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Created Nov 11, 2017 02:53PM PST • Edited Jan 11, 2019 06:22AM PST

1. Quality

2. Summary

   Perfect 5.0

   Marvel puts it all together for one of their very best movies yet in Thor: Ragnarok, an absolutely terrific blockbuster, and a damn funny one at that. Crayon colored, heavenly inspired, charismatically performed, deeply rooted yet easily accessible, it would be great even it weren’t a sophisticated LOL-fest. But it is.

   Notwithstanding typical Marvel density of plot, backstory and character, Thor 3 is easier to follow than many Marvel movies, especially the often convoluted Avengers episodes. It’s amazing how smooth it is.

   Add in well-crafted moviestar performances from Chris Hemsworth, Cate Blanchett, Tom Hiddleston, Anthony Hopkins, Idris Elba, Jeff Goldblum, Mark Ruffalo and Benedict Cumberbatch, not to mention a particularly funny Stan Lee cameo, and this is one blockbuster with an embarrassment of riches.

   The classic poster above characterizes all that blockbuster goodness: Crayon coloring, eight major characters, each played by a major moviestar, complex yet coherent interrelationships, and fun, fun, fun.

   How fun?

   • Thor, after a naked Hulk emerges from a hot tub and walks directly past: “Can’t unsee that.”
   • Thor’s latent lunkishness gets gently pranked, with the good-natured Hemsworth playing along.
   • A set of cameos in a cheesy stage-play provide a light comedic lift.

   I just hope my favorite Marvel god gets his hammer back by the next movie in which he appears.

4. Acting

   Perfect 5.0

   Chris Hemsworth has been boffo as the God of Thunder from the jump. Now he goes almost full Leslie Nielsen in playing this ultimate überhunk for laughs, which he easily earns. Plus, he does a male-model turn for the ages when his precious locks get shorn into a bitching short cut, accented by a pair of red racing-stripes down one side of his handsomely hewn mug. Looking up at a coliseum full of bloodthirsty gladiator fans, he creates an instantly classic image in the history of major movie images.

   Cate Blanchett etches a performance for the ages as Thor’s big sister Hela, with her hellacious name describing the primal nature of her godly character. The Great Cate rocks it well, delivering a bravura performance at once supremely physical and deeply dramatic. No surprise, she famously announced herself to the cinematic world with a perfect royal performance as one of history’s greatest queens in Elizabeth.

   Tom Hiddleston has grown into Loki, a villain who revels in his underhandedness. He and Chris Hemsworth have developed a fractured fraternal chemistry that works extremely well.

   Huge Cast

   • Idris Elba’s Heimdall gets to move around this episode, no longer stuck at the Bifröst Bridge.
   • Jeff Goldblum is perfectly Jeff Goldblum as a down-market Caesar on a godforsaken planet.
   • Tessa Thompson makes an impressive Valkyrie: hard-drinking, ass-kicking and fantasy-inducing.
   • Karl Urban is barely recognizable as a macho opportunist. Urban has range, with this role calling on distinctly different acting muscles than his Bones in Star Trek.
   • Mark Ruffalo is ruefully interesting as Bruce Banner, while the CGI-generated Hulk is the best yet.
   • Anthony Hopkins plays a king as if to the castle born. Goodby good King Odin!
   • Benedict Cumberbatch fully inhabits the majesty of Doctor Strange by now. It’s going to be a treat seeing him in future Doctor Strange episodes, along with drop-ins like in Thor 3.
   • Taika Waititi directed the movie and cutely voiced Korg.
   • Tadanobu Asano, Ray Stevenson & Zachary Levi don’t appear as prominently as I expected.
   • Luke Hemsworth, Matt Damon and Sam Neill cameo in most entertaining fashion as Actor Thor, Actor Loki and Actor Odin respectively. Shh, don’t tell anybody.
   • Shalom Brune-Franklin & Taylor Hemsworth play college girls.
   • Stan Lee has one of his more entertaining recent cameos as a most unwelcome Barber.

5. Male Stars Perfect 5.0

6. Female Stars Perfect 5.0

7. Female Costars Perfect 5.0

8. Male Costars Perfect 5.0

10. Film

    Perfect 5.0

    Thor: Ragnarok is a perfect amalgamation of Technicolor garishness, classical heroic imagery, contemporary neuroses and mythical vaingloriousness. Plus, it’s funny as hell.

    Director Taika Waititi doesn’t get a writer’s credit, nor does Chris Hemsworth, but they helped infuse the film with the funnies. In fact, it is one of the funniest Marvel movies yet, damn near a laugh-a-minute. Yet unlike Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2, the action never becomes mere backdrop for the comedy.

    Thor: Ragnarok represents another data point in Marvel’s ability to improve a series as it progresses, the Iron-Man and Avengers series excepted.¹ The Thor series joins X-Men and Captain America in trending ever upwards. The perfect Thor 3 improves over the great Thor 2 and the very good Thor origin movie.

    ---

    ¹ Iron-Man launched Marvel movies with a funny, flashy, cataclysmic and clever movie that was a perfectly ironic entertainment for our time. Iron-Man sequels have trended downward from that perfect beginning. As for The Avengers series, those movies started great and have generally stayed there.

11. Direction Perfect 5.0

12. Play Really Great 4.5

13. Music Perfect 5.0

    Led Zeppelin’s Immigrant Song could have been created for a Thor movie, being a piercing screed about Norse mythology, amped up to hard rock volume.

14. Visuals Perfect 5.0
15. Content

16. Edge

    Risqué 2.0

    No gore, no sex, PG-13. No cursing, but loaded with hella deep voices declaiming loudly.

17. Sex Titillating 1.6

18. Violence Fierce 2.5

19. Rudeness Salty 1.9

21. Reality

    Fantasy 4.3

22. Circumstantial Surreal 3.0

23. Biological Fantasy 5.0

24. Physical Fantasy 5.0