Thunderstruck
even the mighty thor (V1.0) wheezes and gasps under the weight of the mcu, but he’s not quite out of breath yet.
Thor: Love and Thunder
Director: Taika Waititi • Writers: Taika Waititi, Jennifer Kaytin Robinson, based on comics by Stan Lee, Larry Lieber and Jack Kirby
Starring: Chris Hemsworth, Natalie Portman, Tessa Thompson, Christian Bale, Taika Waititi, Russell Crowe, Jaimie Alexander
USA/Australia • 1hr 19mins
Opens Hong Kong July 6 • IIA
Grade: B-
All credit to returning co-writer/director Taika Waititi for doubling down on his singular brand of silliness, cashing Disney’s big fat cheque and making the Thor movie he likely wanted to make. Thor: Love and Thunder isn’t a particualry good Thor movie, but it’s his. That counts for a lot when Marvel Fatigue is becoming a very real thing. Since Waititi’s Thor: Ragnaork in 2017 there’ve been 11 films and eight streaming series, most of them blending into each other while setting up the next product. At the very least, this is has an identity. Waititi’s irreverent, take-the-piss clarity is what made Ragnarok so funny, and it’s obvious here. But the tiresome, anti-physics, laser beam battles between two “people” floating in mid-air that have come to define the cacophonous denouements of most MCU adventures are too. And sadly the re-addition of Natalie Portman as Dr Jane Foster-turned-Mighty Thor is a misfire, as she brings the action to a screeching halt every time she and Thor (Third Best Chris (by a hair): Hemsworth) get up in their feels. The lovey dovey crap on its own I could deal with, but in a film that trades in quippiness she’s a wet blanket. Portman is just not funny and you can hear the record scratch every time she opens her mouth.
That’s just one of Thor: Love and Thunder’s niggling problems the kind that in isolation aren’t disastrous but taken together indicate a more dire illness. Standard MCU Boss Fight™ aside, it’s narratively messy, the bad guy isn’t terribly exciting – plus he’s punished for being right – and one of the film’s highlights, a pair screaming goats, come dangerously close to wearing out their welcome, as many of the gags do. Yet despite all that it’s entertaining. You will laugh. You won’t be bored. But you won’t come away with the sense of refreshment that Ragnaork, still the best Thor movie and one of the best MCU movies full stop, evoked.
We need more of one. Hint: not the blonde
The story picks up after Avengers: Endgame with Thor going full yogababble and seeking inner peace. We’re told by Korg (Waititi, collecting royalties for work in three guilds!) that he’s moping over his failed romance with Jane, and that he’s wandering the galaxy with the Guardians (yeah, they’re all here) in a haze. One day he looks through a portal or some such sees his Asgardian sister Sif (Jaimie Alexander) warning him that there’s a dude out there, Gorr the God Butcher (Christian Bale), killiing deities. He and sidekick Korg team up with (now) King of New Asgard Valkyrie (Tessa Thompson) and Jane/The Mighty Thor (didn’t Portman once vow she was done with Marvel?) to stop him. The best part of Jane’s addition to this god crew is the jealous tantrums Thor’s Stormbreaker starts throwing around the reconstituted Mjolnir, now Jane’s. The first stop is Omnipotent City, to warn the other gods and raise an army. Zeus (a deliciously hammy Russell Crowe doing his best non-localised “Aegean” accent) tells them to piss off, so they steal his thunderbolt and decide to stop Gorr themselves.
It could be said the simple three-act story is a welcome change of pace from the overly-convoluted films the MCU has peddled recently (what even happened in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, or Eternals?) so more props to Waititi and co-writer Jennifer Kaytin Robinson for that. It’s an old fashioned Viking adventure about love and loss, life and death, faith and choice, set to a Guns N’ Roses-led ’80s metal soundtrack. Seriously, half of Appetite for Destruction is in here, and Waititi has single-handedly re-envisioned the video for “November Rain”. But for all the busyness Thor 4 (let’s be honest) evaporates like an Asgardian Bifröst.
Still no Killmonger
Still. It’s not a complete waste of time. As much as Portman puts a stake in the pacing, Bale is the kind of actor that can elevate facile writing – which he does here. Facile may be harsh, but Gorr’s “the-gods-have-failed-me” bitterness never gets too heavy (which it did in the comics, supposedly, so you know the fanboys are lighting up Twittter), but Bale textures Gorr with rage, sorrow and smug self-satisfaction that likely wasn’t on the page. As a villain he still falls short of Black Panther’s current, resonant Killmonger, but it’s a gentle rebuke of the blind theological devotion that is sweeping the globe to the detriment of public health. Thompson’s Valkyrie evidently had to make way for Portman so she does what she can with what she’s got (not much). Disney/Marvel is going to congratulate itself for its “inclusion” thanks to Valkyrie getting up in her feels about the warrior girlfriend that got away. Her sexuality doesn’t matter (as it shouldn’t for anyone) but Valkyrie the character is such an afterthought she makes no statement at all. You know Thompson would go there, but no. We needed blonde romance. Needless to say the whole thing is – confoundingly – made palatable by Hemsworth’s effortless charm (and perfect butt) holding all the pieces together by sheer force of personality; a joke about eating children lands perfectly. But Thor 4 is a lot more winking snark than filmmaking, and strangely it doesn’t add a great deal to the Sacred Text that is MCU. Isn’t that a felony at this point? The Worst Chris: Pratt, Dave Bautista, Karen Gillan, Pom Klementieff, Vin Diesel and Bradley Cooper all appear in the prologue, and plenty of other A-listers cash a cheque. It’s all very enjoyably forgettable – or maybe forgettably enjoyable – polished product. But those bloody goats really were funny. — DEK