thor: love and thunder review
Thor: Love and Thunder is a broad comedy with shallow-end-of-the-pool romantic elements masquerading as an MCU film. This is, after all, Taika Waitiki’s money printing schtick. If you find his dialogue wince-inducing in the Guardians of the Galaxy films, there isn’t much to change your mind here. I happen not to mind Taika’s writing and I definitely laughed out loud at least a couple times during Thor’s 4th big screen adventure. If you can stomach the randomness, there is silly fun to be had. The idea that Event Horizon exists in the MCU is simply awesome and a nice easter egg for existential sci-fi horror genre fans, for example. In short, Thor: Love and Thunder is not nearly as bad as some reviews would lead you to believe. The barebones story is largely superfluous to the greater MCU and the explanation for Jane Foster becoming The Mighty Thor comes and goes so fast you might miss it. It’s as if Kevin Feige and company believe your typical moviegoer is familiar with Jason Aaron’s notorious “Goddess of Thunder” comic storyline from 2016 (they are not). But that’s probably splitting hairs. If you find humor in the notion that Stormbreaker, a heretofore inanimate object, could be “jealous” of Mjolnir, another inanimate object, then you’ll probably enjoy the film. That’s how wacky it gets. I suppose the fact that Mjolnir actively decides who can and cannot lift it suggests that it has at least some agency. Magic gonna magic, I guess. Speaking of magic, Christian Bale’s Gorr The God Butcher is an interesting case of a character that changes radically scene by scene and not for reasons that make narrative sense. He begins as your standard “I am this way because of tragedy/loss” villain only to morph into a comedy act and back again. There is one sequence in the middle of film where he is genuinely terrifying and appears to pose a real threat when facing down Thor, Jane Foster and King Valkryie all at the same time. Impressive. Thor: Love and Thunder is a film that will likely garner more favor with time amongst those who are OK with Thor as a comedy act. Any movie that begins with the lead character karate kicking a tank is not taking itself seriously.