Thor - Ragnarok - A DeadPoolish Reboot

Image Courtesy - IMDB

Movie Name: Thor Ragnarok
Starring: Chris Hemsworth,
Tom Hiddleston,
Cate Blanchett,
Idris Elba,
Jeff Goldblum,
Tessa Thompson,
Karl Urban,
Mark Ruffalo, & Anthony Hopkins.
Special Appearance: Benedict Cumberbatch


The Thor movies have really been a sore point in the almost dream like run that Marvel movies have enjoyed over the past decade. The genre was just not that inspiring to people other than the rabid Thor fans out there. Hence Thor Ragnarok seems almost like the entire was rebooted in terms of imagery, scale, action, music and plot compared to the previous two movies.

Thor Ragnarok sets itself off different to the Thor franchise almost immediately by making Thor displaying an almost DeadPoolish sense of humor right off the bat rather than the archaic, stoic Thor seen in the previous two movies. He gives as good as he gets in his interactions with Loki and the camaraderie with Banner/Hulk is awesome. The movie looks and feels like an intergalactic road trip or coming of age journey for the Asgardian as he gets his butt kicked by Hela, loses his hammer Mjolnir - again to Hela and gets stranded on a planet where he has to fight and defeat his buddy Hulk to get out.

The movie introduces quite a few new characters in addition to bringing back the Hulk. Comic book fans will get excited at seeing favorites like: Valkyrie, Korg, the GrandMaster, Topaz to name a few in addition to seeing Asgardians like Skurge and the Warrior Three back.

We finally know what happened to Hulk and why he was missing from the Captain America: Civil War fracas. Poor Banner imagine being stuck for 2 years with just fight, rest, eat, repeat cycle. The Hulk finally has a meaty enough role rather than the few scenes here and there in every Avenger smashing things. In Thor Ragnarok the starring role is played by the Hulk who is the more prominent one rather than Banner. The interactions between the Hulk and Valkyrie is playful and the Hulk is shown to be a big man child who just wants to play rather than the green rage monster who destroys everything.

The scenes of the contest between the Hulk and Thor, Hulk and Fenris and finally Hulk going toe to toe with Surtur is the highlight in the movie. We get the wackiness of the director Taika Waititi beautifully in the interactions between all the characters in the movie.

Tom Hiddleston as Loki is back to doing what he does best, making mischief and taking advantage of every opportunity good or bad to push his own agenda forward. Dr. Strange make a surprising but effective cameo at the start of the movie and basically for the Dr. Strange continuity it shows that his powers are growing by leaps and bounds over the period of time that he has spent off screen since becoming the Sorceror Supreme of the earth. He is now comfortable in his skin and also able to wield his powers and the Eye of Agamotto with great panache.

Marvel has always lacked good villains, I think this has been the principle beef for the franchise. Yes we all know that Thanos is the Big Bad, but other than Loki in the first Avenger movies nobody has been able to step up onto to this big stage to go toe to toe with Avengers. So rather the Avengers have been left to fight amongst themselves in the Civil War. Guardians of the Galaxy on the other hand have favoured a bit better by facing off against Ronan The Accuser and Ego, both who had the raw power to back up their bragadicco.


The ease with which Hela destroys Mjolnir and destroys the entire army of Asgard alone shows her strength and it remains to be seen how Thanos would react to seeing the Goddess of Death in flesh.

We also get to see why Heimdall is the Gatekeeper for the Bifrost and why he's the most respected in the Relm second to Odin.


Overall Ragnarok scores high on music, visual, scale and graphics. The characters standout even those making small cameos like Jeff Goldblum as Gradmaster - one of the ageless Elder. I bet Marvel has plans for him on a grand scale. Also Hela dismissing the gauntlet in Odin's vault as fake gives Marvel a way out - dismissing the question of two gauntlets in the MCU.

BTW we all know Loki took the Tesseract and we just know that the self serving God of Mischief will use it as a bargaining chip with Thanos to suit himself as usual.

Ragnarok is a fun watch and one of the more entertaining movies from Marvel. The viewer just has to strap themselves in and enjoy the intergalactic road trip between the best buddies. Definitely worth watching.

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