THOR: RAGNAROK - the bumblebee that shouldn't be able to fly

There used to be an urban legend that scientists had proven that, scientifically, the bumblebee's wings were too small to support its body. Essentially, the claim was that everything about science said that it shouldn't be able to fly and yet somehow it did. (It's since been debunked.)

I thought about that myth upon leaving THOR: RAGNAROK, which is a perfect illustration of that mythology. I enjoyed it a lot, which was rather surprising because I thought the previous entry in the series might have been the worst Marvel film ever, and even the first THOR film didn't get much above a lukewarm reaction from me. At least on first reaction, I found this more fun than either GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY feature.

But when you look at this movie analytically, you'll see that it really shouldn't work. The plot has a couple false starts and detours, including a second act that's almost wholly removed from the rest of the picture. In the hands of a lesser director an cast, this would feel like a mess. Instead, the breezy tone keeps things moving and takes the audience along for the ride, and Chris Hemsworth's hilarious performance as Thor manages to unify this patchwork film.

At the conclusion of the previous THOR movie, Thor's evil brother Loki (who was believed to have perish) was revealed to the audience as having impersonated their father Odin and usurped his throne in Asgard. As RAGNAROK begins, this switcharoo still hasn't been discovered and the audience could be forgiven for expecting that the main conflict of the film will revolve around Thor trying to defeat Loki and rescue his father.

Instead, here's the progression of events:

- In the first ten minutes of the film, Thor gets wise to the deception and exposes Loki. It seems in the three or so years he's been on the throne, Loki hasn't done anything more nefarious that producing a play that recasts Loki as the hero, and lie around having grapes fed to him.

- Thor forces Loki to take him to their father, whom Loki dumped in a nursing home on Earth. The building has been torn down, though, making this a dead end. Don't assume this means we're in for a hunt for Odin because...

- Loki gets snatched by Dr. Strange [GRATUITOUS MARVEL CAMEO ALERT], who magically sends both him and Thor to Odin. Strange is so delightfully in-character that it's not until the scene is over that we realize "Wait... did we just get deus ex machina'd?"

This all happens in about 20 minutes. Don't get me wrong, there's a lot of amusing stuff along the way, but Loki's defeat and the quest for Odin both are resolved incredibly easily. Try this in an original spec and you're gonna get hit. HARD.

- Odin tells his sons he's dying, with no explanation other than it's his time. So it's not even a consequence of what Loki did. It just happens because the script needs it to happen. He warns that with his death, his evil firstborn Hela will at last be able to return to take vengeance on Asgard. (I actually don't have a problem with this seeming contrivance, but the convenience of his death happening now, with little motivation, feels like a first draft issue.)

- Hela shows up, kicks Thor and Loki's asses and disrupts their transport back to Asgard, getting both of them lost along the way. She conquers the undefended kingdom easily.

- Meanwhile Thor is captured and sold as a gladiator to the Grandmaster on Sakaar. He spends the entire second act here, eventually teaming up with a rediscovered Hulk (now Grandmaster's champion) and Valkyrie, a former Asgardian warrior in exile.

There's a lot of fun stuff on Sakaar as Thor has to convince both Hulk and Valkyrie to help him, but the Grandmaster storyline and the Hela storylines never intersect. It feels like Hela spends the second act spinning her wheels on a slow takeover of Asgard while Thor deals with his unrelated problems. Every moment Cate Blanchett is on-screen is a delight. It's a major step-up from Evil Guy Whose Name I Can't Remember from THOR: THE DARK WORLD, but there's not enough story momentum for her while Thor is stranded elsewhere.

It's a problem one barely notices since the Thor stuff is amusing. For a while, it's almost as if Hela was just a vehicle to facilitate the Thor/Hulk buddy movie. Naturally, Thor eventually convinces his friends to help him take on Hela and liberate Asgard, but beyond that there's nothing for the Grandmaster to do in the third act. What's more, what Thor needs to ultimately defeat Hela was planted in the first scene of the film, so it's not even truly something he gained through his experience.

The film tries to bind the second and third acts via some character work with Hulk and Valkyrie and it works well enough that you leave the theater with great affection for both characters. Director Taika Waititi has a wonderful sense of pace and everyone's comic timing is on point here. It's a rare joke that doesn't land and this film is packed with jokes. What can you say about a sci-fi movie where Jeff Goldblum shows up to play an alien ruler basically AS Jeff Goldblum and it doesn't feel out of place in the slightest?

This is a film that embraces the weird and the quirky but does it without self-consciously winking at the audience. (Okay, maybe the Stan Lee cameo lands with a bit of a thud, but that's it.)

Hell, they get away with a Hulk dick joke. A year ago, would you have put money on a THOR movie being able to do that and not make it cringeworthy?

A movie can get away with a lot if it leaves the audience feeling good. RAGNAROK avoids the morose pomposity that has hobbled other superhero films and gives us two hours or a rollicking good time with some of our favorite action figures, while adding some new toys to the box. (This had better not be the last time we see either Valkyrie or The Grandmaster.)

And you know what? As much as the Dr. Strange cameo shouldn't work, considering this is the 17th film in the Marvel series, it feels a lot less inexplicable to use him for plot convenience than it might have to pull something like this three or four films in. Is it an indulgence? Yes, but it feels earned to the audience because of all the time we've spent in this continuity.

Like I said, it's the bumblebee that flies when it shouldn't. It's impressive to come away really enjoying a film that quickly ditches a set-up that promises tension and takes shortcuts to put the real major conflict in play. A steady diet of these would probably lead to diminishing returns, but this is just so damn pleasant it's impossible not to get swept away by its infectious charm.