10 Movie Threequels That Redeemed Their Franchise

Thor’s first strike was a decent, early instalment in the MCU which unleashed enough Nordic-tinged action - packaged up in a humorous fish out of water tale - to satisfy viewers. So far so good for the bearded hammer-wielder.

But then Dark World happened, a film that had all the trappings of a darker, moodier sequel, but became engulfed in its own seriousness and also fell foul to Phase 2’s knack for conjuring up a finale that involves a lot of things falling from the sky. Suffice to say, it was a disappointment.

Thank the gods for director Taika Waititi, then, who took a hold of the character and turned in the funniest, most carefree Marvel movie to date. Some of the best moves start with their protagonist in peril and Ragnarok puts a nice twist on this before hitting play on Zeppelin’s Immigrant Song and cranking up the crazy to 11 for the duration of the movie.

The result is a film with a loose plot around Thor losing his place in Asgard’s monarchy (kudos to Cate Blanchett’s Hela, a superb baddie), which sees the hero doing some planet-hopping with Hulk, mingling with a barmy Jeff Goldblum, meeting a scene-stealer called Korg before knuckling down for a finale dust up which actually has some pretty big ramifications for the character. Without this movie, Thor could have been side-lined. A crazed gem.