A film review by Craig J. Koban July 19, 2022

THOR: LOVE AND THUNDER  ½ 

2022, PG-13, 119 mins.

Chris Hemsworth as Thor Odinson  /  Natalie Portman as Jane Foster / The Mighty Thor  /  Tessa Thompson as King Valkyrie  /  Christian Bale as Gorr the God Butcher  /  Taika Waititi as Korg  /  Jaimie Alexander as Sif  /  Russell Crowe as Zeus  /  Chris Pratt as Peter Quill / Star-Lord  /  Dave Bautista as Drax the Destroyer  /  Karen Gillan as Nebula  /  Pom Klementieff as Mantis  /  Bradley Cooper as Rocket (voice)  /  Vin Diesel as Groot (voice)  /  Sean Gunn as Kraglin / On-Set Rocket

Oh, how the mighty have fallen. 

I say this will all due respect to the character of Thor and the relative greatness of his introduction to the MCU way, way back in director Kenneth Branagh's THOR from 2011 (far and away the best God of Thunder solo entry).  That film had the incredibly tricky job of making this mystical hammer/lightning wielding deity somehow work in live action form and without him coming off as unintentionally cartoony and hammy.  Branagh wisely balanced Shakespearian solemnity with a self-aware sense of humor, and further mixed that with all of the large scale and bombastic visuals that looked ripped right off of Jack Kirby's drawing table.  Chris Hemsworth, like a Christopher Reeve before him, might be somewhat cursed with looking so precisely like his comic book alter ego that it'll probably dog him for the rest of his career, but he's so unreservedly well cast and good in this thankless role; he confidently occupied and quarterbacked Branagh's film. 

The first THOR worked so well that it was inevitable that its follow-up would have to work overtime, which unfortunately led to the just-okay and largely forgettable THOR: THE DARK WORLD.  When writer/director Taika Waititi came in and unleashed the threequel THOR: RAGNAROK five years ago I thought - albeit, largely in the minority - that the titular hero and the world he occupied became the joke itself as opposed to being in on the joke.  Following the aesthetic footsteps of James Gunn and his GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY (replete with retro rock tunes peppering the soundtrack and an overall vibe of mischief), THOR: RAGNAROK seemed more like an unending gag machine than something firmly rooted in the core mythology that the first THOR film so successfully launched.  The concentrated efforts to segue this series into a full-blown comedy has its adoring fans, but I found RAGNAROK to be insufferable to sit through at times.  Now comes the Waititi-led THOR: LOVE AND THUNDER, the long-awaited follow-up and fourth solo (take that loosely) adventure for the character (and - great Odin's beard!!! - the 29th MCU film), which takes everything in RAGNAROK and magnifies it tenfold.  Instead of being an epic and - ahem! - worthy franchise installment, THOR: LOVE AND THUNDER seems like it has thrown the character's dignity completely out the window and, in turn, comes off like some parody of this rich world.  Beyond it being frustratingly shallow, Waititi's sequel is an undulating mess of tones and franchise expanding storytelling motives.   

Why-oh-why has this great comic book character - and one that was so well established early on in his MCU appearances - become so hopelessly...well...dumb.  The Mjölnir swinging hero has always had an agreeable arrogance to him, not to mention an amusing child-like naiveté about our world outside of his magical realm of Asgard.  Still, he was never a blissfully unaware moron.  With RAGNAROK and now big time in LOVE AND THUNDER, Thor has become so egregiously clueless and increasingly wacky as a character that it's simply hard to root him on as a super hero of worthy interest.  I mean, this guy is an all-powerful god, but now he's more like an alpha male jock in high school gym class with a million dollar body, but a ten cent brain.  When Thor is not making categorically idiotic choices while saving the day, he's quipping with a vengeance and has an infantile wisecrack for every occasion (like, every occasion).  The MCU has always been light and contains a certain type of branded humor, which has been both a blessing and a curse for many of its films.  In THOR: LOVE AND THUNDER, it's a burdensome cross to bear and it weighs down heavily on everything contained within.  Even when serious characters are thrown in with tragic origins and vile motives (involving children dying and many other children being kidnapped by the dozens) or - in one large instance - one character having incurable cancer, the film disrespects them by playing things too whimsically and light as a feather.  And that turned me off in a big way. 

