Thor Ragnarok (The Movie)

Thor Ragnarok

I have recently been to see the Thor Ragnarok movie and to be honest I am not really sure if I enjoyed it or not.

The premise of the movie is that Thor has been thrown out of Asgard and Hela, the god of death,  who wishes to become the queen of Asgard, actually turns out to be his elder sister which he knew nothing about, who prior to Thor’s existence went on the rampage with Thor’s father Odin to subdue the 9 worlds which are held in the branches of Yggdrasil. Hela the first offspring of Odin to carry Thor’s hammer Mjölnir turns out was just too dangerous for Odin to handle so he banished her to Hel (no not a misspelling). I will leave the rest of the story there as I don’t want to give away too many spoilers.

What was different from the other Thor films?

I have been a Marvel fan for many years, see my blog on Marvel or DC. So my knowledge and understanding predate the movie Thor which was released in 2011.

So what wasn’t I sure about? The first thing for me was the humour in Thor Ragnarok. I know many people really enjoyed the humour in it. I found it distracted from the film and the story. There was a lot of humour in it between Hulk/Bruce Banner and Thor.

The funniest line was when Hulk said “Hulk like raging fire, Thor like water! Mark Ruffalo and Chris Hemsworth said there was a lot of improvisation in the dialogue and you could tell, not that it didn’t work and you could tell that they both had a great time with the dialogue throughout the film.

Whenever I  have seen a film with Mark Ruffalo in I have enjoyed his performance and he can be very funny. He is a very likeable and intelligent man. I would recommend the movie Begin Again if you want to see him play an amazing role in encouraging a singer to record an album after a break from her boyfriend who was just on the verge of becoming a successful singer.

[pullquote]Hulk like raging fire, Thor like water![/pullquote]

Thor and the Hulk

There was a load of Thor on Hulk action which was good but probably went on a bit too long for me. In fact, if you are looking for an action movie with a lot of comedy then this is for you without a doubt. I was hoping for a more traditional team-up with Thor and Hulk that you would find in a graphic novel or a comic.

If I was to ask you who was Dr Donald Blake unless you first became a Thor fan after watching Thor’s first movie you probably wouldn’t have a clue who I meant. In the fantastic comics of the 1960s Thor had an alter ego known as Don Blake, how it was described in the comic that Don Blake was possessed by Thor.

As a human, Thor was disabled and relied on a stick to walk with but whenever Dr Don Blake changed from his mortal self into the God of thunder he would strike if stick on the floor and he was transformed into Thor, when he ever Thor wanted to transform back to Don Blake he would strike his hammer on the floor and he would change back

(Picture taken from the Fantastic Annual 1968)

Why do I bother to mention this? the part I liked in the film was after Thor and Loki had me with Odin, both Thor and Loki were wearing civilian clothes. After they had left Odin and were about to meet Hela for the first time Thor strikes his umbrella on the floor  and is instantly changed into his armour and cloak and I felt that was a nod to the great stories found in the early comics of the ’60s and ’70s

Conclusion

Did I enjoy this film? At the time not as much as I hoped. I know the critics are split on it. The actors were great, and the storyline was great too but I felt it lacked something that the other Thor films had. I felt it was played for jokes and humour. Saying that I will buy it on DVD when it comes out and give it another chance, maybe I will see something I missed the first time around.

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