Who would’ve guessed that out of all the original Avengers that it would be Thor that would get a fourth movie? Sure, one could argue something like how Captain America: Civil War was just as much Iron Man 4 as it was Captain America 3 but as far as titled movies go, Thor is the first one to get a quadrilogy. It’s hard to deny that the sole reason for Thor getting another movie mostly has to do with the success of it’s predecessor Thor: Ragnarok. After his first two solo movies were met with a so-so reaction from fans and critics alike (along with an incredibly phony revival response from folks on the internet) , a change of course was needed to prove that Thor can hold his own movie and that he is a character worthy of the Marvel canon. Taika Waititi was able to provided that shot in the arm that the character and the franchise needed. While not everyone is a fan of the more comedic Thor, if it wasn’t for the success of that third Thor, there’s a big chance that Marvel would have been done with making standalone Thor movies and at best, he would be a supporting character in other movies until Hemsworth had lost interest in the role. Because of that, we now have Love and Thunder.
A big complaint that people have had about Phase 4 of the Marvel Cinematic Universe is how aimlessness it all feels. How many things are just being thrown at the walls to see what sticks, and that there’s really not a overall “plan” to it. While I understand those claims, I think it’s a bit more complicated than that.
I’m going to save most of this for a later post sometime next weekend but the fact is most franchises are run without any sort of big grand plan. It’s the success of Marvel that has given the misguided sense that you must have every single little thing planned out many years in advance before you start shooting the pictures or else it will be a failure. If you ask me, that’s not a very healthy way to think when constructing a series.
To those people who have made those claims, I suggest you watch all four of these Thor movies back-to-back-to-back-to-back. When you watch them I dare you all to tell me that all four of these movies were planned all out in advance. I dare you! I double dare you motherf*cker! I seriously dare anyone to tell me that each of these movies were planned the moment that filming began for the very first Thor! You can’t because it’s not suppose to be that way!
Yes, Love and Thunder was of course not planned from the get-go and the sole reason it existed is because how big of a hit Ragnarok was! However, WELCOME TO HOLLYWOOD! THAT’S HOW MOVIE FRANCHISE ARE USUALLY MADE!
Anyways, so how actually does Waititi do on round two with Thor movies? Mostly, more of the same as last time out except not quite as much tonally control as he did with the prior movie and tackling subject matters that isn’t executed as well has it could have because of the oddball tone it’s going for. This will definitely not win anyone over who didn’t care for the previous one but if you are a fan of it, then you will most likely find just as much enjoyment of this one even if it’s shorter and feels more like trying to recapture lightning in a bottle.
Warning: The following premise might contain some mild spoilers for the movie. The reason I say this is because there are certain subplots and elements that the trailers have not touched upon. Fans of the source material that this movie is based on should not be surprised but for everyone else, proceed the rest of the review with caution.
Premise: Taking place sometime after Avengers: Endgame, Thor (Chris Hemsworth) has been with the Guardians of the Galaxy for awhile and is struggling to find his next purpose in life. Despite all he’s lost and achieve, he is looking for that next big thing to help him find inner peace. Things take a turn for the worse when Thor receives a distress call from his old friend Sif (Jaimie Alexander), and discovers a new villain that has emerged in the form of Gorr the God Butcher (Christian Bale), a galactic killer who kidnaps the children of New Asgard as he seeks the extinction of all gods after losing his daughter. We also see Jane Foster (Natalie Porman) thrown back to the mix as she is battling cancer but believes that wielding the Mjolnir and becoming the Mighty Thor just might help her out with her life-threatening condition. It’s then that Thor must work together with Jane and reunite with his teammates from Ragnarok with Valkyrie (Tessa Thompson), who is now king of New Asgard, and Korg (Taika Watti) to defeat Gorr before he gets his revenge.
Now, with that much of a setup, you would think that the movie would ranged around two and a half hours long. However, that is not the case here with Love and Thunder as it is just under two hours with a runtime of just 119 minutes including credits. The movie moves at a breezy clip by throwing enough action, laughs, and beats to keep your attention until it ends. While there are definitely elements that I feel could have benefitted with an extra 15 to 20 minutes of screen time, it’s not something you notice when watching the movie and only think about an hour or two after you’ve seen it.
The most surprising element of Love and Thunder is how this is the first time in these movies that I actually cared about the relationship between Thor and Jane. With the first Thor movies, it was hard to buy their chemistry and you couldn’t help but feel it was more of a physical attraction between the two as oppose to an emotional one. It only felt like Thor and Jane were together because both Chris Hemsworth and Natalie Portman are two insanely attractive people. However, here, it does just enough to get you engage with their relationships and have it all reflect the arcs the two characters go through. Mostly involving being about cherishing every moment with the ones you love because you never know when they are going to be gone forever. While there are parts in the first act that feels like it’s doing the heavy lifting that the first two Thor movies should have done, it’s certainly the most engaging part of the movie and what keeps the picture from falling completely flat on it’s face.
Another nice element is the return of Natalie Portman. This is the first time in these movies where Portman feels like she is really enjoying herself. While that is mostly because she now gets the chance to play a superhero, she is able to blend with the other cast members very well and is a big highlight of the movie. And for those concerned that her coming back as Thor would come across as fake feminism or having her be completely flawless, there is plenty of vulnerability on display for her character and has enough depth to make her feel like a fully formed person here. I won’t go too much into what her character does through as that would contain spoilers but it’s good to see Natalie get something more worthwhile to do here.
