MCU Photo-Recap Countdown; Ragnarok

OUR FAVOURITE LOVABLE DUMMY IS BACK, and more of a lovable dummy than ever. Ragnarok was FUN. It was a hilarious romp through the galaxy with charming, compelling characters and a LOT of laughs.

That being said, I did have beef (which has caused actual real-life arguments). You guys, hear me out – Odin died, the Warriors Three were murdered, Mjolnir was crushed, Asgard was destroyed, and Thor… joked about it? There were a lot of jokes (that I loved) and no gravity. We never got to see him react to any of this. I think *I* was more sad about the deaths of his best friends than he was.

I don’t even mind that the movie had a completely different tone from the rest of the MCU. Each movie is MEANT to have its own feel. But all three Thor movies have been so drastically different from each other, it makes me think the studio just doesn’t know what to do with him. Thor was fun, if not a bit cheesy, The Dark World was an emo mess, and Ragnarok was a circus.  

A FUN circus, though. I liked Ragnarok. I liked it a lot! I’ve watched it many, many times, because it’s fun as hell. I just would have liked to see how Thor felt about his entire life going to shit, that’s all! The audience has been with you this long, Thor, you can go a whole minute without a joke.

My second beef is this – how the hell does a recapper such as myself add anything funny to an already hilarious movie? Ugh, damn you, Taika Waititi!

The movie was born as it lived; hilariously. Thor was in a cage explaining to a skeleton/the audience where the heck he’s been the past two years – chasing the infinity stones, and trying to prevent the destruction of his home. That search lead him to Surtur, a fire demon who wants to bring about Ragnarok (it’s the title, you guys!), the destruction of Asgard. Thor quickly cut off his crown (Ragnarok prevented!), then fought off some demons while he waited for his ride home.

Thor returned home to discover that Heimdall had been charged with treason and is now on the run. So this guy controls the bifrost, and does NOT do a good job!

Also not doing a great job was “Odin”, who instead of protecting the nine realms, was commissioning plays about the death of Loki (starring Matt Damon and Sam Neill LOL FOREVER).

Thor made Loki reveal himself, then they popped to Earth where Loki had banished the real Odin.

Doctor Strange sucked Loki into a vortex while he had a chat with Thor about why they were on Earth. Strange was actually quite helpful! He knew exactly where Odin was, and he magic-portalled them off to a family reunion.

Not only did Odin NOT tell them that they had a sister, and that she’s the Goddess of Death, he also left them woefully ill-prepared to deal with her inevitable rampage of destruction.

Hela crushed Mjolnir with her bare hand!! This was very upsetting! She’s been chilling out in Hel for a long ass time, just waiting for Odin to die so she could pop out and be the Queen of Asgard.

After it became clear how powerful she was, Loki called for a ride to peace out. Unfortunately, Hela jumped in the backseat and pushed the boys out.

And so Hela settled in on Asgard, murdered Thor’s besties, hired an assistant, and announced the start of her reign.

The remaining Warrior Three lead the fight against her, but ultimately EVERYONE died. Just… everyone. So Hela was large and in charge, but there was still some resistance.

Meanwhile, Thor landed on Sakaar, a garbage planet where lost things end up. He was attacked by a gang of scavengers looking to eat him, and couldn’t fight them off without his mighty hammer to channel his confidence power.

Meet Valkyrie! She straight-up murdered that entire gang of scrappers. All of them. Dead. I wonder if any of them had families or pets. I wonder if Valkyrie wonders if they had families or pets. Anyway, then she zapped Thor and dragged him to the arena to sell as a slave/gladiator.

He was strapped to a chair and shown an orientation video that just so happened to have all the exposition; the Grandmaster was the first lost soul to land on the garbage planet, so he created the Contest of Champions, where gladiators fight for their lives with no rewards, and everyone else buys into the system by betting, capturing new gladiators to sell, and just generally going along with everything.

