THOR RAGNAROK: THE MOONRAKER OF MARVEL MOVIES

By Barry Dutter


 I never thought I would be comparing the THOR movies to JAMES BOND, but hear me out.
In the early 1970s, the James Bond series switched from action/adventure to “comedy” starting with LIVE AND LET DIE. Roger Moore had just replaced Sean Connery as 007, and the writers of the movies were now tailoring scripts to play to the new actor’s strengths. The comedic Bond films of the 70s, such as THE SPY WHO LOVED ME, turned out to be some of the most popular ones in the series.
Now Marvel seems to be following the same path with Thor. Apparently the Marvel films have been around long enough that now they can start making fun of themselves as well. Sure, the GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY movies had lots of humor in them, but Thor Ragnarok is the first Marvel film could could truly be labeled a comedy. It's the first Marvel movie that could come with a laugh track.
As a lifelong comic fan, I’ll admit it bugs me. But I understand that a Thor 3 with no laughs in it would likely make half the money as goofball Thor.
Thor has always been Marvel’s most boring hero, just as Superman has always been DC‘s. With his Shakespearean speech patterns and his godly bearing, Thor is completely unrelatable to any kid who grew up reading comics.
When you’re a twelve-year-old kid, and you have the chance to read a Spider-Man comic, with his snappy sarcasm and zippy one-liners, it’s a little hard to get into the “thee,” “thy” and ”thou” of Thor and his Asgardian buddies.
Over the years, Thor has gradually gotten away from the archaic style of speech in the comics. In the movies, they did away with it right from the start. In his first 2 films, Thor is shown as being regal, a little arrogant, and haughty. But there is not an “I say thee nay!” to be found.
The first two Thor films were successful enough to warrant a third chapter -- but those first two installments are not particularly popular among super-hero film aficionados. You won’t find many super-hero fans who list the Thor movies among their favorites. The second one, in particular, was considered  a big disappointment by die-hard Marvelites.
So it was decided to take a different approach with the third movie in the series. THOR RAGNAROK is a surprisingly funny comedy. The first two-thirds of the movie have many laugh-out-loud moments.
There are some amusing callbacks to previous films, particularly the first AVENGERS flick.
The final third of the movie is mostly action. As happens in most action-comedies, it’s hard to keep the laughs coming when you’ve got heroes fighting for their lives -- and the fate of the universe is at stake.
Some of the laughs in THOR RAGNAROK are well earned. Others come at the expense of the title character. This brings me to my biggest complaint about the film: THOR RAGNAROK makes Thor look stupid.
He is the butt of most of the jokes in the film. He gets routinely beaten up and abused by most of the other characters, including Hulk, Hela, Grandmaster and Valkyrie.
Thor is not written as a God in this film. He is written as a regular Earth man. He uses modern Earth slang.  He says words like “Shit” and uses expression like, “He’s my friend from work.”
Some of these lines are funny, but they are completely out of character. The Marvel Comics Thor would never talk like that. (He might say, “Tis an old comrade from Midgard!”) It seems Thor’s time on Earth has softened him up considerably.
When Thor explains to someone that he and Jane Foster had a mutual break-up, he sounds like Jack Tripper fibbing his way through an awkward situation on THREE’S COMPANY. (My alternate title for this film is THOR’S COMPANY!)
Thor is on the ropes for most of this film. With his hammer destroyed, he is not his usual confident self. He is very nervous, clumsy and fidgety and is constantly lying to try to get out of situations.
He seems more Barney Fife than God of Thunder.
There are some moments in the film when the humor works:
1) When Thor cleverly exposes Loki’s ruse at the beginning of the film;
2) When Thor curses Tony Stark for making his codename “Point Break”
3) When Hulk thrashes Thor at one point, in the exact same manner that he smashed Loki in Avengers 1, and Loki cheers exuberantly!
There are many moments when the humor is just cheap laughs that come at the expense of our hero. 
1) Thor screams like a girl at the prospect of getting a haircut. (This is just silly. Thor is not Samson -- it’s not as if his hair is the source of all his power.)
2) Thor screams like a girl when he is forced to ride an amusement park-style ride that brings him to meet the Grandmaster. (Again, Thor wouldn’t scream for anything in the comics.)
3) Thor bumps into sculptures and clumsily breaks things like Inspector Clouseau when he visits Dr. Strange’s house.
These are the 3 that bugged me the most, but there were many others.
For over 60 years in the comics, no one has ever felt the need to make an “Ass-Guard” joke. But Thor 3 is happy to serve one up. The potty humor continues with the reference to an opening in the sky nicknamed “The Devil’s Anus.”  It gets a cheap laugh in the movie but the comics would not have stooped so low. In the comics, it would’ve been called a “ cosmic portal” or some such.
There are a couple of laughs at the expense of the Hulk.
1) When Bruce Banner wear Tony Stark’s clothes, a comment is made about the pants being too tight in the crotch. Cheap laugh.
