Why I didn’t love Thor: Ragnarok

Posted on by Colin McMahon

It’s been a few weeks but the critic and audience reactions continue to come in: everyone is having fun with Thor: Ragnarok. Why they can’t remember the last time they’ve enjoyed watching a movie this much (hint: Spider-Man: Homecoming) and wonder when’s the next time they’ll see a movie this light-hearted again (hint: Black Panther). Hey, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it – the Marvel superhero formula continues to turn out grins and box office dollars.

But for some reason – likely partly due to the fact that Thor: Ragnarok was the fourth superhero film I saw this year – I walked out frowning. Before I dive in, let me say a couple things: This film is much better than the dull Thor: the Dark World. Second, I applaud director Taika Waititi for making a genuinely funny movie.  But overall, I feel like Thor: Ragnarok missed the mark, leaving it an almost success, which can be more infuriating than a failure.

Comedy and Death

When crafting a story, it is vital to pick a tone and stick to it. Tone can be described as the “attitude of a writer toward a subject or an audience.” Usually a tone is determined by the story’s content. For example, if I were to be writing about a mother struggling to feed her family, I would probably go darker than if I were writing about two young children experiencing a first crush at the carnival. There’s wiggle room in every scenario but general rules apply. Death = darker, sex = more adult, clowns = horror. You get the idea.

Let’s look at the main events in the plot of Thor: Ragnarok (warning – spoilers)

  • Thor loses Jane (the woman he gave up the throne for).
  • Loki abducts Odin, effectively killing him.
  • Odin’s death frees Hela, who bashes Thor and Loki across the galaxy before murdering most of Asgard – including three of Thor’s best friends.
  • Thor is broken and made to fight. He meets a fellow Asgardian struggling with alcohol abuse and PTSD and his friend, Bruce Banner, who has been a mental prisoner of the Hulk for years.
  • Thor escapes his bonds and returns home.
  • Thor loses an eye.
  • Thor is unable to stop Hela without completely destroying Asgard (which he does), banishing the survivors to wandering uncertainty amongst the stars.
  • (BONUS after credits scene) Thanos shows up and looks to butcher the remaining refugees.

Sweet mother of Mary, that’s a lot of heavy stuff. The tone: WACKY IRREVERENT COMEDY! Seriously, there is a joke is almost every scene of the movie and nothing is off limits. Odin being forgotten to die – joke. Valkyrie’s alcoholism – joke. By the end of the movie, I was surprised Thor didn’t do some weird pantomime with one of the Warriors Three’s corpses.

A lot of people Thor cares about die during this movie.

The problem with setting such a bizarre tone (apart from its strangeness) is its effect on the sense of consequence. You would think Loki killing Odin would be, at the very least, an evil act but Loki is regarded as at his most heroic in this film. That’s a larger disconnect than no one pointing out that Tony Stark was responsible for every death in Avengers: Age of Ultron.

Serious, depressing events unfold in Thor: Ragnarok but we’re made to laugh and smile. Only occasionally does the movie ever try to be dramatic and even when it does, you know the scene will climax in a joke. This works fine for a comedy or even a dark comedy but Ragnarok isn’t trying to be just those things (it isn’t trying to be a dark comedy at all… for some reason), it’s going for the typical Marvel bundle of laughs, action and drama, only none of the drama works. It simply is not allowed to.

Too Many Plots

When I structured Thor: Ragnarok, I focused on the main plot – mainly Thor’s banishment and return to Asgard but the movie has more going on.  Subplots are fine in films if they meet two criteria. One – there aren’t too many of them. Two – they all exist in service to the story’s central idea.

Buried under all the jokes and laughs of Thor: Ragnarok is actually a really compelling commentary on the evils of imperialism. Asgard’s dark secret past is exposed, capped off in a wonderful line by Hela that was something like “where do you think the gold for this throne room came from?” Thor is stripped and made an immigrant, a refugee at the whim of those in power – much in the same way Odin and Hela must have done to countless civilizations in the past.

