Thor Thubject

I was pretty down on the first two Thor movies. I didn't even see them in the theater, in fact. But the new, third installment, Thor: Ragnarok, was said to be different. It was funnier, less self-important. More like Guardians of the Galaxy. And directed with comic sensibilities by Taika Waititi, the man behind What We Do in the Shadows. Okay, then. But fool me three times, shame on me indeed.

Thankfully, I wasn't fooled this time.

I will say there isn't a whole lot of originality on display here. The plot is essentially the same as the first Thor movie: cast out of Asgard, Thor must climb back from the depths to save the day, without the use of his hammer. But this movie is a far better take on that, the movie they should have made in the first place, really.

It is funny, in part because of the script, but in larger part because it's clear that everyone involved with the movie was actually having fun this time. Chris Hemsworth has been slowly revealing himself to be a skilled comic actor, after getting some of the better jokes in the first two Avengers, then stealing the show in Vacation and Ghostbusters. Here, the movie makes use of this, alternately letting Thor command the humorous moments and taking the wind from his sails.

Tom Hiddleston, of course, has been having fun as Loki from day one, and this movie is no exception. And the Loki fun extends to Anthony Hopkins; we saw from the end of the previous Thor film that Loki had disguised himself as Odin, and Hopkins' scenes of Loki-as-Odin are really great. You feel like he's really savoring a kind of acting he almost never gets to do. Mark Ruffalo is getting to branch out in different ways too, spending as much time or more as Hulk in this movie than as Bruce Banner, and infusing a lot of character into his motion capture performance.

The new characters are fun too. Jeff Goldblum is brought in to go full Goldblum, blending all the craziness of his wildest performances (including batty commercial pitchman) into a form of self-parody that's actually quite hilarious. Cate Blanchett seems to revel in getting to play the villain, chewing the scenery so hard in every scene that it's a good thing lots of the scenery is computer generated. She really doesn't get enough screen time for how fun she is in this movie, but I still appreciate what we do get. Then there's Tessa Thompson, who after playing tightly wound and severe on Westworld, here gets to cut loose and kick ass. I love Natalie Portman in general, but sorry, Thompson is a much better fit for this franchise.

The actors making cameo appearances are perhaps having the most fun of all. Benedict Cumberbatch's brief appearance as Doctor Strange is fairly well known, and a hilarious highlight of the first act. There are some other even briefer appearances early in the movie that have also been widely reported -- though if you haven't heard about them, it's better to be surprised. Suffice it to say, all these cameo appearances effectively take Thor (the character and the franchise) down a peg, a recurring theme of the movie that works great.

Third time's a charm, I guess. I give Thor: Ragnarok a B+. It's already been displaced from the biggest movie screens by the arrival of Justice League, but it's probably still worth getting out to the theater for in the next few weeks.