Just consider the film's opening sequence, which is so good that (a) it feels hijacked from another better film and inserted in here and (b) nothing else in the film ever elevates itself to match its impact.  We're introduced to Gorr (an unrecognizable Christian Bale), who's a downtrodden father on a doomed planet that's struggling to stave off thirst and hunger with his daughter in a barren desert wasteland.  They both pray to their god Rapu for salvation, but they're not answered and the child dies.  However, a god-killing sword - the well named Necrosword - calls out to Gorr, and he's transported to Rapu's realm, where he's immediately greeted with scorn.  Just as Rapu is about to kill Gorr, that magic sword offers itself to the grieving father, and he takes it to murder Rapu.  Driven by a newfound hatred of all gods, Gorr takes it upon himself to use his sword and the newfound powers that it grants him to wage war on all deities...with...you guess it...Thor high on his list.  To say that Bale is well cast to play a once man of faith that has it destroyed and then becomes a dark lord driven by a blood thirsty vendetta is a massive understatement.  This opening sequence featuring this plaster-skin toned baddie is crazy good.  

The rest of THOR: LOVE AND THUNDER?  Nope. 

And as for Thor himself?  When we last saw him at the end of AVENGERS: ENDGAME he let himself go and was a bloated blob of a god, but he has now reclaimed his iconic chiseled body and has become chummy with the Guardians of the Galaxy, joining them on a series out madcap intergalactic adventures (these early scenes should have been a blast, but instead come off as awkwardly ill formed, especially considering how much the GOTG were featured in advertising and are actually barely more than a glorified team cameo here).  Thor learns of Gorr's existence and god-decimating rampage, so he abandons Starlord and company.  With his trusted confidant in rock monster Korg (voiced by Waititi) in tow, Thor returns to New Asgard, which is now a Disneyland-esque theme park attraction (you just know that this is the House of Mouse's way of testing the waters for a real version of this).  While there he hooks back up with Valkyrie (a disappointingly misused Tessa Thompson) to thwart Gorr's advancing monster conjured armies (in a VFX sequence that's so dark and murky that making out the physical particulars of these CGI beasts in question become eye fatiguing).  

The big shock to Thor's system is not his challenging new adversary in Gorr, but rather the astounding re-appearance of the once love of his life in Jane Foster (Natalie Portman), who's now ridiculously cut, sporting Asgardian armor, and - gasp! - is using the reconstituted Mjölnir and is hurtling herself through enemies with grace and ease.  Why and how did this happen?  Jane became cancer riddled after her break up with Thor, but discovered that her ex's hammer called out and formed a unique protective bond over her.  There's a catch to now being a super hero, though, for Jane: She's not bed ridden, weak, and near death as her new super bodied Lady Thor, but transforming into this goddess of thunder is slowing making her cancer worse.  Regardless, she has newfound purpose and meaning in her life - even if it's now on borrowed time - so she teams up with Thor, Valkyrie, and Korg to stop Gorr once and for all.  Granted, they all know that they may need some help, so they seek out other gods, like Zeus himself (yes, that one...played by a beyond silly Russell Crowe).  Thor and his new posse desperately need Zeus' lightning bolt weapon to get an edge on Gorr, but the weirdly hedonistic god has other ideas, like focusing more on planning orgies and making Thor look foolish in public by depantsing him (we get a shot of Hemsworth's ass, but, to remind you, Hulk beat him to it when it comes to rear end nudity in the last THOR sequel).   

