Alright! Today I’m reviewing the 29th film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and its 35th product overall, Thor: Love and Thunder. The sequel to the much-beloved 2017 smash Thor: Ragnarok, which is widely cited as one of the best in the genre and the revamp the Thor franchise needed, Love and Thunder is more of the same… but worse.
One of Ragnarok’s greatest strengths was how unexpectedly funny it was. The movie was absolutely hilarious, in-line with director Taika Waititi’s other works (The Hunt for the Wilderpeople, Jojo Rabbit). With that being said, Ragnarok’s greatest strength is Love and Thunder’s greatest weakness. It’s not funny in the slightest. Sure, there are a couple of chuckles, but even my Thursday night preview (Often the most responsive audience) was almost dead silent.
Humor was present, but it was never laugh-out-loud and more often than not missed, leading to a very long-vacant silence where something, anything should have gone. Even worse was that the humor present was often to the detriment of the characters, as if they saw the joke and just took the joke. This was evident in a couple places - A potentially cool grenade turning out to be a speaker, scratching Thor’s nose while he tries to talk to kidnapped children, giving Stormbreaker his “first beer,” and, what I thought was the worst one - Star-Lord telling Thor to look into the eyes of the people he loves right after Thor tells him he has lost everyone he’s ever loved. Like, dude… there’s a time and a place.
There were also characters that, like the jokes, just didn’t hit right. For example, there’s a pair of goats that scream a few times throughout the movie. However, it’s never to the point of Sideshow Bob stepping on rakes nor wacky enough in a Mitchells vs. the Machines type of way to ever be funny. In their current state, they were merely present, and nothing more. They existed. That line of thinking is present for most of the supporting cast as well - Valkyrie has a few good moments, but she’s largely just “there,” left less developed than she was before (What happened to her alcoholism?). Korg, a fan-favorite, also appears, but his soft-spoken rocky quips are never insightful nor humorous (And he bears a signature Marvel fake-out death that really should have been taken).
The same, unfortunately, can be said for Christian Bale as Gorr the God Butcher. I really liked his role in the film - his menace, the tonal shifts, the creeping from the shadows and occasional jump scares, in addition to Bale’s always committed acting - that was all competently done. However, his overall presence needed to be more. I’ve seen a lot of online folks saying he needed a montage of killing Gods, and while I agree, I believe the better montage would have been a silent opening where we see the rise, fall, and slow dwindling of his civilization. As it stands, the movie just starts with him in the desert as his daughter dies. It felt very much like “This villain needs nuance, his daughter dying should be enough.” Like he needed motivation, oh, he’s sad, that’s why people go on vendettas. Like drawing a line from point A to B. He’s a threat but never is that threat felt outside of the scenes he’s in.
The character issues don’t just stop there. Natalie Portman’s The Mighty Thor has an origin and payoff that really should have been a lot more emotional than the final result (Cancer isn’t normally given this type of nonchalance). However, I really liked Natalie Portman in the movie, and her workout routine paid off - she looks as fantastic as ever, but is now totally jacked. Out of all the characters this film set up, she’s definitely the one I would want to see more of in the future.
The titular Thor was also given his share of character issues. While his previous appearances almost form a character arc (Hotshot/competent/responsible/King of Asgard/OP/Depression), Love and Thunder almost feel like two steps back. While I don’t agree with the criticism that the movie makes him feel like a total idiot, I do agree that his character seems to have devolved, like someone Odin would take the power away from. He’s cocky, often inconsiderate, and occasionally incompetent. Again, sometimes because they took the joke (Giving Stormbreaker his “first beer” or destroying a sacred temple) it works to the detriment of the film.
In general, the movie just needed to be more. The characters you like are here and doing things, but you’ve seen them doing cooler and better things. It almost feels like a parody of the MCU and Norse mythology, like a drawn-out skit for quite a bit of it. It’s now obvious that it wasn’t solely the comedy that made Ragnarok work - it was the blend of comedy, gravitas, character growth, and stakes. Love and Thunder hones in on the (unfunny) comedy at an alarming rate, sacrificing everything else. With those stakes gone, there is only left a tent flapping in the wind - weightless, flippant, and unreliable.
It’s unremarkable through and through, be it a musical score (Michael Giacchino, after providing career-best work for The Batman, is also going on autopilot here) that only adds legitimacy to my “The MCU switches out themes for each movie” complaint, end credits that lack any style or flair as Ragnarok’s did, and the comparatively flat look of the film, reminding me a bit of Obi-Wan Kenobi (Which also utilized the ILM StageCraft technology).
However, I overall thought the movie had some pretty good VFX (Nothing as atrociously bad as some of Phase Four), or at least none that looked obviously fake and still rendering, which is, again, an example of applauding the MCU just for being up to industry standard. I really liked Russel Crowe as Zeus, bearing a campy, over-the-top sense of fun and an accent that I… think was Greek…? In general I liked all of that lore with the Gods and their sequence in the movie (Even if a Khonshu cameo would have been cool). I liked the visuals in the land without color and subsequent Eternity. I liked the ending of the movie and the place it left Thor in, even if I wish he had just settled down and lived the simple life like Hawkeye did, a truly humble ending for the man who had to be taught humility. Didn't help that the movie itself foreshadowed a simple life ending by showing how his relationship with Jane deteriorated due to his superhero shenanigans.
The movie also has some nitpicky things I disliked about it (The in-universe play made no sense to end where it did and, like the movie, only existed because it worked in Ragnarok). It needed Loki, his dynamic with Thor was always the bright spot of the last three, and Korg’s opening monologue didn’t do his absence justice. The movie is made for kids through and through, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but the ending fight wherein Thor gives his powers to a group of children so they can fight the bad CGI monsters felt overly corny and hamfisted. The MCU always had a delicate balance of being kid-friendly and being a cool post-Transformers action movie, but that moment tilted it decidedly towards the former to an extent thus far unseen by Marvel, as if they were trying to steal the Minions: The Rise of Gru audience.
Love and Thunder is ultimately Ragnarok on repeat minus the bite, Waititi’s weakest work, and just kind of on autopilot for the majority of the movie. There’s no reason for its existence outside of the fact that people really liked Ragnarok. It’s a victory lap, a good time, and nothing more, seemingly inconsequential for the overarching scheme of the MCU.
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