Movie Review: "Thor: Ragnarok" Is Marvellously Weird and Wonderful (and Full of Aussie In-Jokes)

Guardians of the Galaxy may have done it first, but Thor: Ragnarok does it best.

What I’m talking about is the loosening-up and weirding-out of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. James Gunn’s GOTG introduced psychedelic strobes and late-‘70s jukebox tunes to the saga, yet aside from some cheeky gags and a psychotic racoon, it was still basically more of the same. The sequel, especially.

(That’s not exactly a dis: After seventeen instalments, the pleasant, unexceptional consistency of the MCU is peerless.)

However, it took New Zealand’s premier oddball, Taika Waititi, to actually (and idiosyncratically) reset the board, resulting in the hilarious, knowingly silly and often unexpected Ragnarok, the most refreshing Marvel movie since (*flips back through the seemingly endless catalogue*) the first Captain America. 2016’s Civil War provided a dramatic highpoint for the MCU, but Ragnarok is its flat-out funnest entry.

Chris Hemsworth returns as Thor, who has been vision-questing around the cosmos since Avengers: Age of Ultron, and spends the pre-credit sequence halting Ragnarok, the prophesied end-of-days. Hoping to return to Asgard a conquering hero, he finds estranged brother Loki (Tom Hiddleston) posing as Odin (Anthony Hopkins); a coup that sets the stage for the rise of Hela, Goddess of Death (the fearless Cate Blanchett). Turns out she wants to bring on a Ragnarok of her own. Bummer.

Cast out of Asgard by Hela, Thor and Loki wind up on the alien planet of Sakaar, where a preening Grandmaster (Jeff Goldblum, doing his thing) pits fighters in gladiatorial battles to the death. Thor, captured by drunken warrior Valkyrie (a swaggering Tessa Thompson)—his hair shorn and hammer destroyed—finds himself facing Hulk (Mark Ruffalo), who’s similarly been AWOL these past two years. To get out of this apocalyptic, intergalactic pickle, Thor will have to assemble a team, inspire a revolution and get back home. Put on the spot, he improvises a name for his ragtag group of B-list heroes: ‘The Revengers’.

Seems there was plenty of improv behind the scenes too. I don’t want to diminish the contributions by the numerous screenwriters (including Stephany Folsom, who was denied credit). It’s just that this thing reeks entirely of Taika, whose previous projects include the ingenious vampire mockumentary What We Do in the Shadows and last year’s best picture, the warm and winning Hunt for the Wilderpeople. By all accounts, he tinkered with the script, and both encouraged and participated in on-set improv. It’s certainly believable. Can you imagine that? A Marvel movie that feels improvised.

Not content to only steal the film as director, Waititi also gives himself a plum (albeit motion-captured) role as Korg, a gentle, Kiwi-accented rock-monster who guides Thor on Sakaar. Hemsworth, unfairly gifted with comedic ability too, follows Waititi’s disarming sensibility, and together they make Ragnarok a riotous good time. The injection of Thompson and Blanchett—both delightfully up to no good—helps. And local audiences will appreciate the steady stream of Aussie in-jokes (Ragnarok was shot in Queensland), from the ship names—including "the Commodore"—to one familiar quote stolen from, get this, The Castle.

Boy, does Waititi know exactly what we want.

Of course, the director must serve two masters: The viewers who are burnt-out on the traditional Marvel template, and the bosses who don’t want to hurt their multi-billion-dollar franchise by changing things up too much. Still, Ragnarok feels freely divorced from all the drama of its sister-films. Its colour-scheme is vibrant, and its fight sequences are dynamically illustrated, like, gasp, an actual comic book.

And, in-between the conventional story beats, you have characters goofily riffing, and not in that now-tired-let's-just-have-everyone-yelling-at-one-another way popularised by Deadpool and, I suppose, GOTG. Here, Thor and friends throw away jokes under their breath, follow bizarre trains of thought to their illogical end, or stop themselves from even finishing sentences in a fit of awkward self-awareness.

Everyone in Thor: Ragnarok speaks Taika-ese, and it’s wonderful.

4/5

In cinemas October 26. Rated M for action violence.

Photo: Disney