Written by James Reilly – Student Pages Entertainment Journalist/Film Critic
Film Rating:
★★★
Thor: Ragnarok is easily the best Thor movie in the trilogy, not hard to be honest, but in terms of the entire MCU it gets lost in some of the truly great films we’ve had in recent years. While its funnier than any Marvel film we’ve had before it, the fact it’s played almost as a straight up comedy means we lose a lot of the emotional impact that Marvel films have had throughout the years. Even in their weakest entries they have an emotional pull (Ant-Man and his daughter, GOTG 2 and Star-Lords dad etc) however here, despite their attempts – have failed. The lack of silent moments of reflections really works to the films disadvantage, it’s almost because they’re trying to cram so much in (jokes included), that they can’t take a single emotional beat to get the audience onside other than them just laughing.
The script was crying out for a greater detail to the emotional family drama which should be front and centre of a Thor movie (not particularly comedy). Now while comedy makes a thoroughly entertaining time at the cinema (I had a blast), it does become something different entirely than what we have been sold and promised from the series to date.
The cast is solid here (despite a truly horrible performance by Sir Anthony Hopkins, I mean oh my is it bad), and they work well with the (sometimes) hilarious material that is presented. Taika Waititi does a very good job bringing a shock of life to the Thor franchise, and although he cannot find the balance between action and comedy all to well – when the comedy is there (which is nearly always is) it works very well with a lot of jokes landing (looking at you GOTG 2 – take notes). Waititi also steals the show as Korg with a character that I could watch for hours.
Overall I really enjoyed the film and yet the fact it falls so close to being great it pains me even more. Moments in the film work very well but that’s all they are – moments. The film is fun and entertaining but it’s uneven and unfocused. I like what they’ve done with Thor and it’s set up very well for future inclusions, but unfortunately Thor: Ragnarok is not the game-changed I hoped.
Follow James at @JamesisGinger
