What I love about the Thor movies is that they’re ridiculous and epic and fill me with joy. They are unabashed about their bouncing comic book absurdity in a way that actually feels more like an X-Men movie than the rest of the Avengers franchise, and I feel extremely positively about that. The first Thor flick, you may recall, was a grand, cape-swirling Shakespearean family drama in a gigantic golden space castle, with a comedy-of-errors astronomy interlude off in the hinterlands. Which tracks, given that it was directed by Gilderoy Lockhart himself, bonkers English thespian Sir Kenneth Branagh.
Incredibly, they managed to top themselves with their director choice this time. And how. Ragnarok, the third in the Thoeuvre, was blessedly given to maverick Māori improvisational auteur Taika Waititi, master of the misfit picture and maybe this blog’s favorite filmmaker. Applying his same incomprehensible genius that gave us a deeply lovable and hilarious buddy comedy about the broken foster care system, he took Marvel’s millions and turned out a rainbow-hued team-up smash-‘em-up about storming into your hometown on a fireworks-spewing party boat and tearing down everything built on imperialism and conquest. He’s perfect, it was perfect, I’ll go on.
