Thor: Love and Blunder?
As I sat down in the theater, I texted an old friend. “God this is going to be bad.” He told me not to go into movies with preconceived notions. And well, he was half right. Thor Love and Thunder wasn’t terrible, per se. But it wasn’t good either. After so many years and so many iterations, it was sad to see that the character just hadn’t evolved. I mean, how many possible times can a character go “find himself” before the story becomes contrived and boring? Which is ultimately why Thor Love and Thunder fell flat.
Now, don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t all bad. All the story elements were there. They were just jumbled up like a young kid with severe ADD put it together. The first few minutes of the movie had me believing I’d be seeing a more serious outing. We are introduced to the antagonist, Gorr the God Butcher, played by Christian Bale and a very clear narrative emerges for his character. He wants to avenge the death of his daughter since the god who he worshipped did nothing to save her. So he goes on a path to kill all the gods throughout the universe on his way to Eternity where there exists a McGuffin fountain that grants the first person to get there any wish they want. Gee, where was this during Infinity War? Wouldn’t the superheroes have wanted to wish away Thanos or for that matter, why didn’t Thanos just go there in the first place rather than hunting down all the Infinity Stones? Why introduce an object or place with that kind of mechanism? But I digress.
Gorr’s next prey would be the gods of New Asgard where we see Thor and are surprised by Natalie Portman’s Mighty Thor. This is where the movie falters a bit because we are told, rather than shown, how Jane Foster became worthy of Mjolnir. Generally, films showing rather than telling, works much better and it respects the audience. But this is a Marvel movie after all, so we’ve got to keep things simple.
Keeping the story moving right along, after Gorr kidnaps the children of New Asgard, Thor and his friends set off to the god planet to warn Zeus and the other gods about Gorr and to enlist their help in defeating him. This is where we see Russell Crowe’s Zeus which was a strange choice to cast an over-the-hill Crowe as the Greek god. I mean, lately he’s really let himself go and comes off more as a fat bumbling buffoon than a mighty god of gods. Crowe’s performance was also quite strange as his Greek accent came off more Italian and slipped back into his native Australian at times which took the viewer right out of the fantasy.
The gods refuse to help Thor and his friends so they decide to go it alone into the Shadow Realm to fight Gorr and save the kidnapped children of New Asgard. The depiction of the Shadow Realm also brought out another of the film’s flaws. The constant changes of contrast and color made it feel like an assault on the senses. This may be par for the course with Marvel films lately as they have really just become live action cartoons at this point, basically CGI vomit fests. Gone is the magic of the first Iron Man and Captain America movies where stories were more grounded. But at this point you know what you’re getting into.
Once in the Shadow Realm, we find out that Gorr kidnapping the children was all a ruse in order to steal Stormbreaker and open the Bi-frost to Eternity. Once there, Thor turns the children into mini Thors so they can fight the shadow creatures and Gorr together. This point felt very childish and slightly diminished the seriousness of a villain like Gorr. It felt a bit out of place. Also, where was this power before? Wouldn’t it have helped if Thor made other mini Thors in prior adventures? It seems like the writers are getting lazier and lazier with each iteration in Phase 4 and just writing in powers because the story needs it at that point which cheapens everything that came before.
For the final battle, Jane Foster shows up to help in the fight against Gorr but it’s all for naught as Gorr succeeds in opening the door to Eternity. Once through, Thor convinces him to wish his daughter back to existence instead of killing all the gods. That’s it, that’s the plot of the movie in a nutshell. Oh, and Jane Foster dies. This was actually quite a shock as the film’s producers made such a big deal of introducing female Thor. I thought she may have had a movie or two lined up but I guess not. After all, Natalie Portman is three years older than Chris Hemsworth so that may not have worked in carrying a new franchise forward.
Thor Love and Thunder fell flat as many of the actors had outgrown their roles. It felt like the film didn’t really need to be made. It was just there to be there rather than to propel a narrative forward as in the previous phases of the MCU. Chris Hemsworth is old hat at playing the character and could do so in his sleep. He delivered a solid performance and seemed to enjoy himself. Tessa Thompson was slightly better than her usual emotionless self, but only slightly. Maybe she took an acting class or something but she still had her one emotionless face. Taika Waititi as Korg became more annoying the more of him there was on screen. He was a good character in Ragnarok but became a running joke in this outing. And speaking of jokes, a lot of them fell flat. For a Marvel comedy movie, I only heard one chuckle throughout the film in a packed theater.
The one stand out was Christian Bale who dominated every single scene he was in. His portrayal of Gorr rounded out great character development. As a viewer, I knew what his motivations were and why he took the actions he took. Bale is a veteran actor that puts all his efforts into the character and it clearly showed here.
There was a lot of confusing press prior to the film’s release. From the first trailer dropping super late, to the actor interviews, the film’s roll out was very messy, maybe because the film itself was messy. In an interview, Taika Waititi said himself, this movie is made by a seven year old, and I’ve got to agree, because it shows. As I mentioned before, the constant changes in color and contrast were quite abrasive and paralleled the changes in the story which was itself janky and quite light on plot. The story moves from point to point for the main characters without much direction. Only Gorr’s story had a clear, directed path and narrative. Too bad it was mired by Waititi’s assault on the senses.
Overall, Thor Love and Thunder was a film that was just there. The plain Jane of Marvel movies. Light on substance, it felt like a cash grab by all involved and did little to move the MCU forward. The Phase 4 films we’ve had thus far have all been pretty pointless and haven’t presented a direction or narrative for the MCU going forward. The first three phases very clearly moved toward an ultimate end goal in Infinity War and Endgame. These Phase 4 films seem more like standalone directionless DC films than the coherent films we’ve grown accustomed to. Given all this, I’ve got to say to save your money and wait for the home release. Unless you have a seven year old that’s dying to see it.
If you’d like to check out a video review of this movie, please visit my YouTube channel here:
https://youtu.be/pwVMFgfkypU