Marvel Hyperbole

Apparently Thor: Ragnarok is peak Marvel Cinematic Universe.

I saw it yesterday and enjoyed it very much, but to me, it was hardly the greatest Marvel Studios film of all time.

Apparently Thor: Ragnarok is the rare fun and breezy Marvel film, and fun and breezy film in general.

Was I sleeping for three years?

WARNING: There be SPOILERS ahead…

Marvel Studios has always specialized in very fun, very enjoyable superhero films. All the way back to the release of the MCU’s first-ever installment, Iron Man. From the beginning, the studio established who they were through the quipping industrialist billionaire playboy Tony Stark. While his 2008 debut feature packed some rough moments and some action violence, the character was fun to watch, the humor hit all the right notes, and the completely-improvised “script” was solid. Future films in the MCU’s first phase, which culminated with the monolothic The Avengers in 2012, had a similar vibe.

Thor, the Norse God of Thunder, also happened to make his debut during Phase One in a solo origin feature, just simply titled Thor. Thor, being set in a faraway Shakespearian realm, had a rather big and sweeping tone. Director Kenneth Branagh aimed for a larger-than-life scale, but injected his film with lots of humor and characters you could sympathize with. What Thor did not do was go wild with its premise… Given that this was Phase One, it’s a little understandable. You go from the tech-driven world of Iron Man and the science-y world of Hulk to this cosmic high fantasy location, yeah it’s a bit of a jump for the unacquainted. Thor is a bit of a conservative picture, but it has just enough spacey elements to satisfy those who were in the know. Not a perfect balance, mind you (the Earth scenes and the Avengers set-up stuff can be pretty wonky) but suitable. It translated into a well-reviewed box office success.

Thor: The Dark World was pretty much the same affair. It had the humor, the big epic tone, the action, the spectacle… What didn’t really work about that film was the fact that it didn’t explore. With all of the initial worldbuilding and all of the Avengers threads out of the way, Thor: The Dark World should’ve been the film that really plunged us into the cosmic side of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Instead, it briefly took us to a realm that was a barren and generic wasteland, spent most of its time on Earth, gave us a rather cardboard villain, and didn’t develop its characters that much. We had to wait almost another year for the very film that would really take us to the far ends of the Marvel multiverse. A troubled production the film was, you can tell something wasn’t right, plus the first half just sleepwalks. The second half of the picture feels a lot more in-tune: Thor and Loki teaming up to stop the baddie, and the the wacky final battle in London are full of great moments. The other half a very good film is buried in the mess.

So now, four years later, we get Thor: Ragnarok. This new installment comes after a second Avengers movie, a sequel to Guardians of the Galaxy, and a Doctor Strange movie. What needs to be mentioned, which I often bring up here and elsewhere when talking about the Marvel Cinematic Universe, is that Marvel Studios has gone through changes as well. Prior to the completion of Captain America: Civil War (released in spring 2016), Marvel Studios was being overseen by what was called a “creative committee” and Marvel Entertainment CEO Ike Perlmutter. Ike was the one who held up a Black Widow solo movie, and the studio literally had to fight him to get Black Panther and Captain Marvel into development. It was Ike and his comrades who butted heads with Kevin Feige and all the filmmakers, many of them ended up leaving their respective films because of this. Filmmakers such as Edgar Wright and Patty Jenkins walked from Ant-Man and Thor: The Dark World respectively, Joss Whedon called it quits after Avengers: Age of Ultron, other directors like Ava DuVernay walked before getting themselves deep into the trench. Feige was able to break Marvel Studios away from Ike and his “creative” committee, now they are granted much more freedom.

Perhaps this is why the newest Thor chapter is a wildly different film from its predecessors.

Thor: Ragnarok isn’t a high fantasy film with light space opera-ish elements in it, it’s an all-out cosmic blast! Asgard is very much a big part of the movie, but so is the planet Sakaar and all kinds of oddball faces from all across the galaxy. Colorful, flashy, and very much a lost 1980s fantasy/sci-fi movie, it also feels a lot like the movie its director wanted it to be. Thor: Ragnarok marks the Marvel debut of What We Do In the Shadows director Taika Waititi, who also – fun fact – contributed to Moana‘s screenplay. Let me tell you, Waititi probably wouldn’t have liked the Marvel Studios climate four years ago, but it seems like he had a great time working with them and may even come back to do another feature with them.

