Greta Thunberg, have I discovered the proper companion for you! His identify is Magne (pronounced “mog-neh”), he is the primary character in Netflix’s new Norwegian teen collection Ragnarok, and he will beat the crap out of companies polluting the world with environmental recklessness as a result of he is the second coming of Thor.
That feels like a corny premise for a TV present, however… effectively, really Ragnarok is corny, however in a captivating means. The six-episode collection premiered on Netflix final week, and I breezily powered by way of it over the previous couple of days not solely due to its effort to place a brand new spin on YA supernatural drama, however due to its simplistic method to doing so. To place it plainly, Ragnarok has a optimistic message and kilos it into your face repeatedly with all of the subtlety of a singing telegram.
Discover your new favorite show: Watch This Now!
The drama begins when Magne (a blonde block of chiseled Nordic stone named David Stakston), his mom, and brother transfer again to their house of Edda, Norway, a picturesque small city on a shocking fjord. The great thing about the city is just tainted by the monolithic industrial factories that belong to the Jutul Company, which makes who is aware of what (the collection most likely bought extra particular, however all that you must know is that it is unhealthy) and pours God solely is aware of into the water. Magne, who we meet as a lumbering oaf, has an opportunity encounter with an outdated lady on the town who touches his brow, and all of the sudden every thing begins to vary inside him.
He would not want his glasses anymore, his dyslexia now not interferes together with his schoolwork, and — in what is commonly thought-about the best of all bodily modifications in popular culture — his hair, as soon as parted ahead like a doofus, is now swept to the aspect. However the She’s All That makeover is not all that is modified with Magne; he is exhibiting bursts of pace, resiliency to ache, and he can now chuck a sledgehammer a kilometer and a half, which is sort of a mile, or two, or three (I do not know, I am American, nevertheless it’s farther than I can throw one). The teases aren’t refined (hammers and lightning!), however they’re rolled out as if they’re, and it is no shock when the identify Thor is lastly invoked.
Ragnarok — named after an apocalyptic occasion in Norse mythology when gods are killed, the world is flooded, and the planet is reborn recent and anew — shortly pits Magne in opposition to the Jutul household, who not solely characterize different figures of Norse mythology, they’re additionally the embodiment of company malfeasance and, as Norway’s fifth-wealthiest household, consultant of the one %. It is shortly established that they are not a standard household throughout one eyebrow-raising rest room scene, and it would not take Magne lengthy to catch on to their con.
David Stakston and Jonas Strand Gravli, Ragnarok
However for all of the supernaturalness of Ragnarok, it is the very earthly battle that stands proud. Ragnarok is probably the most direct call-to-action-against-corporate-pollution TV present that has existed. The kids within the collection — besides the statuesque and fairly Jutul “teenagers” who additionally attend Magne’s highschool — are outspoken of their dislike of Jutul, investigating mutated fish, melting ice, and instances of most cancers in locals as a direct impact of Jutul’s dumping of multi-syllabic chemical substances into the water. It turns the supernatural bits of the collection into frosting for what is known as a collection about activists elevating the alarm and taking companies to activity for his or her habits. It is also at occasions clunky and heavy-handed, however the directness of the story and the one-dimensionality of the villains is definitely a blessing for Ragnarok. There is not any portray the Jutul household as extra sophisticated than meets the attention, a refreshing determination to make the theme as clear as may be. Whereas different reveals attempt to flesh out their unhealthy guys to make them extra advanced and considerably worthy of our compassion, Ragnarok needs you to know that every thing the Jutuls are doing is unhealthy, and there is no protection for that.
Ragnarok is the most recent entry within the comparatively new style of cli-fi (local weather fiction), which fictionalizes local weather catastrophe and consists of motion pictures like The Day After Tomorrow and Snowpiercer, and reveals like The 100 or 12 Monkeys. However Ragnarok is the uncommon present that makes cli-fi the primary premise, maintaining issues centered on altering what we will earlier than it is too late fairly than exhibiting us what occurs after the purpose of no return. It is hokey but inspiring, foolish and severe, and preachy but in addition entertaining.
At simply six episodes, issues transfer pretty shortly till the cliffhanger ending, establishing a second season that may hopefully get made if the world already is not a wheezing, burning fireball by the point Netflix begins manufacturing on Season 2. Call your senators.
Ragnarok is now on Netflix.