This mid-film standoff between Thor and his companions versus Crowe's oddly accented God of Lightning Zeus does deserve some props for conjuring up the former's realm, which is filled with eye popping golden hued vistas and a menagerie of exotic creatures.  THOR: LOVE AND THUNDER, to its credit and much like RAGNAROK before it, has its budget clearly on the screen and sports an lavish visual tapestry that puts most blockbusters to shame.  Waititi also does well with a late sequence pitting heroes versus villains in the Shadow Realm, which turns off all of the boisterous colors that have exploded on screen leading up to it and instead becomes utterly void of color and is presented in ominous black and white, like some sort of impressionistic fever dream (pretty cool stuff).  Matching this pitch perfectly is the chilling visage of Gorr himself, who looks like a bald and pasty white tinted vampire crossed morphed with Voldemort.  He has a creepy skeletal look (which the actor relishes and harnesses in his textured performance) and is a largely tortured soul that - as far as the film's prologue goes - might just have some justifiable reasons for going on his god-hunting rampage.  Somewhat like Michael B. Jordan's terrific antagonist in BLACK PANTHER, Gorr is steeped in tragedy and is an oddly sympathetic madman (he's had his religion and existence spit on and his daughter taken away from him far too young in life).  I appreciated the tormented conflict of this villain and Bale is well suited to bring it all to the forefront.   

Yet, for as good as Gorr is as a newly minted antagonist and the deep dive committed performance good will of Bale at the helm, there's a complete 180 degree disconnect between this man and his horrible family struggles with all of the vapid shenanigans that typify the rest of the film.  As mentioned, THOR: LOVE AND THUNDER is a maddeningly ill conceived collision of ideas, themes, and story threads.  We get the grim side of Gorr's history thrown in with the sad state of affairs with Jane's terminal illness fate (more on that in a bit), but the depressing gravity of these subplots never have any emotional weight or impact because Waititi and his entourage are so busy wanting to get to the next pun, the next would-be hilarious sight gag, the next goofy action montage, and so forth.  The off-puttingly jokey tone that's littered all throughout THOR: LOVE AND THUNDER makes this adventure seem so inconsequential, despite the obvious stakes involved.  Watching so many scenes in the film you can almost sense Waitit screaming off camera "BIGGER, BRIGHTER, LOUDER, SILLIER!!!"  The Kiwi filmmaker's high flying comedic approach works for some films (like his side-splitting HUNT FOR THE WILDERPEOPLE), but here it's almost an unbearable chore to endure.   

And what a waste of the Jane Foster character and Oscar winning Natalie Portman.  This character was never going to win any awards for being a memorable MCU persona and her previously established love angle with Thor was pretty perfunctory at best, but there was an incredible opportunity for this film to re-introduce her and as a mighty super hero.  Portman looks remarkable as her new costumed clad and all powerful protagonist, and watching her use Mjolnir as effortlessly as Thor before her is a pretty rad sight (that, and Portman is an effervescent screen presence through and through).  She's so commandingly good as a MCU hero that one has to wonder why she wasn't given her own solo project all her own to fully explore this character's arc.  Taking a clear page out of a recent THOR comic run that showed the former scientist's battle with cancer and her taking up the hero's mantle, THOR: LOVE AND THUNDER's overall handling of this heartbreaking narrative is waddled down to black and white simplicity.  The screenplay by Waititi and Jennifer Kaytin Robinson never really treats Jane's cancer diagnosis and ultimate fate with any due dramatic gravity, which is yet another casualty of the film's myopic comedic thrust.  Even though possessing the power of Mjolnir and being a new iteration of Thor has its obvious advantages, the transformation is continuing to kill her and accentuating her cancer, the latter of which becomes more of an afterthought plot moving device than anything else here. 

And speaking of female heroes, Valkyrie is more of a hanger on this go around and is delegated to the sidelines when needed, which is a miscalculation.  She had so much charisma and poise in RAGNAROK that to see her now as a New Asgard tour guide seems like a pathetic demotion (equally grating is seeing an ice cream shop there that's themed after Thanos' Infinity Gauntlet, which is pretty tone deaf considering that he instantly killed half of the population of the universe with one snap).  Also, if you're expecting Disney to move full throttle forward with given this LGBTQ character her proper representative place in the MCU then you'll probably be setting yourself for massive letdown.  When RAGNAROK came out in 2017, both Thompson and Waititi confirmed that her character was bisexual.  That's great.  In THOR: LOVE AND THUNDER, her bisexuality is lamely soft-pedaled and referenced only twice: Once in a throwaway line of dialogue and the other when she gives one of Zeus's handmaidens a quick kiss on the hand.  There's a glorious chance here for the makers to embrace a true spirit of inclusiveness for this franchise and be leaders in this regard, but they just sheepishly fall back of reticent corporate branded posturing.  What a shame.