The "Thor" movies have sorta been Marvel's lesser cousin - they keep on making the movies as he's an Avenger and certainly Chis Hemsworth's hero has his charm and they have one of the rare decent Marvel villains with Loki, but the Norse mythology element always plays kinda odd and the second film, "The DArk World", had severe problems with a dull plot and villains (albiet salvaged slightly by a friendly supporting cast).
"Ragnarok" throws out both a large chunk of the supporting cast and deals with the dangling plot threads from the previous films pretty quickly while introducing director Taika Waititi's very personal sense of humour, along with a high camp villainous turn from Cate Blanchett (her second line has her calling our heroes "darling", and she continues to purr in a catsuit in languidly infectious pleasure throughout). There's also a big change in the visual stylings - while previously we had a rather sterile godly city and random earth locations, this time we've got various realms inspired 50% by heavy metal album covers and 50% by covers of classic science fiction novel reprints. There's also an electro-heavy score by Mark Mothersborough (leaning more on his work in Devo and less on his work for Wes Anderson).
While it's not completely a masterpiece of construction (there's a fast rush through the plot obligations at the beginning and the middle dawdles a tad), Waititi's native humour shines through, giving Hemsworth's easygoing comedic nature more time to play, and simple pleasure for the audience.
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