Thor: Ragnarok & The Death of Stalin

Thor: Ragnarok

Director: Taika Waititi

After being marooned on the lawless planet of Sakar, Thor must team up with a group of unlikely individuals to save Asgard from the infinite might of the Goddess of Death, Hela.

Thor is a strange commodity in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). The first feature released in 2009 had a charm and wit that I really admired and still remains one of my superhero guilty pleasures features. And the sequel, the less said the better. So Thor: Ragnarok potentially could have gone either way. In the entertaining and talented hands of director Taika Waititi, Hunt for the Wilderpeople/What We Do in the Shadows, the film projected to be another success for the Kiwi director. We also saw the potential brilliance of Waititi’s delicate directorial control along with Chris Hemsworth’s brilliant comedic timing form the perfect cocktail in their mockumentary ‘Team Thor’ that followed Thor’s exploits while Civil War was occurring.

In the nearly ten year evolving MCU, there has been a constant emphasis on origin stories. Yet Thor: Ragnarok stood out as one of the first MCU features where already established characters wander in throughout the narrative, capturing one of the great pleasure of the original source material. Thor comes into contact with the likes of Doctor Strange and Hulk, almost seamlessly during his redemptive quest.

Similarly to Guardians of the Galaxy, Thor incorporates the quirky and edgy style of Waititi, the vibrant Ditko/Kirby textual set designs within a narrative structure that on the face of it, is nothing out of the ordinary. What is sets it apart however, is the way the humour is interweaved instilling this comedic unpredictability, which gives the film an exhilarating and refreshing energy.

Death of Stalin

Director: Armando Iannucci

Adapted from the comic book of the same name, the film follows the aftermath of the Soviet dictator’s unexpected death and the chaos of the regime’s power vacuum.

Like many, I knew very little on the subject of the USSR and the Communist regime under Stalin. With that in mind, the contentious topic had the potential to be either a distasteful portrayal of the horrendous events that occurred in the USSR over that period, or a success delicately balancing the film’s humorous intentions and the severity of the event itself.

It is a pleasure to confirm the latter prevails. With Armando Iannucci delving into the sphere of political comedy with projects such as US TV series Veep and UK feature film In the Loop, his pedigree in this sub-genre held significant weight.

Beginning with an orchestral production, the sound engineers are surprisingly called by Stalin at the end of the performance for a recording, which they haven’t done. Paddy Considine (Hot Fuzz) is the primary engineer and in an understandable panic, rushes to get the audience back in their seats and the performers to replay their performance. It brilliantly encapsulates the entire panic that never dissipates as the film flows on - as well as splicing acute comedic touches into the sequence – ‘bring in fat people as they can take up two seats.’

One of the greatest choices made by the writing team was the accents used by each of the characters. Adrian McLoughlin as Stalin performs in a cockney accent and then you have Jason Isaacs as General Zhukov, illustrious Russian military general, performing in a Yorkshire accent. The sheer absurdity of the conflict to his counterpart’s conventional accents supplies an abundance of brevity to the every encounter.

Steve Buscemi draws in an unforgettable performance. Usually a supporting characters with an eccentric performative style and energy plays a central role in the post-Stalin days as Nikita Khrushchev. His sheepish cloak and gangster interior (Fargo-like) could arguably be his best performance to date.

Snappy, concise and hilarious. Death of Stalin brings a brevity to an incredibly sensitive subject while readdressing the horror of Stalin’s USSR to a mainstream audience. Being someone who knows very little about the anarchy of Stalin’s Russia, the film brought a didactic underpinning with an effective script and consistent threads of comedy. Buscemi and Isaacs are the stand-outs to this very well composed political comedy-drama.