Today your submissive is Loki, God of Mischief!
Thor: Ragnarok (2017) has glitz, explosions, colorful vistas, some clever dialog, enormous comedic sympathy for the travails of Gods, and … not much else. And, yet, there is one nice little bit of thematic material, for while Thor must find a way to defeat his elder sister, Hela, the Goddess of Death, lurking in the background is the threatened fulfillment of the dread prophecy that Ragnarök, the destruction of Asgard, home of the Gods, has begun.
It’s really a useful approach to think about using one evil to cancel another out. Sort of like math with units, ya know?
But other than that, it felt a bit limp. My Arts Editor pointed out that most or even all of the strong female characters have disappeared, and the addition of a Valkyrie doesn’t really work – they were, after all, cannon fodder in Norse mythology. Even one as snappy as this one. More importantly, no one really seems to grow and change, although I suppose that the Gods are supposed to be eternally unchanging, no?
And resorting to claims concerning the undermining of the divinity, as with Ghostbusters (1984), would be false, for while there are non-divine characters present, this is really about a war between the creatures of mythology. The cheating of a divine prophecy may be uplifting, a paean to the old chestnut about never giving up, but it doesn’t satisfy the concept of the upending of the reign of Gods.
But, perhaps worst of all, according to our Arts Editor, the role of Death in the times when such mythologies held sway was as a time of transition. Death has a role in life, providing sustenance in one phase, and providing release from the fading of one’s body in another.
It was not considered necessarily an evil.
But destruction and evil is the essence of Hela. Shut away for undisclosed reasons, perhaps the isolation did in her mind; more likely, it injured pride, and now free but finding her father, Odin, out of reach, she reaches out for that which she perceives as most valuable, with plans to conquer everything in sight.
I mean, if it wiggles, she’s coming at it with everything she has.
And just why? There’s no depth to Hela, she’s all hurt pride and domination of Thor. What could we have learned if the personification of Death could have been more interesting? But, as part of the Avengers series, this movie had to deliver eyes-bugging-out fights, and that’s what it did.
Much to its detriment.
