Revisiting Thor Ragnarok: A colourful, thrilling and sort of nuts adventure

The self-serious thing worked well for, let us say, Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy because of Batman, who was too much of an ordinary mortal. Although he was equipped with advanced gadgets, weaponry and immense physical strength, but he was still safely inside the sphere of possible. Batman of comics was already pretty down-to-earth, and Nolan brought it down even further. It is easier to suspend disbelief when it is just a muscular man fighting criminals who are not demons or alien monsters but routine drug dealers and mobsters… and psychopaths with clown makeup.

Thor: Ragnarok reinvented the God of Thunder

In today’s superhero movies, though, villains throw our heroes on buildings that fall down as though they were made of straw, and more often than not the superhero emerges from the wreckage wholly unscathed (I am looking at you, Man of Steel). This is conveniently explained away by the fact that they are alien, thus not susceptible to earthly damage, or their powers are a result of an experiment, and so on.

How are we, we grownups, able to stifle our sniggers whilst watching all that? We pretend that there is nothing absurd in that. No suspension of disbelief required.

Well, in Taika Watiti’s Thor: Ragnarok, which released a year ago today, you don’t have to take anything seriously. This film begs, nay forces, you to laugh at it. It is almost a self-parody. It knows everything that is happening is ridiculous and wants to take you along for the ride, to bask in the elaborate farce it has put together for you.

Watiti was a terrific choice and kudos to Marvel Studios for giving a comparatively lesser name a chance. Having seen his charming little comedies, Hunt for the Wilderpeople and What We Do in Shadows, I was sure he could do wonders, and he did. His brand of self-effacing humour worked well once again and his own performance as a mild-mannered, revolution-loving Kronan called Korg in the film epitomises everything about his style of filmmaking.

Cate Blanchett played the villain Hela in Thor Ragnarok.

The story is generic. Thor finds himself half a universe away in Sakaar facing his old friend Bruce Banner (stuck in his Hulk form) in a gladiatorial arena overseen by my favourite character of the movie, the gloriously deranged Grandmaster, played by Jeff Goldblum. The reason for Thor’s forced exile is Hela, his long-lost sister who has taken over Asgard, but not before breaking Mjolnir and banishing Thor.

It took two mediocre movies for the God of Thunder (and Chris Hemsworth) to show what he was capable of, and you would never imagine that a film about the literal end of the world could be uproariously funny. It is not perfect, but you’ll be laughing too much to notice any flaws. Humour apart, Thor: Ragnarok is also a very very solid film – a fast-paced, thrilling, exciting, and dynamic adventure.

Jeff Goldblum’s Grandmaster was one of the best things about Thor: Ragnarok.

The hype-machine of Disney and Marvel had already elevated a comparatively minor superhero movie about a relatively dull superhero (see Thor in the original Avengers to know what I am talking about) to an Avengeresque crossover thanks to loads of humour, return of the Hulk, a villain in the always magnificent Cate Blanchett’s Hela, a little team-up with Tessa Thompson’s awesome Valkyrie topping it up, and clever but sparing use of Led Zeppelin’s timeless Immigrant Song. And the movie, astonishingly, manages to live up to that massive build-up.