That’s all great…but it’s not all there is. We also have a very brief arch involving Dr. Strange and his introduction to Thor and Loki. We also have Bruce Banner battling with the Hulk for control of one body. We also have Valkyrie struggling to come to terms with the loss of her girlfriend and battling her alcoholism/PTSD. We also have Loki searching for some new material/purpose. We also have a slave uprising on a gladiator planet. We also have Scourge struggling with his sense of loyalty. We also have Heimdall struggling to keep the survivors of Asgard safe from Hela’s tyranny.

Not to mention the fact that we have to introduce new wacky side characters!

There’s a lot going on and some of these plots work better than others. One which definitely gets short-changed is Valkyrie, who seems to pull herself out of complete human mess very quickly. Another is Hela who strangely has no subplot of her own (more on that later). People can praise the progressive nature of Ragnarok ‘s anti-imperialism all they want but… how come the women really had no time devoted to them?

It’s not just the ladies though. I’m really not sure how Banner’s struggle resolved itself. He became the Hulk again and then turned back into Bruce soooooo I guess it’s all good now? The inclusion of characters like Dr. Strange and Scourge took away from time that really could have been better spent elsewhere.

Especially Scourge – who the hell is Scourge and why do I care?

Endless Quipping

After Avengers came out, I started to hear how Joss Whedon had ruined Marvel dialogue forever.  His love of Bathos and Buffy Speak seems to have infested every Marvel superhero film since. Truth be told I never minded and I will tell you why: not everyone was witty. Not everyone had a one-liner waiting in the wings. I think back to the first two Avengers films and look at them as comedy compositions.

Iron Man was the wise-cracking sarcasm guy. Captain America was clueless in a hilarious way. Bruce Banner made often uncomfortable jokes about how he could kill everyone. And Thor was the straight man – he didn’t try to be funny or see the humor in his actions.

Well not anymore baby! This new Thor quips! He has one-liners galore and is always happy to diffuse tension through some snarky observation. In other words: he is much more Star-Lord than Odin-son. I know people found this new Thor funnier (I did too) but it came at the expense of his identity. If I wanted to watch Guardians of the Galaxy, I have two (soon to be three) films to choose from. I’ve got my snark fix. Thor was supposed to be my superhero Shakespeare and that is now completely gone.

In case any Marvel execs were wondering, the serious tone of Dark World wasn’t what made it bad. Comedy does not equal good, just ask Justice League.

Hela and the continuing Marvel villain problem

Before I go any further, let’s go back to Hela. Man does she make an entrance. First she breaks Thor’s hammer and then she murders the Warriors Three and takes over Asgard. Hot damn! What’s next?

Oh…oh that was it, I guess.

Hela is evil – for some reason? We’re never really told why other than she is very ambitious and aggressive. A conveniently hidden mural later helps flush out her backstory by essentially saying “See? This happened!”

Her grand plan is to use some magic fire… to bring back an army of the dead and a giant wolf… then sit in Asgard for a bit before eventually leaving – I think?

Hela’s undead army doesn’t appear particularly strong. In fact, they can just be shot by earth bullets. I have a hard time believing these guys were going to conquer anything.

We don’t care and that’s a real shame. Last time Thor had a sibling he turned out to be Marvel’s most compelling villain. We’re repeatedly told how powerful Hela is and early on we see it – she smashes the hammer but then… she makes pointed sticks.

Increasingly large pointed sticks and she can shoot them very fast. Yes, she is a super-charged evil version of Spyke from X-Men: Evolution.  Cool.

Hela didn’t need a lot of character to be effective. Heck, she could have enhanced the imperialism commentary if she went on about divine right and acted more racist/xenophobic but all we get is the generic “I’m evil!”

She’s the goddess of death, did she mention that? Someone should have told her that death is not innately bad – also she has no specific death powers so I call bullshit. At the end of the day, Hela is poised to take her place alongside the whip-guy from Iron Man 2 (not worthy of me remembering his name) and Red Skull from the first Captain America. Oh well, at least she was better than Dark Elf Man!

An Honest Question

If I were ever to meet Taika Waititi, I’d ask him this question: Did he ever really care about/like Thor to begin with?

I love Waititi’s work but honestly I hope he never does another Marvel movie. His original stuff is much better.

