Marvel Studios once again blows away audiences and shatters box office records with the seventeenth film in its massive Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) and third film in the Thor franchise, Thor: Ragnarok. Absent from 2016’s blockbuster hit Captain America: Civil War, Thor Odinson (Chris Hemsworth) has been on an independent search for powerful relics known as the Infinity Stones when a new threat, Hela (Cate Blanchett), appears with plans of taking over Asgard, the sprawling metropolis in the sky that is Thor’s homeland. With the help of his presumed dead brother Loki (Tom Hiddleston) and the Hulk (Mark Ruffalo), who has been missing in action since 2015’s Avengers: Age of Ultron, Thor must save his kingdom from destruction at the hands of Hela.

Up to this point, Thor films had a tendency to be dull, dreary, and forgettable. The second film, Thor: The Dark World, is my personal least-favorite MCU movie. With this latest installment, however, director Taika Watiti embraces the fun and colorful world of Thor’s comic book counterpart and translates it beautifully to screen. Taking note from films like Ant-Man and Guardians of the Galaxy, this is one of the funniest MCU movies to date. One of the new characters introduced in this film, Korg (played by Watiti himself), had me laughing every time he was on screen. The same can be said for Jeff Goldblum’s character, the Grandmaster.

This film brings many changes to what audiences thought of Thor. In this film he loses his hair, his hammer, and his stern personality. Every character, for that matter, has lightened up significantly and contributed to the comedic nature of the film. The decision to make this movie a comedy does sometimes make drastic events and deaths seem very glossed-over or joked-about even though they should have a more meaningful impact on the characters, which is my only problem with this movie.

Another element that Thor: Ragnarok uses much more effectively than other Marvel films is color. The colors and sets in most recent comic book movies are surprisingly gray and far from vibrant. The spaceships, buildings, landscapes, and environments all pop off the screen and strongly convey the lighthearted tone of the film. It’s shocking that movies based on comic books, which can certainly be considered an art, struggle with making colors look as amazing as they do here. All in all, Thor: Ragnarok is a fresh, funny, and exhilarating experience that blew away my expectations and moves away from the all-too-common tropes of most recent comic book movies.