The evolution of Chris Hemsworth, comedy star
There are lots of reasons Thor: Ragnarok works as well as it does: a ridiculously talented director, an deep bench of charismatic supporting stars, an eye-popping array of costumes and sets, a killer synth-heavy score, a franchise-making machine well-honed after nine years and 17 films.
The biggest reason, though, may be that Thor: Ragnarok finally figures out what we probably should've known all along: Chris Hemsworth is a comedy star.
Think back to the first Thor. It was fun but uneven, an awkward mix of Shakespearean drama and fish-out-of-water comedy. But the latter worked far better than the former. The film was at its best when it just sat back and watched Hemsworth's Thor discover all that Midgard had to offer: traffic laws, pet stores, low-rise jeans, and, most memorably, coffee.
The diner scene is arguably the most memorable in the movie, in large part because that scene, more than any other, explains who Thor is. He's arrogant but affable, oblivious but willing to learn. For all his war-hero bombast, he's surprisingly chill – he takes it in stride when Jane scolds him for his inappropriate behavior. It's an odd combination of traits that work because Hemsworth commits himself fully.
Thor wasn't Hemsworth's first big role. It wasn't even his Hollywood debut. He'd already done that two years prior in 2009's Star Trek. In between, he'd shot Cabin in the Woods and Red Dawn, though both were shelved until 2012 for different reasons. Still, Thor was his breakout, the film that made him a star.
In the years that followed, Hemsworth appeared in a string of movies befitting his new "leading man" status. He picked up another medieval fantasy franchise, Snow White and the Huntsman; he teamed up with the legendary Michael Mann for Blackhat; he dropped a bunch of weight to play a shipwreck survivor in Ron Howard's In the Heart of the Sea.
Hemsworth's dramatic performances weren't bad. There was just nothing special about them – nothing that made him stand out in an industry already packed to the rafters with 30something white men with beefy biceps and handsome frowns. Even in the best of those, Howard's Rush, Hemsworth feels replaceable. He's good, but you could probably come up with half a dozen actors who'd have done it just as well or better.
Meanwhile, Hemsworth kept revealing glimmers of his comic talent. Thor isn't really a funny character in Thor: The Dark World, The Avengers, or Avengers: Age of Ultron, but as played by Hemsworth, he's got impeccable timing and a healthy sense of humor about himself – think of the "he's adopted" quip in the first Avengers, or the delicate way he hangs Mjolnir on Jane's wall in Thor: The Dark World.
Outside the Marvel universe, Hemsworth hosted Saturday Night Live twice in 2015. Neither of his episodes were particularly acclaimed at the time (most of the reviews seem to think he was fine, not great) but it did yield some real gems, like this perfectly demented piece.
2015 was also the year that Hemsworth got his first real post-Thor comedy role, in Ed Helms' Vacation. Say what you will about the rest of the film, but it knows what it has in Hemsworth and uses his beefcake persona to entertaining effect.
If 2015 was the year we started to suspect Hemsworth might be hilarious, 2016 was the year we finally knew he was.
Going into Ghostbusters, Hemsworth felt like the wild card. He was one of the one non-comedians in a cast stacked with SNL alums and other comedy vets. Yet Hemsworth didn't just hold his own – he walked away with some of the biggest laughs in the entire film.
This is Hemsworth at his very best. He's game, goofy, and kind of weird; his godly good looks are part of the joke, but they're undermined by his lunkheaded bro vibe. At the same time, he comes across as a generous performer – he plays well with others, never stealing the spotlight from his co-stars. There's a looseness to Kevin that suits Hemsworth far better than the regal stiffness of his early Thor movies ever did.
Clearly, Thor: Ragnarok director Taika Waititi had also noticed that Hemsworth could be hysterically funny. Our first look at Waititi's version of the character came in the form of two shorts detailing Thor's misadventures in Australia.
At the time, we didn't realize how close these would be to the Thor: Ragnarok version of the character. But Marvel – which has always encouraged fans to conflate their heroes with the stars who are playing them – kept running with this version of Thor throughout the Ragnarok marketing campaign.
Of all the core Marvel superheroes, Thor is the one who's changed the most over the years. It's possible to make out some of that surfer-dude aura in the original Thor if you squint – enough of it, anyway, to convince yourself that it might be the same guy we see in Ragnarok – but Ragnarok is the first Thor film to lean into it completely.
Just look at him catching up with Hulk in the arena, like two old friends from work:
Or bickering with Loki in the elevator:
It just works. There's a specificity to Funny Thor that was lacking in Serious Thor – or, for that matter, any of Hemsworth's other dramatic roles. Finally, Thor feels like an essential and unique component of the Marvel universe.
And finally, Chris Hemsworth feels like an essential part of the Hollywood landscape, rather than just another dime-a-dozen pretty boy. Let the Chris Evanses and Chris Pines of the world take on the serious leading-man roles. Chris Hemsworth has a bright future as a comedy star.
Topics Comics