The callous end to the Warriors Three, the complete rewrite of Thor’s personality, the dismissal of Loki to just comic relief, the immediate removal of Thor’s hammer for a recycled plot exercise (it’s just a more dramatic repeat of the first film), the inclusion of the Hulk – all of this, to me, says “I don’t really get this Thor guy but I know how to make an entertaining movie!”

Often times, when a director takes over a project they don’t care about, it goes badly. Think Godzilla (1998) and X-Men: The Last Stand levels of failure. Here we avoided that but I think it has less to do with Waititi’s love of the character and more to do with his skill as a comedic director.

Thor: Ragnarok, to me, ultimately feels like a much better version of Thor: the Dark World. It’s still a product, but this one was put together by somebody who knows what they’re doing. Kenneth Branagh remains the only director who seems to approach the material with love and a seriousness that comes from knowing it can be good as it is.

Sadly, I have given up hope that we’re ever going to see a Thor sequel that understands and respects the source material in its entirety. I can understand why Natalie Portman wanted no part of this bombastic, uneven mess of comedy.

Godzilla: What Kind of Resurgence will Toho Bring?

Posted on by Colin McMahon

I had planned to write a post on the stages of Amiibo addiction, but I’ll save that for another time. A couple of trailers debuted yesterday and I want to talk about this one:

Needless to say, this footage is pretty striking. The images of a glowing, bleeding, gnarled Godzilla frame a stark contrast from the monster last seen by mainstream audiences in 2014. Shin Godzilla, or Godzilla Resurgence as it will be known internationally, is the 29th Toho Godzilla film and the 31st overall iteration in the franchise.

The new Godzilla is grotesque, with large chunks of exposed muscle tissue and bone, not to mention a multitude of sharp dagger teeth.
The new Godzilla is grotesque, with large chunks of exposed muscle tissue and bone, not to mention a multitude of sharp dagger teeth.

Since his original film in 1954, Godzilla has become an unparalleled film icon. It is the longest running, largest film series of any character (outnumbering even the 26 James Bond  films). He is part of the modern mythology of the twentieth and now twenty-first century, and has such seen many interpretations.

Godzilla has been a father, a force of nature, an angry spirit, a protector of Earth, a radioactive mutation, and, most famously, a symbol of man-made nuclear destruction. Watching the trailer for Godzilla Resurgence, it seems fairly obvious that Toho has selected to invoke this original, most striking interpretation of the Godzilla mythology.

Fun fact: Godzilla's skin has always been designed to show radioactive burning, but this is the first iteration to go further.
Fun fact: Godzilla’s skin has always been designed to show radioactive burns, but this is the first iteration to go further.

Before I continue further, it is interesting to note that, to date, Japan is the only one to pursue this horrible envisioning of Godzilla. When the United States has adapted the King of the Monsters, there is always the tendency to distance his creation from the use of nuclear weapons. The 1998 film actually comes the closest to preserving his nuclear heritage, but even that movie reduces Godzilla to the byproduct of a French nuclear test, and not the direct result of the United States using and testing atomic weapons on its then enemies.

Even the unmade American Godzilla adaptation featured an origin very similar to the 2014 film, where Godzilla is an ancient creature from before the dinosaurs.
Even the unmade American Godzilla adaptation featured an origin very similar to the 2014 film, where Godzilla is an ancient creature from before the dinosaurs. (This point taken from David Kalat’s book, which can be found here).

Godzilla Resurgence appears to be a direct sequel to the 1954 film, and by that I mean it will likely not include any of the other films in the Godzilla series in its continuity. This would make it the fourth time that Toho has used a direct sequel to start a new series (yes I am aware of the Millennium series – I will talk more about that in a bit). The others include Godzilla Raids Again, The Return of Godzilla (Godzilla 1985), and Godzilla 2000: Millennium (Godzilla 2000). Of those, this will be the second time that Godzilla has appeared in a movie solo, without fighting another monster – The Return of Godzilla being the only other Godzilla sequel to not feature another monster.

