Thor Ragnarok movie review: This Chris Hemsworth and Cate Blanchett starrer will keep you entertained

Don’t fret about the rest, for Ragnarok pays Earth just a fly-by visit while the other planets it halts by are no more than incadescent heaps of metal inhabited by forgettable people. That is to say, there is little at stake in the third Thor movie apart from the possibility of an armageddon — called ‘Ragnarok’ — striking Thor’s planet Asgard. Hela hints at great kingdoms being built on greater bloodshed, but the film isn’t really concerned with such debates. When all the saving etc is done, you might find yourself wondering at what all the fuss concerning Asgard was about, but that has hardly stopped anyone before.

At least while he is on his planet-hopping adventure, Thor, tagged by brother Loki (Hiddleston, whose Loki surely deserves a film of his own by now), largely keeps us entertained. The two brothers continue to share a love-hate relationship, but it is more love this time, and the hate is a little less defined. Hiddleston, though, hints at a hidden resentment that Ragnarok ignores.

They are thrown together to save Asgard after their father Odin, by now in a semi-retirement, philosophical mood, along the edge of some beautiful Norway shore (finally, a nod to the Nordic orgins), passes away. On his death bed — or rather the rock on which he ruminates before dissolving into golden dust — Odin warns the sons that Hela, his first-born daughter whom he had banished for being “too evil”, is back. Hela chooses just that time to surface, and to smash the magical hammer of Thor to smithereens. She also manages to out-race Thor and Loki back to Asgard, and proceeds to massacre almost everyone on it, in her quest for universal power (or some such). Thor and Loki must make their way back and stop her.

In that quest, both find themselves, by varied, undefined routes, to the same planet, Sakaar, ruled by the devilish ‘Grandmaster (a superb Goldblum)’. Hulk (Ruffalo) has been captured here before them, and this is where Avengers Thor and Hulk, and a Tony Stark ship, plot their “revenge” against Hela.

Ruffalo, with or without the green monster, can bring warmth to any cold corner a film has painted itself into. And again, Hemsworth and he share some very nice moments as they find their way back to Avenger camaraderie.

However, it is soon clear that Waititi (who also has a small role in the film) is getting his actors to talk, talk, and then talk some more, and letting us laugh once in a while, to only prolong what is inevitable. Eventually, hundreds of CG-generated beings will be hammered, smashed, blasted, cut, sliced, gunned etc, as part of a mayhem, which is only sequel to a prequel, or prequel to a sequel, or, if you sit past the credits, both prequel and sequel. A Marvel.