The reviews were seemingly glowing. Apparently that meaningless 94-ish percentage on Rotten Tomatoes was it, it was official, Thor: Ragnarok was peak MCU.

Yes, it was the auteur-driven Marvel movie many have been waiting for. Or was it? Outside of Taika’s sense of humor and the film’s embracing of its kooky kozmik elements, it wasn’t revolutionary. The story was the usual: There’s a bad guy, Thor’s gotta stop the threat! Now the way they went about it had some variety, and the conclusion had a nice little twist that I wasn’t expecting, but what exactly makes it so auteur-driven compared to everything else Marvel has made?

James Gunn was given near-complete free reign on both of his Guardians of the Galaxy movies. Guardians of the Galaxy fully embraced its premise and ideas, a good three years before this movie came out… Plus it was heartfelt in its own weirdo way, though the plot was indeed driven by a larger element in the MCU. (An Infinity stone, Thanos, etc.) So was Thor: Ragnarok… Hulk’s life on Sakaar is a direct result of what happened in Age of Ultron, and many callbacks to that film are made during the second act. I reckon Ragnarok happened just because Infinity War calls for it, if that mid-credits scene is any indicator. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, by contrast, is a completely self-contained film. It’s all about Peter Quill and his enigmatic father, along with other troubles within the Guardians unit, not to mention the fact that it’s set the same year as Captain America: The Winter Soldier. There’s set-up stuff, yes, but it’s all for the cosmic side of everything. How come there was no talk about how both of those films were Gunn’s own? Why all this talk now about how Marvel is finally releasing auteur-driven movies?

Oh, and does anyone remember a little movie called Iron Man Three? Director Shane Black really seemed to make that one his own, to the point where it didn’t even feel like the first two Iron Man movies. I remember when I saw Iron Man Three on opening night with my stepfather. While he liked the movie, he told me that he “missed” the things that he liked about the first two, from the rockin’ AC/DC soundtracks to Tony’s love of cars and such. Iron Man Three plays out more like Black’s own Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang. Its Mandarin twist split the fanbase down the middle, others weren’t content with a film that had very little “Iron Man” in it. It is “mostly” Black’s film, right down to the Christmastime setting, though the committee ultimately halted him from making the main villain a female.

It is true that the committee had their way on films like Age of Ultron and Ant-Man, and as a result, those films had more middling scores on the almighty Rotten Tomatoes. Yet they also couldn’t hold The Winter Soldier, Guardians, and Civil War back from being very good films. The Cap films aren’t really auteur-driven, but really do stand out on their own and are often named the best films in the whole series. For good reason! They’re just very, very good films that understand the characters and mix in the right amount of drama, humor, and spectacle. Civil War is a rather cold, pragmatic film, but it’s got enough laughs and levity in it. Age of Ultron is a little bit on the serious side, but is also tempered.

All these reviews I’m seeing for Thor: Ragnarok make it sound like it’s the first “fun” Marvel movie. Truly, Thor: Ragnarok is one of the few films in the Marvel library to outright bask in its silliness. This insinuates that the other Marvels were too “serious,” a criticism often applied to the first two films in the DC shared film universe, Man of Steel and Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. For a good while, I think we did see a lot of films – DC or not DC – that tried very hard to imitate Christopher Nolan’s Batman movies, mainly the mega-successful The Dark Knight. The Dark Knight‘s influence can still somewhat be felt some nine years after its summer 2008 debut, and a lot of studios indeed completely misunderstood why Nolan’s take on the caped crusader was such a big hit. In the same way comic writers misunderstood Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns and Alan Moore’s Watchmen back in the late 80s/early 90s.

