Thor: Ragnarok - There is no justice in the film industry

As little as ten years ago, if you were to ask the average film-goer which film they would think would be better out of the third instalment of a lesser known Marvel comic book star, aka Thor, or the first outing for DC’s ‘Justice League’ featuring some of the biggest comic book names in superheroes ever created, ala Batman and Superman.  I’m guessing most wouldn’t ever have heard of a Norse god when compared to Bruce Wayne and Clark Kent.  However, in late 2017 ‘Thor (part 3): Ragnarok’ was released a few weeks before ‘Justice League’ and completely sunk all hope for Batman and co at setting the Box Office alight in terms of superhero-related movies.

I know there’s quite a heated debate between the Marvel and DC community, but I like to think of myself as one of the ‘neutrals.’ Batman is probably my favourite superhero, so I was hoping beyond hope that Justice League would live up to its potential.  I even saw it before Thor: Ragnarok and thought it was pretty good.  However, when I then went and watched Thor, I kind of realised why Justice League was flagging.

I can think of a handful of ‘elite; sequels that surpass the original, but they’re the minority (Aliens, T2, Empire Strikes Back and so on), but I can’t quite recall any third instalments that blow both predecessors completely out of the water.  In short… Thor: Ragnarok is epic.  It feels like it’s been given a much bigger budget and the freedom to really have some fun with the characters.  I think it’s the general consensus that it’s the ‘funniest’ of all the Marvel cinematic universe films to date.  It never really takes itself too seriously and is all the better for it.  You really get the feeling that the cast were generally having a laugh while they were doing this.

All the old faces you’d expect from the previous Thor outings return, i.e. Anthony Hopkins, Thor’s mates (all of which names escape me right now!) and, most importantly, Tom Hiddleston as Loki.  It’s kind of a thing that Marvel doesn’t really know how to do its villains too well and most people feel that Loki has been the one and only highlight of the enemies the Avengers have had to face.  Therefore, Ragnarok plays on this perfectly and beefs up his screen time even more than ever.  That’s not to say that Cate Blanchett isn’t good too as ‘Hela.’ In fact, she actually has some decent lines and we may be witnessing the film with both the best and second best villains in at the same time!

However, no matter how good the supporting case is, the film is called ‘Thor’ after all and it wouldn’t be anything without Chris Hemsworth’s (disgustingly perfect) shoulders to rest on.  He has really settled into the character and his interaction bounces off characters new and old alike.  There’s only a small amount of new faces added to the film, but they feel like they’ve been there all along.  And, without getting back into the Thor versus Justice League debate again, the fact that these new characters seem so easy to relate to compared to JL’s characters who feel like they’ve been crowbarred in just to add to the ‘hero-weight’ – just shows how well-written Thor is.

As much as I wanted to enjoy Justice League more, I just couldn’t.  Thor was simply too much fun, much more action-packed, wonderfully light-hearted and literally a more colourful film to watch.  If I had to pick a fault I’d say that the CGI still looked a little fake in all of the newly-built worlds, but the fun you can have with this mammoth of a popcorn movie more than made up for that.

I’m not saying that I haven’t enjoyed Marvel’s previous output, but I really hope they make more like this.  Oh, and did I mention the electro music is awesome as well?

9/10 almost as perfect as The Godfather