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Nov. 5th, 2017 11:43 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
seekingferretI saw Thor: Ragnarok last night. I've made it reasonably well known that I find the Thor movies just about the least interesting parts of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and that I particularly find Loki's angst uninteresting. I had a lot of fun watching Thor: Ragnarok- it is not among my favorite MCU movies, but it's pretty exactly what a Thor movie would have to be for me to enjoy it. Except for the no Jane part.
This is sort of confusing. The parts of the past two Thor movies I dislike are intrinsic to what a Thor movie is. The reason I liked Thor: Ragnarok is because of how far it strayed from the mood and themes that typify the past two movies. Thor: Ragnarok is a Thor movie that could not give one shit about the family drama of Asgardian politics. It spends the whole movie taking the piss anytime family angst threatens to overwhelm the story. That's super weird!
It's a movie where the central thematic drive of the climactic battle is that Loki needs to act like his brother and become unexpectedly heroic and loyal (not all that conventionally unexpected), and Thor needs to act like his brother and use a destructive last minute trick to prevail over a stronger opponent (very conventionally unexpected, even though they spend the whole movie setting it up because they know how out of character it is).
It's a very exterior movie. The plot is constantly moving and the characters rarely get much of a break to reflect on their emotions, and whenever they do take a short break, any character moment is punctuated with a joke, often a slapstick joke. The resonant Nat/Bruce relationship from Age of Ultron, one of the only good parts of that movie, is parodied again and again in lieu of any serious contemplation of Bruce's emotional struggle to control his dark side, with Thor cooing at Bruce/the Hulk in ineffectual imitation of Natasha's calming techniques. Thor's friendship with Bruce, his clear affection for his brother in arms, mostly consists of the two of them throwing insults at each other. It's hard in some sense to distinguish their friendship from Thor's friendship with Loki, except that they are different. Clearly different.
All of this is slippery stuff. Comedy is hard, it's easy to do comedy that erodes the emotion depth underneath, or comedy where the emotional beats erode the humor. Somehow the execution of the comedy in this movie is almost perfect. Somehow in spite of the exteriority and the slapstick, Thor : Ragnarok's emotional payoffs nearly all land. Somehow no joke goes on too long. It's a combination of great acting from Hemsworth, Ruffalo, and Tessa Thompson, a really clever script, and great restraint and nuance in the direction. I have no idea why they decided to make this movie, but it works as a movie, really well.
This is sort of confusing. The parts of the past two Thor movies I dislike are intrinsic to what a Thor movie is. The reason I liked Thor: Ragnarok is because of how far it strayed from the mood and themes that typify the past two movies. Thor: Ragnarok is a Thor movie that could not give one shit about the family drama of Asgardian politics. It spends the whole movie taking the piss anytime family angst threatens to overwhelm the story. That's super weird!
It's a movie where the central thematic drive of the climactic battle is that Loki needs to act like his brother and become unexpectedly heroic and loyal (not all that conventionally unexpected), and Thor needs to act like his brother and use a destructive last minute trick to prevail over a stronger opponent (very conventionally unexpected, even though they spend the whole movie setting it up because they know how out of character it is).
It's a very exterior movie. The plot is constantly moving and the characters rarely get much of a break to reflect on their emotions, and whenever they do take a short break, any character moment is punctuated with a joke, often a slapstick joke. The resonant Nat/Bruce relationship from Age of Ultron, one of the only good parts of that movie, is parodied again and again in lieu of any serious contemplation of Bruce's emotional struggle to control his dark side, with Thor cooing at Bruce/the Hulk in ineffectual imitation of Natasha's calming techniques. Thor's friendship with Bruce, his clear affection for his brother in arms, mostly consists of the two of them throwing insults at each other. It's hard in some sense to distinguish their friendship from Thor's friendship with Loki, except that they are different. Clearly different.
All of this is slippery stuff. Comedy is hard, it's easy to do comedy that erodes the emotion depth underneath, or comedy where the emotional beats erode the humor. Somehow the execution of the comedy in this movie is almost perfect. Somehow in spite of the exteriority and the slapstick, Thor : Ragnarok's emotional payoffs nearly all land. Somehow no joke goes on too long. It's a combination of great acting from Hemsworth, Ruffalo, and Tessa Thompson, a really clever script, and great restraint and nuance in the direction. I have no idea why they decided to make this movie, but it works as a movie, really well.