Whatever your opinion of the Marvel movies, they have done something that no other film franchise has ever done. We've had long running series like James Bond, epic plotting with The Lord of the Rings, multi-sequel franchises like Harry Potter, Star Wars, or X-men, but nothing comes close to the consistent (for the most part) continuity of the 23 Marvel movies. What is more remarkable is managing to thread that all into such an event as Avengers: Infinity War, and have it be essentially the best film in the franchise. So many things have to work for all of this to have come together, and with the potential death of movie theaters, the experience of the Marvel franchise up to Avengers: Endgame will more than likely never be replicated again. An unbelievable cap to an unbelievable franchise. But though Infinity War may be the best, and though Endgame gave us a rather comfortable end (despite their insistence to continue on forever more), it is Thor Ragnarok that holds the special place in my heart as my personal favorite of the franchise.
It may be hard to believe now, but there was a time when Thor seemed just too ridiculous to work as a feature super hero film. Back in 2011, we were still in a post-Nolan superhero world. Iron Man went toe-to-toe with goliath The Dark Knight in 2008, and though one ended up with more critical favor than the other (causing a revamp of the Best Picture nominee at the Academy Awards in the process), it was Iron Man whose legacy would prevail in the next decade. But even with Iron Man's more comical take on the superhero genre, it was still steeped in realism. Generally speaking, Iron Man was trying to appeal to a more light-hearted take on the Nolan Batman films, maintaining the realistic world but with more fun between the cracks. Thor, with its fantasy driven Asgard and ridiculous leading character, looked to stray too far away from the formula that was working. Thor indeed came in as an underwhelming film, and its sequel, Thor: The Dark World, is generally considered the worst in the entire Marvel franchise. Thor as a character just seemed to not work very well with what everyone else was doing. Before Dark World, Joss Whedon and co working on The Avengers proved that Thor could work in an ensemble, particularly as a slightly comedic foil to Tony Stark. For one reason or another, however, that didn't translate well into the Thor sequel.
Fast forward some time, and Guardians of the Galaxy is set to release, and again people are talking about their doubts as to whether the film is going to work or not. Far more than Thor ever was, Guardians seemed a fully bizarre, cartoonish entry in the Marvel Universe, throwing away completely the ties to realism in favor of a more comic book type aesthetic and tone. Director James Gunn, however, brought all his medal firing humor, slapstick action, and interesting and funny characters into a bright and colorful world. Guardians, by most people's metric, is the real turning point in the Marvel franchise, the film that figured out the proper formula for the series to carry on. Another Avengers movie, some sequels (even a soft Avengers film in Captain America Civil War) and we were staring straight down the path towards Thanos, the cosmic villain that wanted to end half of all life in the universe for his own sociopathic beliefs. And none of that was sounding ridiculous anymore.
It was plain to see, however, that if they were going to go for another Thor movie, they were going to have to revamp things. In comes Taika Waititi, New Zealand filmmaker at this point known for his work with Flight of the Conchords and What We Do In Shadows (and, if you were keen on the indie film market of the mid 00s, Eagle Vs. Shark, a film I couldn't like no matter how hard I tried at the time). Waititi injected some much needed humor into Thor's character, allowing him to be as self absorbed as everyone would assume he was, and stretching Chris Hemsworth's comedy chops, chops it turns out he is very skilled in. What's more, the decision to adapt not a Thor comic, but a Hulk comic for this film worked to let Thor act as something like a deluded everyman in a spectacularly strange world. It is fish-out-of-water, where the fish is a gorilla with gills. Everything about Thor Ragnarok is absurd, willing to have fun even at the expense of the Marvel universe itself. The film stretches the believability of what the Marvel films had become in order to play with them smartly. After all, though people may be taking the pathos seriously here and there, the world itself was little more than a connection of points. The more serious this world got, the more tired the films became. You can look no further than Avengers: Age of Ultron, which, though being a classic comic book story, felt like a tired threat compared to the fantastical that we knew could happen. Age of Ultron wasn't a bad film, it was simply a boring film, one that played a little too closely to what the earlier Marvel films did, and in so doing began to feel like it was treading similar ground. It would take post-Civil War to really inject some much needed life into The Avengers again.
Though technically Black Panther would release between Ragnarok and Infinity War, it is Ragnarok that truly leads into the final act. Infinity War picks up right where Ragnarok left off, with Thanos' ship intercepting the ship Thor and co. are on at the end of this film. Ragnarok was the stage setting, placing the final pieces into place for the most devastating thing to happen to this universe to occur. The focus, largely, is in bringing Hulk back after his disappearance after Age of Ultron, and in rebooting Thor into a character we can actually give a shit about. Hulk and Thor, it turns out, are a rather ornery buddy-cop paring when you put them together. Thor in general is just rather selfish, and his attempt to appeal to the immensely powerful but rather unstable Hulk and then later to the fragile yet intelligent Bruce Banner is some of the best work either actor or character has received in the series. Thor may have multiple movies under his belt where Hulk has one (and even then, not this Hulk, not really), but both somehow feel equally sideline, unable to properly hold a film on their own to any great degree. Together, however, their oddness is allowed to play out in full and with conflict. We don't just get to laugh at Hulk and Thor, we get to understand them and their motivations a little better. We are allowed to disagree with them, to empathize with them, and to embrace their flaws. As funny and outlandish as the setting and villain are in this film, it is really the conflict between Hulk and Thor, two people who just can't work together because they are both so stubborn, that really makes up the primary focus of the film. It is a character work, through-and-through, and Taiki Waititi's soon-to-be-trademarked style is what knits these parts together so seamlessly.
Thor Ragnarok is my favorite Marvel film, hands down, but even saying that comes with a caveat. First and foremost: I don't really like the Marvel films. One of the reasons this franchise has worked to carve out such a lengthy and demanding series is because they have to tread lightly on certain conflicts, lest they write themselves into a corner they cannot get out of. Power creep (oof, Captain Marvel), inconsistent characters, and sometimes ludicrous decisions or villains has made the series at least partially difficult to keep up with and truly invest in beyond simple entertainment. There is virtually no hidden depth in this franchise, no possible artistic worth outside of the craft involved making this work, but that is okay. As Thor Ragnarok shows, you can make a hell of a good time with something fun.
8.0
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