The Return of Godzilla marked the first time that Toho tried to return Godzilla to his somber roots.
The Return of Godzilla marked the first time that Toho tried to return Godzilla to his somber roots.

Each of these films began a “series” of Godzilla films. Godzilla Raids Again is the first film in the Showa series, the Godzilla films between 1955 and 1975. The Return of Godzilla launched the Heisei series, covering all Godzilla films between 1984 and 1995. And Godzilla Millennium appropriately launched the Millennium series, spanning 1999 to 2004. Each of these series has their own unique feel.

The Showa is historically marked by silliness and “cheapness.” As the first series, this is when the effects looked their “worst.” It also saw Godzilla primarily as a good guy, the defender of Earth against all other monsters. The fights were brawls, typically featuring a lot of wrestling moves. This series saw the most movies, the most monsters, and the greatest range of film style and tone.

Dancing Godzilla was part of the Showa… and this is nowhere near how zany things got.

The Heisei series is “serious.” These films feature a continuity, with each clearly happening after the one before it. This is the only Godzilla series where a clear continuity is evident. The costumes became bulkier, Godzilla became meaner and more a force of nature than either villain or hero, and the fights became more beam-oriented and less close quartered.

The bulky design rendered a lot of fighting movement impossible, but the "cheap" look of the Showa was quickly forgotten.
The bulky design rendered a lot of fighting movement impossible.

With the Millennium, nearly each film became a direct sequel to the original. Despite this, there is almost a continuity present as nearly all the films share a similar tone (Godzilla, Mothra, and King Ghidorah being the exception). The Millennium series can be described as an interesting mix of what came before. Godzilla is mostly the good guy, although never to the extreme that he was in the Showa series. The films are also, for the most part, less serious – or take themselves less seriously – than the Heisei, although again not to the extent that was seen in the Showa. This is the shortest series and the one to introduce the fewest new monsters to the Godzilla mythology.

I am making a point with this lesson in Godzilla film history (besides my having too much free time), and that is this: the first film does not necessarily echo how the series will be shaped. Godzilla Raids Again had a lot more in common with its 1954 predecessor than did Godzilla’s Revenge, yet both are part of the Showa series. GMK and Final Wars had nothing to do with Godzilla 2000 and were both tonally different films.

Godzilla vs. Hedorah features an LSD sequence, animated segments, and a flying Godzilla. This film was part of the Showa series but is unlike any other Godzilla movie... and probably any other movie, period.
Godzilla vs. Hedorah features a LSD sequence, animated segments, and a flying Godzilla. This film was part of the Showa series but is unlike any other Godzilla movie… and probably any other movie, period.

So, while Godzilla Resurgence looks to be bringing back the dark and ratcheting up the horror from the original, it is still too early to say what the spirit of the Shin or Neo (or whatever the fourth series is ultimately called) Godzilla series will be. Will there be continuity or will it be more disjointed (continuity at this point looks less likely given the stark imagination of the Godzilla suit)? Will Godzilla remain a horrifying menace or transform back into the good-guy defender of Earth?

The only thing for sure is that it is unlikely that audiences will be seeing the good-guy anytime soon from Japan. I base this off no definitive information, but rather by looking at the international landscape. For the first time ever, Toho will not be the only company putting out a Godzilla series. “The Legendary Series” as it is already becoming known, will span at least three films, and features a Godzilla who seems to be nearly completely the positive presence. Toho may likely opt to go darker just to form a distinction.

For all his power, this Godzilla definitely has the feeling of a superhero. Fighting King Ghidorah will only cement that.
For all his power, this Godzilla definitely has the feeling of a superhero. Fighting King Ghidorah will only cement that.

But all this may be getting ahead of ourselves. Let’s hope Godzilla Resurgence is good enough, and successful enough, to spawn a fourth Godzilla series. There are simply some things that Japan still does better than the United States.

Godzilla Resurgence is directed by Hideaki Anno, creator of Neon Genesis Evangelion. While that series started off entertaining, consistent would not be the word I would use to describe it.
Godzilla Resurgence is directed by Hideaki Anno, creator of Neon Genesis Evangelion. While that series started off entertaining, consistent would not be the word I would use to describe it.