There is no doubt that the man who more than most is responsible for the visual look of the Marvel Universe is Jack Kirby. His kinetic, dynamic, often bombastic, art was the perfect foil for Stan Lee's hyperbolic prose style.
That being said, it is fitting that on the 100th anniversary of his birth, the Marvel Universe provides the ultimate tribute to 'The King' in the shape of Thor: Ragnarok which is the Kirbyest movie there has ever been. Is it the best Marvel movie ever, as some have suggested, but I think - to borrow from Brian Clough on his abilities as a football manager - it's certainly in the top one!
The first two Thor
movies took themselves a little too seriously; the first one was faux
Shakespeare, the second made little sense. With director Taika Waititi they
have someone who has judged the tone perfectly; this is a rollicking,
boisterous romp with a great deal of charm and lots and lots of laughs.
For me the essence of the great days of Marvel
were those wonderful issues of The Mighty Thor in the late Sixties where all
the keynotes of Asgardian mythology were introduced. The combination of Stan
Lee’s words, Jack Kirby’s pencils, and Vince Colletta’s inks created a world of
grandeur and majesty and excitement. Thor:Ragnarok
re-captures the mood of that golden era superbly.
The film draws on much of that Marvel mythology
with the concept of Ragnarok, the twilight of the Gods and the Fall of Asgard
which was an ever-present threat in that great Lee/Kirby run. Odin is missing,
the fire demon Surtur has risen, and Hela, the Goddess of Death (Cate
Blanchett) has escaped from her exile and set her sights on claiming her
rightful heritage, Asgard.
Thor and Loki join forces to fight her but in
their first battle they are separated in an accident on the Rainbow Bridge and
hurled to a world on the far edge of the galaxy. This world is riled by The
Collector (Jeff Goldblum) who runs a Contest of Champions in which Thor must
face Hulk, who has also been diverted there at the end of the last Avengers
movie. This gives Waititi the chance to interweave the Ragnarok storyline with
the classic Planet Hulk saga and, in
the process, give himself the best lines in the film as the rock-warrior Korg.
The story flits back and forward between these two
plots until the finale in which Thor, Hulk and the others manage to escape and
return to Asgard for a final battle against Hela.
Thor:
Ragnarok is a genuine spectacle. It is a tale told on a huge scale against
an epic backdrop but it never loses sight of the reality of the characters. The
script by Eric Pearson, Craig Kyle and Christopher Yost is packed full of
terrific dialogue and lovely character moments. It must help too that Chris
Hemsworth, Tom Hiddleston, and Mark Ruffalo as Thor, Loki, and Hulk are all
sufficiently familiar with these characters to really inhabit them. The newcomers,
Goldblum and Blanchett, and Tessa Thompson as Valkyrie, do very well with roles
which are a little two dimensional and Benedict Cumberbatch shows the value of
an integrated cinematic universe in which Doctor Strange can appear essentially
as a plot device.
Waititi made his directing breakthrough with the super
Hunt for the Wilderpeople (2016). I
remember wondering as I watched the chase sequence at the end of the movie what
he might do if he was given a substantial budget. Thor:Ragnarok is the answer and it is a terrific piece of
filmmaking; interestingly many of his antipodean mates from Wilderpeople and other places turn up to
great effect in this movie.
The visuals are superb and, like Waititi, cinematographer
Javier Aguirresarobe responds to the challenge of a huge canvas and fills it
with some breath-taking images. There is a huge Kirby influence, as you can see
from the pictures above, but he goes beyond that to make the film his own.
I have some issues with Thor: Ragnarok in that a lot of well-established Marvel characters
appear to be written out with some finality – the Warriors Three for example –
but when you are dealing with myths and legends, and their modern equivalents
in comic books and movies I suppose nothing is final.
For all that, Thor:Ragnarok
is a hoot and a much needed respite from the doom and gloom of recent superhero
movies.