Now, lots of movies had to be dark and gritty and grounded and this and that. We were pelted with de-saturated, ugly movies that packed the “grit” but didn’t bring the goods. Some fanboys out there insisted that these were “real” movies that were for “adults,” and long criticized Marvel’s movies as being too goofy, too fun, too childish, too cartoonish. This is nothing new. This has been a thing since the release of The Avengers. I remember it very well. That same summer, the final Nolan Batman movie – The Dark Knight Rises – was released and it was the same story: “This is an adults’ comic book movie, the Marvel movies are kiddie-kiddie.” Man of Steel inadvertently encouraged this mindset, as did Batman v Superman.

While Iron Man Three and Thor: The Dark World were hardly flat-out comedies, they seemed like just that compared to Man of Steel. I remember really souring on Man of Steel during its second half, it wasn’t fun, it wasn’t engaging, I couldn’t get behind this new version of Superman. The film overdosed on the more serious tone of the Nolan Batman films, leaving out everything else in the process. I felt like I was watching a movie made for my edgy, nihilistic, depressed 15-year-old self. Batman v Superman – still haven’t seen the extended edition – was better and worse, great ideas slammed against sloppy storytelling. I always found Marvel’s films to have the right balance when it came to modern comic book movies.

Obviously this was a problem, for Warner Bros./DC openly course-corrected with Wonder Woman, letting Patty Jenkins make what she wanted to make… And look what happened! It was a well-made movie that was full of hope, instead of being an edgy teen’s wet dream. Zack Snyder, who directed Man of Steel and Batman v Superman, directed most of the right-around-the-corner Justice League before stepping down earlier this year… And look at the trailers for that! Regardless of whether how good or bad the movie looks, the tone’s a lot more optimistic and there’s some humor peppered throughout. You can tell DC wants to at least entertain the audience this time. DC’s heads have stressed that the future films will be about heroes, hope, optimism, and whatnot. Why shouldn’t they be?

So Thor: Ragnarok is nothing new for Marvel and for blockbuster cinema in general. I’ve seen plenty of “fun” blockbuster films over the past 3-5 years! Edge of Tomorrow, Pacific Rim, Kingsman 1 & 2, Mad Max: Fury Road, the latest Star Wars movies, Deadpool… In fact, some people were too concerned about the Marvel influence! Before its release over a year ago, Star Trek Beyond was the subject of skepticism, though its trailers are mostly to blame for that. “Why are they trying to make Star Trek like Guardians of the Galaxy?” Ironic in that the film’s tone was a response to the previous film, Star Trek Into Darkness, which was regarded as “too dark and gritty” to be a Star Trek movie, other articles went further and ripped apart its intentional parallels to 9/11 conspiracy theories.

“Fun” doesn’t mean “goofy silly Adam West Batman antics.” Fun means, at its core, entertainment and amusement. I get immense amusement out of a good movie, no matter what the tone of it is. I had a “fun” time being engaged in that story, rooting for those characters, etc. I apply this to many movies that I see, not just the ones that are meant to be straight-up fun and lightweight.

So what’s so “refreshingly fun” about Thor: Ragnarok? How is it the first outlier Marvel Cinematic Universe movie when both Guardians of the Galaxy films exist? Does the “director” having complete control always guarantee an excellent movie?

As far as I can see, Thor: Ragnarok was a very good picture. If you feel it is Marvel Studios’ best ever, that’s cool. I did not. My pick is Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, which a lot of people didn’t seem to really dig. I put films like Guardians‘ 1st film, all three Captain America movies, Iron Man 1 & 3, and The Avengers in front of it. I had big issues with this film’s rushed first act, and I especially wasn’t fond of how they handled what should’ve been a big, emotional moment. The rest was handled quite wonderfully, but it wasn’t groundbreaking or unlike anything I’d seen before. Taika Waititi simply made an 80s fantasy movie that included some sci-fi stuff. The tone of the picture was loose and quirky and fun, with Waititi’s sensibilities on display. Compared to something like Iron Man 2 and homogenous Michael Bay-esque blockbusters, yeah, that’s pretty different.

It’s not just Marvel movies, though. It seems like this year, every week is a different story. “Movies are in the gutter!” they cried one weekend, the next weekend they raved about how something “reminded them of what moviegoing is all about.” Lather, rinse, repeat. Seemed like every acclaimed movie released this summer redefined cinema or whatever, when the “movies aren’t the same!” drum wasn’t being pounded.

Carry on, and enjoy the show.