Thor: Love and Thunder (2022)

Movie Info

I’m back!

Gorr (Christian Bale) believes in gods…but the gods are too busy to believe in him. When Gorr suffers tragedy, he sets out on a path of vengeance to slay the gods that betrayed him. As Gorr tears through the galaxy with the Necrosword, Thor (Chris Hemsworth) feels himself drifting as he tours with the Guardians of the Galaxy. A threat to Asgard and a return to Earth has Thor teaming up with his old pal Valkyrie (Tessa Thompson) and a new ally…Jane Foster (Natalie Portman)…aka the Mighty Thor!

Written and directed by Taika Waititi (with additional scripting by Jennifer Kaytin Robinson), Thor: Love and Thunder is a Marvel Comics Universe action adventure romance. The twenty-ninth film in the MCU series, the Phase Four film follows Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness from 2022 and is a sequel to Thor: Ragnarok from 2017 (and follows the events of 2019’s Avengers: Endgame). The film was released to mixed reviews but was a strong contender at the box office.

Let’s put a multi-year sensitive Jane Foster storyline into a semi-comedy under two hour movie.

The first Thor film had potential, but fumbled in a lot of the storytelling decisions. Thor: The Dark World was a complete mess and very forgettable. Thor: Ragnarok completely changed the tone of the films and the character but was an enjoyable outing. Thor: Love and Thunder tries to recreate the feel of Thor: Ragnarok, but struggles to find the happy-medium which made the previous film a success and entertaining. Due to plot aspects, a ******spoiler alert****** is in effect for the rest of the review.

The story is a big chunk of the problem. The story bounces from traditional telling to a narrative telling of the “Legend of Thor” from various people. If the story had stayed “Legend” based and kind of a Rashoman style telling, the story could have worked and the more absurd aspects of the story would make sense (they would be someone else’s interpretation). Instead, there is no tonal nature to the movie and the story of Gorr is tragic that it doesn’t mix well with the feel. The overall story isn’t awful, but how it is handled doesn’t work for me.

So…how’s Asgard?

The cast appears to be having fun at least everyone except Christian Bale who seems really uncomfortable in the small portion of the film (aka his storytelling to the kidnapped Asgardians) where he has to be a bit funny. Hemsworth gives a nice return to the “fit” Thor, and I have always enjoyed Tessa Thompson’s Valkyrie. It was good to see Jaimie Alexander back as Sif (after her cameo in Loki) though Russell Crowe and his intentionally over-the-top Zeus felt like a rather dead point in the film. Taika Waititi returns to voice Korg, but the Guardians of the Galaxy are treated more like fluff and are an unnecessary edition. Matt Damon, Sam Neill, and Luke Hemsworth return as the “not-ready-for-prime-time” Thor actors and are joined by Melissa McCarthy. Both Kat Denning and Stellan Skarsgård both have minor roles while Natalie Portman gets her chance at being a superhero. Portman is interesting, but she too feels underused in the movie.

…Gorr also forgot he’s in a comedy

The visuals for the movie were divisive. While they didn’t bother me (they have that bubble-gum pop look of the previous film), they probably aren’t up to the level of the budget of the film. In the storytelling aspect of the film, they completely fit, and I do like the colorless sequence in the Shadow Realm. It was also great to see a version of Eternity on the screen (though I wish they had a moment to demonstrate the immense nature of the “everything” of Eternity).

Thor: Love and Thunder has the Phase Four problem that everyone has been talking about since Phase Four started. While Phase One took a while to develop into the Infinity War saga with Thanos, it also was aided by not having to have an “arcing” plot (other than forming the Avengers). Phase Four has expectations and it feels like it needs to offer viewers more. In addition, the added Disney+ TV series seem to be watering down the multi-plotlines instead of building them (it feels like Kang should have at least been mentioned in one or two of the films by now). I can stand behind the addition of Brett Goldstein as Hercules in the post-credit scenes as one of my favorite Avengers, but once again, Thor has pretty much been playing the Hercules role for the last few films in Thor’s persona and actions…and adding Hercules to the mix might just muddy it more. Maybe Hercules: Love and Thunder would have worked better. Thor: Love and Thunder is followed by Black Panther: Wakanda Forever in November of 2022.

Related Links:

Thor (2011)

Thor:  The Dark World (2013)

Thor:  Ragnarok (2017)