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The first two standalone Thor movies didn’t do the character much good. Widely considered to belong to the lower echelon of Marvel movies, hopes were not high when Thor: Ragnarok was announced. But director Taika Waititi did something new with the character and the world around him: make it actually fun to watch. After the massive success of Ragnarok, Waititi returns for another installment: Thor: Love and Thunder.
When we last saw Thor he left Earth in the company of the Guardians of the Galaxy. As Love and Thunder opens we see what they have been up to. They operate as an intergalactic version of the A-team in which they help the innocent and the powerless against people who operate above the law. In an over the top action sequence, Thor single-handedly defeats an entire army. But a distress message from Sif sends Thor on his own way because who wants to see an entire movie about Thor and the Guardians of the Galaxy right?
Sif informs Thor about this movie’s main threat: Gorr, the God Butcher. The name says it all. After having lost his faith and finding a sword named the Necromancer, Gorr sets out to destroy all of the Gods. The only time we see Gorr butcher a God is in the prologue of the movie. It’s a mild and bloodless scene with a rather goofy God. Not the best set up to convey the threat this character should be to Thor.
But there’s more. Natalie Portman returns as Jane Foster and her character development between movies consists of getting stage four cancer. In her desperation she travels to the remains of Thor’s hammer Mjolnir, which then magically reconstructs itself and transforms Jane into Lady Thor.
And that name puzzles me.
Thor isn’t a profession or title, it’s a name. If the hammer makes you Thor, is Thor even Thor then now that he has an ax named Stormbreaker?
The movie wastes no time pitting Gorr and Thor against each other. Resulting in Gorr kidnapping all of the children from New Asgard and taking them to a remote location waiting for Thor to rescue them. For someone who hates Gods because they are selfish, his plan sure hinges a lot on the god of thunder not being selfish.
Much like in Avengers: Endgame a quest gives Thor the possibility to travel to different locations and perform different small side-quests and tasks. In this case reconciling with Jane, comforting the kidnapped kids through telepathy and trying to enlist other gods to help him take down Gorr.
On its surface Thor: Love and Thunder is another entertaining entry in the MCU, but there is a far more interesting movie playing in the scenes we don’t see. They screw up Gorr’s arc right away as the God he kills is nothing more than a giant and poses little of a threat to him. From that moment on all of his actions were done off screen. The reason Thanos worked so well as a character and as a threat is because there were multiple scenes in which he’s displayed as a real threat on screen.
Not helping is the fact that the opening scene of Thor displays him as a one man army, easily taking on dozens of aliens and their advanced weaponry. So the balance between power of the characters is wrong right from the start.
Thor: Love and Thunder never manages to find the right tone. It’s a goofy movie, but also one in which a lead character is dying of cancer. It’s a difficult thing to balance cancer and humor and Waititi never succeeds in pulling this off.
Much like it predecessor Thor: Love and Thunder throws in a lot of cameos. A returning Matt Damon is now accompanied by Luke Hemsworth, Sam Neill and Melissa McCarthy. The biggest supporting role goes to Russell Crowe who plays Zeus and what could have been a bad-ass character and performance is turned into a joke character who is obsessed with orgies. This must be a Taika Waititi joke as I don’t Kevin Feige or anyone at Disney looking at the script and saying: you know what this movie needs? Someone mentioning orgies multiple times.
Thor: Love and Thunder is a movie I liked while watching it, but the more time has passed, the less favorable I’m looking back on it. It’s brainless entertainment. A movie that tries to get the most out two giant goats that constantly scream. It’s an enjoyable watch, but like most recent MCU movies it doesn’t do anything new or take any risks.