Jeff Goldblum is a gift to this world. A true gift. Everything he did in this movie was magic. Anyway, Thor saw Loki living it up and tried to recruit his help in escaping, but Loki didn’t want to mess up the good position he’d built over the past few weeks (time is wibbly wobbly when you’re shoved off the biforst), so he pretended he didn’t know him, like the wily trickster he is.

Meet Korg – everyone’s favourite. There is no snarky caption I could put in front of this glorious masterpiece that could be funnier than the actual lines he says in the movie. He’s a Kornan who was banished from his own planet for trying to start a revolution (which failed because he didn’t print enough pamphlets). He went ahead and explained to Thor that no one ever leaves Sakaar, and that anyone who has ever faced the Grandmaster’s champion has died. Who could it beeeeeee????

Meanwhile, Hela was pissed because her contributions to Asgard had been literally painted over. Turns out, she and Odin had acquired the Nine Realms through less than honest means, but when she wanted more, Odin banished her, took credit for her accomplishments, and erased her legacy. TYPICAL PATRIARCHY!

Feeling a lack of support, Hela went to the basement to find some old friends.

She raised the dead a bit, then went to conquer more of the universe, but “someone” stole the bifrost sword (wink), so no one could call an Uber.

Then Thor went on an anti-pep-talk tour.

First Loki visited him as an illusion and told him that he bet against him in the fight, then when Thor saw Valkyrie (and figured out what she was), she was all, “I don’t give an eff about anything or anyone, especially not you.” What’s the opposite of uplifting? Down… pushing? Sure, it was all very downpushing.

Stan Lee cut Thor’s hair, and Chris Hemsworth burned his wig forever. Then it was time for the big fight!

Thor and Hulk kerfuffled, but it didn’t answer the question of who would win in a fight, because just as Thor was about to show off his big move, the Grandmaster zapped him. Oh, and Thor used his lightning powers without his hammer. Oh, oh, and Thor tried to do the lullaby on Hulk, and it was an absolute delight.

Back on Asgard, Hela was NOT being a great leader, and a certain omniscient dreamboat was leading a rebellion.

I’m fairly certain this scene activated those tween’s sexual awakening.

Heimdall had been scooping up Asgard citizens and hiding them away in a giant cave in the mountains, like the awesome hunk he is.

Back on Sakaar, Thor woke up shirtless (and Chris Hemsworth got his cash-money bonus, I assume??), and then tried to recruit Hulk into his ‘escape and save Asgard’ plan. But Hulk ain’t no chump. He saw through Thor’s friendship act pretty fast and starting throwing things at him.

Thor contacted Heimdall through sheer will, and the two of them had a chat where Heimdall filled him in on the haps at Asgard, and was all, “we gotta bounce, dude,” and Thor was like, “nuh uh, it is SHE who must bounce.”

Thor and Hulk made up, which was magic, but he had a harder time getting through to Valkyrie, who kindly filled us in on her backstory. It involved a fight with Hela that lead to the death of all her pals (and maybe lover?).

Never mind!! Thor and Hulk jumped out of the tower and found the quinjet, where Natasha’s old message made Hulk shrink down to a more manageable size. The Grandmaster sent both Loki and Valkyrie after them, but our girl decided to switch sides so she could give killing Hela the ol’ college try.

Bruce wasn’t thrilled about losing two years of his life as the Hulk, and even mentioned that if the Hulk comes out, Bruce may not come back. But Thor gave him a sort of a pep talk, so off they went to spit-ball about how to get off Sakaar. And look who Valkyrie had tied up to a chair…

During the brainstorm sesh, Loki mentioned that he has access to the Grandmaster’s ships. But first, they needed a distraction.

Valkyrie set all the gladiators free and gave them weapons. Thus, a revolution was born!

This bro-talk was amazing. Neither of these boys trust each other any more, but there is still affection there. They DID grow up together, after all. This nice moment was immediately followed by a betrayal from Loki, who wanted to turn Thor in to regain favour with the Grandmaster. Buuuuuuuuut, our lovably dummy isn’t actually dumb, so he didn’t fall for it. He had attached a zapper on Loki, and proceeded to zippity-zap him.

