Like Guardians of the Galaxy director James Gunn, Waititi filters sci-fi touchstones through his own oddball lens-witness the Day-Glo Tusken Raiders that take Thor into custody-and airdrops pop-cultural detritus that works precisely because it has no business being there. Though a final battle with Hela looms, this detour becomes Ragnarok’s centerpiece, and it’s where the distinctive hand of Waititi, a New Zealander known for his charming, emotionally resonant indies, is most recognizable. Strange, the brothers find their aging parent, as well as something unexpected: their long-banished sister Hela, the goddess of death, who in Cate Blanchett’s devilish care uses every one of her grinning teeth to chew on lines like, “Darling, you have no idea what’s possible.” A deliciously exasperated tyrant, Hela will storm Asgard, but not before tossing Thor into the abyss, through which he will arrive on the planet Sakaar, a junkscape ruled by Goldblum’s Grandmaster, a hedonistic despot in search of gladiators to fight and die in the arena. After a dutiful but fun cameo from Benedict Cumberbatch’s Dr. Now back on Asgard, the rainbow-hued home of the Norse deities, he learns that his brother, the trickster god Loki (Tom Hiddleston), has squirreled away and supplanted their father, Odin (Anthony Hopkins). The last time we saw Thor was in 2015’s Avengers: Age of Ultron, which set him off on a mysterious quest of universal import. Waititi’s Korg might be the silliest, most likable thing in a movie full of them.
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