2) Once again, we are shown a scene of Bruce Banner jumping out of  a flying vehicle, thinking he will transform into the Hulk before he hits the ground. Once again, the filmmakers score a cheap laugh by having Bruce hitting the pavement, seemingly breaking every bone in his body before he transforms into the Hulk.
Every time I watch a scene like that, I think to myself, “They have no idea how the Hulk’s transformation works.”
As a lifelong comic fans, I have always appreciated how the comics take the heroes and their world seriously. But the movies will usually include at least one scene that points out how ridiculous the entire situation is.
Comics are made for an audience of maybe 50,000 nerds who live and breathe four-color fantasies. But a movie has to appeal to millions of filmgoers all around the world. The Avengers comic book currently sells about 35,000 copies a month. Avengers movies attract tens of millions of action movie fans and bring in about a billion dollars each. Clearly the people who go to the movies have no interest in ever buying a comic book.
Marvel knows what  they’re doing when it comes to their movies. You won’t find any off-putting Shakespeare speech in a Marvel movie. Instead, pretty much every character hast he same wise-cracking delivery of Tony Stark.
Thor Ragnarok plays so much like a live-action cartoon, it feels like we are watching the LEGO THOR MOVIE. Half the characters in the movie are CGI.
There are some inconsistencies with the comics, as is par for the course. For the record, in the comics, Loki was always portrayed as being far more powerful than Dr. Strange. Who do I write to for a No-Prize?
Tessa Thompson has a winning delivery as Valkyrie, but she is far too short to convincingly play an Amazonian warrior. Jeff Goldblum seems to be having fun as the Grandmaster, even if his post-credit scene is the worst in a long line of pointless Marvel post-credit scenes. Director Taika Waititi plays Korg, a comic relief character who really seems to have the wrong voice for his a big blue monster.
Chris Hemsworth seems to enjoy playing different sides of Thor this time around. He’s totally game for making Thor a stuttering, bumbling idiot, maybe too much so.
Now on to the good stuff; the battle between Thor and Hulk just might be the best super hero fight scene we’ve even seen in a movie, although I’m not 100% sure they topped Hulk vs. Iron Man in AGE OF ULTRON.
The final battle with Hela and her hordes is exciting, and the use of Led Zeppelin’s Immigrant Song is an inspired choice.
Sif does not appear in this film, but there is so much going on, you hardly notice. Thankfully, Jane Foster, Eric Selvig, and Darcy are gone, as well. Those three were always the weakest part of previous Thor films.
Cate Blanchett does such a great job as Hela, you really believe she could kill with but a touch. There is a ton of new back story for Hela, who is now Thor’s sister, since apparently everyone in every movie has to be related to each other. As a continuity buff, all the stuff with Hela growing up as Odin’s daughter had me tearing my hair out, but this kind of thing has been going on in movies since the Joker killed Batman’s parents in the 1989 Batman movie.
You never really get used to it. I guess they had to add some kind of back-story to Hela. If she just walks around claiming dead warriors and escorting them to Hell, that’s not much of a thread to hang a movie on.
The Warriors Three meet an ignominious fate, but seeing as pretty much every character who has ever died in a Marvel movie has come back, one can only hope that trio will return someday.
This brings me to my final point: the Thor/Wonder Woman connection. Consider this: The Wonder Woman movie featured a heroine who wielded a weapon of great power. The weapon gave her the confidence she needed to take on any foe. Then one day, that weapon was smashed by a villain. Diana thought she could never win again without her weapon. Then she found out that she never really needed the weapon at all -- the power was within her all along.
Thor Ragnarok has the exact same story. I’m sure it’s just coincidence but it’s unfortunate that both movies came out in  the same year and WW came out just a few  months prior. (And both films seem to have borrowed the idea from a 1980s comic called DREADSTAR.)
For those people (like me) who complain about Marvel movies not following the comics, Ragnarok does include several story lines from the comics, including Ranarok itself, the final fate of Skurge the Executioner, and even the destruction of Asgard (sorry, Ass-Guard! Ha ha ! Get it?)
Thor 3 even borrows the premise of the World War Hulk comic saga. (Since there will never be another solo Hulk movie, it makes sense to incorporate classic Hulk stories into other Marvel movies.)
 With his short hair and missing hammer, and his goofball Earth-isms, this is a Thor we have not seen before on film. Yes, he still maintains some of his  nobility and some of his arrogance, but for the most part, this is Thor as the Every Schmuck. We also get to see Thor use his “God of Thunder” powers in exciting new ways that literally electrify the film.
I was hoping to see a new hammer forged for Thor at the end of this film, but alas this was not to be. When the now one-eyedThor next meets his Avengers comrades in INFINITY WAR, they might not even recognize him.
Now that they got all the comedy out of their system, hopefully the filmmakers will be able to play it straight next time.
Otherwise, the next Thor movie might resemble MOONRAKER, and I don’t think the world is ready for that.