So Thor, Valkyrie and Bruce escaped in a party bus and proceeded to engage in a very fun air-battle where Valkyrie and Thor literally punched spaceships to death.

Meanwhile on Asgard, Hela was threatening the lives of regular citizens to find out where the rebel hideout was. She succeeded, so off she went to murder them a bunch. HOWEVER, Heimdall was one step ahead. It also helped that Hela was a touch distracted by a certain younger brother.

This lead to a fight (siblings, ammiright?), in which Thor was losing quite decidedly (and lost an eye!). But then their dad stepped in and showed HEAVY favouritism by giving Thor a pep-talk that basically boiled down to, “get your shit together.”

He told Thor that his power didn’t come from no stupid hammer! It came from WITHIN HIM the WHOLE TIME! DUH DOI! So Thor popped Hela with a bit of lightning and vamoosed.

Meanwhile, the Bifrost (where the people of Asgard were escaping) was blocked by a big huge death-dog-of-death, so Bruce jumped out of a plane, DIED, then became the Hulk and heroically fought it, as the rest of our motley crew fought the undead army.

Things weren’t looking good for our team, but then Loki showed up with a ship full of revolutionists, and the fight raged on. Yay for Loki doing the right thing!

Speaking of people doing the right thing, Karl Urban got to play a heroic moment when the Executioner (who, let’s be honest, hadn’t been super into Hela from the start), sacrificed himself to save the ship of civilians. Way to go, bud!

As Thor, Valkyrie and Loki were losing to Hela (despite Thor’s newfound zap powers), Thor figured out that since she gets her power from Asgard, the only way to stop her would be to destroy it. So off he sent Loki to wake up the fire demon to do just that.

So Hela was dead, Asgard was destroyed, the fire demon was certainly pleased with himself, and the Asgardians celebrated with utter glee.

Oh no wait, everyone was sad as shit because their home was destroyed. Well, at least Thor and Loki sort of made up! That was nice. I look forward to their long and beautiful relationship throughout the rest of these movies (shhhhhhhhhh, just let me have this right now).

So Thor took over command of his people and set a course for Earth. And nothing bad even happened! *ahem*

Anyway, in the after-credits scene, they saw a mysterious ship (shhhhhhh), and in the after-AFTER credits, we saw Jeff Goldblum being Jeff Goldblum, and yes it WAS worth it!

SOME STUFF

• There were too many funny lines to choose from, but some face were:

“You want to fly through the devil’s anus?”  – “In my defence I didn’t know it was called that when I picked it.”

And of course: “Yeah, piss of ghost!”

• I know the real-world reason why there was no Lady Sif (Blindspot), but was there an in-world? Does this mean she’s still alive? *crosses fingers*

• Grandmaster continually making fun of Thor was pure delight; calling him sparkles, “Lord of Thunder,” etc. Hahahahhahahha forever.

• Hulk actually has a personality, and it is FUN. “Hulk stop, just for once in your life, don’t smash!” – “Big monster!” hahahahah I love the Hulk, you guys. Finally.

• Why would the Grandmaster put Thor in the same penthouse as Hulk? This is a real question. He doesn’t want them collaborating, and he wouldn’t want them to fight again without an audience. Educate me, please.

• That eye wound though. Have they… have they ever seen how a knife works?

• I realize Valkyrie is her title, not her name, but since her real name (which may or may not be Brunnhilde) was never actually said out loud, I’m going to continue calling her Valkyrie.

• Who was Hela’s mom??? It wasn’t Frigga, because Thor says that Hela is his half-sister.

• Both Hulk and Bruce calling Thor a ‘bad friend’ was very funny, and also very true!   

• “Are you Thor God of Hammers?” hahaha

• Bechdale Test; not reeeeeeeally… Valkyrie and Topaz talk THROUGH the Grandmaster.

• Have you guys been in any legit arguments about any MCU movies? Has it ended friendships?? Do you have friends? What’s that like?

OKAY BYE THANK YOU FOR COMING STAY SAFE OUT THERE!