THOR: LOVE AND THUNDER Review
Tonally uneven but still entertaining, there’s little reason why existing Thor fans won’t enjoy it.
It’s been almost five years since Thor: Ragnarok, and the God of Thunder, played as usual by Chris Hemsworth, has been through a lot, mostly fighting with the Avengers against Thanos before teaming up with the Guardians of the Galaxy.
Taika Waikiti’s second movie directing Thor starts with a rather morose cold open where we meet Christian Bale’s Gorr, as he carries his dying daughter through an arid desert, forcing him to pray to his gods, who do not respond or save her. This spurs Gorr’s turn to a level of villainy that makes up the main conflict of Love and Thunder. Thor’s rocky friend Korg, voiced by Waititi, is telling tales of Thor’s adventures with the Guardians of the Galaxy, although it’s unclear at first if these are events that really happened or just more exaggeration on the part of Thor’s best friend. On earth, Natalie Portman’s Dr. Jane Foster, Thor’s ex, is suffering with Stage 4 cancer, but instead of turning to modern medicine, she turns to the Gods, realizing that maybe even Thor’s shattered hammer Mjolnir can help her. In the fishing village that’s become New Asgard, now a tourist trap, Gorr shows up with shadowy creatures created by his sword to kidnap the kids of the village. This is when Thor re-encounters Foster, who has been converted into her own version of “The Mighty Thor,” and they and Tessa Thompson’s Valkyrie travel to “Omnipotent City” to get help from other gods, including Russell Crowe’s Zeus, to find and retrieve the kids.
Believe it or not, there’s a lot more to the plot, which includes a long-time Marvel cosmic character, but most of the film deals with the romance and relationship between Thor and Jane Foster with Valkyrie sometimes playing the third wheel. In fact, the actual love quadrangle of the film involves the jealousy Thor’s Stormbreaker feels towards Mjolnir when Thor’s original hammer reenters the picture. It’s a running gag that quickly gets stale, as Thor is once again depicted as a one-note character with very little of the range or depth offered in Infinity War and Endgame.
On the other hand, it’s great to see Portman back in a role that’s not just the damsel in distress, since she’s getting directly involved in the action. Unfortunately, that tends to make Valkyrie seem rather redundant. Love and Thunder does introduce two fantastic new characters in Bale’s Gorr the God Butcher, a villain whose origins are based on tragedy that eventually lead to his madness. Crowe’s Zeus is quite a character of his own, whose ego and conceit tends to overshadow even Thor’s own when the two encounter each other in one of the movie’s stranger sections.
There’s just no way around the fact that Love and Thunder just has serious tonal issues where it deals with serious issues like cancer and losing faith but constantly reverts to levels of humor that just aren’t necessary to make for a compelling and entertaining story. For instance, did we really need to revisit the acting troupe that we saw in Ragnarok, this time acting out the events of that previous movie? Not at all. It’s merely done for a quick nudge-nudge-wink-wink to that bit in Ragnarok.
Much of Love and Thunder feels like Waititi is trying to mimic or replicate what people seemed to love about Ragnarok so much. As we’ve seen with far too many sequels, that rarely works, especially if it doesn’t feel organic. There are times when the movie feels very dark, once again bringing in straight-up horror elements, but that’s frequently diluted by Waititi’s inability to keep things serious, which ultimately takes away from the stakes, even of the kidnapped kids. (There are a few lame plot points like how Thor communicates with Heimdall’s son to find them.)
The movie does start to come together in the last hour or so when Thor, Jane and Valhalla fight directly against Gorr in a shadow world that’s more monochrome than black and white, and it’s the section of the film that really defines itself as something visually unlike any other Marvel movie, so far.
Let’s talk about the music. This is Michael Giacchino’s third film score of the year, which he shares credit with Nami Melumad, and while it does do a lot for the emotions in the film, I wasn’t as crazy about the metal-influenced rock music that didn’t really work so well. Similarly, Waititi just uses way too much Guns ‘n’ Roses, both in terms of actual music and influence for the story, and putting Dio’s “Rainbow in the Dark” in the end credits only does so much to make up for that infraction.
Love and Thunder isn’t quite as strong as Ragnarok, despite Waititi’s very best efforts – in some ways, it feels like everyone involved was trying just a little too hard. The things that do stand out just barely manage to keep their head above the water, in fear of being drowned by Waititi’s unnecessary non-stop gags.
Rating: 7.5/10