Previous Thor movies were predicated on either Thor’s relationship to ruling Asgard or being a fish-out-of-water.
While it's been nearly five years since Ragnarok first hit theaters, with 12 movies in between them, including the watershed bookend film Avengers: Endgame and the (tangentially related) tv series Loki. Let's take a look at Ragnarok now that Thor: Love and Thunder is on the horizon. Director Taika Waititi had no such reservations with Thor: Ragnarok. They give him moments to be humorous, but they seem ambivalent about leaning into the comedy as if that would diminish the seriousness of the situation. And yet the first two Thor movies aren’t exactly sure how to use him. Hemsworth fits the bill physically for the character, but over the years, he’s shown that he’s a comically gifted actor who shines brightest when he’s allowed to just be funny. Yes, he’s noble and heroic, but he’s also harder to describe, in part because he’s such a bizarre character (he’s a demigod space alien), but also because Marvel landed on a unique performer like Chris Hemsworth. He doesn’t have clearly defined features like Tony Stark or Steve Rogers.
Thor had always had a tricky place within the MCU.