Christian Bale makes a great impression as the main villain as Gorr. While he doesn’t have as much screen time as much as I would have liked, he does make for perhaps the most engaging MCU villain since Kilmonger. He’s fighting for the same cause that the heroes are in the movie but for completely different reasons. He’s sympathetic, intimating, and even kinda funny at times. Bale’s performance does feel closer to Patrick Bate than Batman but he’s good enough here to make you feel his presence in every scene that he is in.
As for the rest of the cast, Tessa Thompson gets less to do her as King Valkyrie than in Ragnarok but gets enough cool action bits to herself and Thompson herself is so charming that she just completely steals every moment she is in. Taika Waititi gets himself more time to shine as Korg and the narrator but it feels like he might have been better suited as an extended cameo rather than as a major supporting character. Speaking of extended cameos, the Guardians of the Galaxy don’t have any big roles to play after the setup and feels like they’re only here because continuity and to let the audience know what they’ve been up to three years later. There’s also another stage play here that reacts events from the last movie that has the other two celebrities from before making a cameo here along with a delightful one from the one that plays Hela. Despite it making less sense of having a stage play this time out, that one surprise cameo basically saved that moment for me.
The real thing that keeps Love and Thunder from being a top-tier MCU flick and somewhere in-between mid-tier and low-tier is it’s overall jarring change of tone and how it handle the elements in it’s story. While Ragnarok played a similar dark storyline in a funny way, it doesn’t work as well here. At least in Ragnarok, it made sense to be all wacky and fun with Thor as he visits these strange worlds and these strange individuals he meets along the way. In Love and Thunder, aside from a section where he visits a world to find Zeus (played gloriously by Russell Crowe), he doesn’t visit those kind of places or interact with those kind of individuals. It’s really hard to play the same comedic angle from last time but also try to make a personal story involving a man who kidnaps children to avenge his lost daughter along with a woman dying from cancer. It’s not that it’s impossible for Whatti to find the right balance between light and darkness as his other non-Marvel movies (What We Do in the Shadows, Hunt for the Wilderpeople, and JoJo Rabbit) has proven otherwise. Here, it feels like he got a bit of ahead of himself.
There’s also certain characters that don’t get as much screen time as they should. There’s not much done with the status quo for Valkyrie in her newly King form or even attempt to explore the gay side of her (Relax, conservative parents who lost their shit over Lightyear! There’s no gay kiss scene here!), Gorr is practically absent throughout the entire middle act, and what was even the point of bringing back Jaimie Alexander as Sif if you were just gonna have her show up at the very beginning and very end. I know many will argue that because of the film’s runtime that it couldn’t have put as much focus on it but there was also the original Guardians of the Galaxy which had a similar runtime but was able to find the time to flesh out it’s characters to make you get behind them. It’s all about balance, execution, and choosing the right things to focus on. Love and Thunder struggles at that more so than other MCU installments.
Production wise, it’s quite a mixed bag as well. While there are definitely not as many awful green screen shot that Film Twitter has made a big hassle over (the CGI helmet on Thor is admittedly very obvious), some of the movie does look distractingly flat while at others times, it looks glorious. The action setpieces are mostly fun, with the standout being the very first one with Thor and the event with all main four players in Zeus’s arena. The editing and lighting can be quite distraction at times with some awkward screen transaction and certain scenes looking quite dark. The music choices aren’t as fresh as before but the ones that are choosing are still awesome and the overall original score does it’s job.
Love and Thunder does help bring home many major points of the MCU that both it’s supporters and haters have hammered for the past several years. That the universe is not as planned out as many have been led to believe, it doesn’t have that same “fresh” feeling as it once did, and how even with an lesser entry like these still rise above the lesser entries in many other movie franchises (You can’t say with a straight face that Iron Man 2 and Thor: The Dark World is of the same quality as Catwoman and Fant4stic). There’s going to be multiple discussions about the future of Marvel throughout the coming weekend and this movie will likely provide plenty of amusing talking points for it.
Still, there are worse ways to spent a hot summer day than in a cool theaters and watching hot, badass folks kicking butt and saving the day like the superheroes they are. If still being entertain by these Marvel movies is now so wrong, then I don’t think I want to be right. It’s like having a big old Big Mac from McDonalds. Yes, it’s messy and all over the place but man, does it still taste good. If that sounds like a negative to you, then it will be a negative. If that’s a positive to you, then positivity trumps all! Or in the case of this movie, love (kinda) trumps all!
(And yes, there are two credit scenes.)
Other comments:
- It’s funny how this movie references a sci-fi epic that came out in 2014, a year after the last time that Natalie Portman was in these movies.
- I would definitely watch a Disney Plus show of Thor and his adventure with the Guardians themselves.
- There was WAY too much foreshadowing in this movie. Even if you don’t know the comics, you are bound to see certain beats coming from a mile away.
- There’s basically one moment that this movie’s version of “I have nothing to prove to you!” from Captain Marvel. Certain folks are gonna go nuts for that moment!
- When it comes to a movie that moves at a brisk pace and crams two popular storylines into one without as much build up and emotional payoff that one might want, this is basically like a better version of X-Men: The Last Stand. Don’t @ me!
- I forgot to mention but that Chris Hemsworth guy is still pretty good as Thor Odinson.
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