many of them – hit their marks.
Not everything in the film lands, including a weird dynamic between the Hulk and Bruce, each worrying in an insecure way Thor may like the alter ego best. Plus, the Hulk can now communicate much more than he ever has, seemingly simply so certain scenes will work mechanically. Plus, it’s unsatisfying that Marvel has turned Loki, a major villain in 2011’s “Thor” and 2012’s “The Avengers,” into a frenemy for Thor. It’s all a bit too lightweight, even for a comic-book flick.
And then there’s the gifted Blanchett (“Blue Jasmine,” “Carol”), who’s underused and sentenced to being a one-dimensional if quite powerful villain
Ragnarok is a Norse term referring to the end of days. We know, however, that Thor will be back for “Avengers: Infinity War” in the summer, an ensemble epic that also will include the Guardians of the Galaxy and bring potentially galaxy-shaking ramifications.
“Thor: Ragnarok” feels largely like an appetizer for that, but that’s OK.
So laugh it up. While you can.
‘Thor: Ragnarok’
In theaters: Nov. 3.Rated: PG-13 for intense sequences of sci-fi violence and action, and brief suggestive material.
Runtime: 2 hours, 10 minutes.Stars (of four): 2.5.
