Thor: Love and Thunder
Thor 4, or the much easier to pronounce, Thor: Love and Thunder, finds our hero struggling to find his purpose after the events of End Game. With his family gone and The Avengers disbanded, we last saw him set sail with The Guardians of the Galaxy. He’s now a hippie rock star, meditating on hills, waiting to be called upon to save the day instead of leading the charge.
After the film’s first action sequence with Thor and The Guardians, our heroes see help alerts from across the universe saying the same thing, someone is killing Gods. Enter Gorr the God Butcher, played by Christian Bale. A devoutly religious character, but after the death of his daughter, he meets his God, only to discover how deeply selfish and cruel they are so he vows, ‘all Gods must die’.
Thor must now team up with Valkyrie, a welcome return by Tessa Thompson, Korg as funny as ever played by Taika Waititi, and Jane Foster – a long overdue return for Natalie Portman as The Mighty Thor. Together they travel to the Marvel version of Olympus to rally the troops as they attempt to stop Gorr.
After the success of Ragnarök, Taika Waititi is back as the director, and now the writer, for Love and Thunder - what a difference it makes. Love and Thunder is Ragnarök on cocaine. Filled to the brim with jokes, energy, and chemistry. With Waititi’s style of comedy turned up to 11. Combine this with the weirder aspects of Norse mythology, like screaming goats pulling a travelling boat across the universe, and you get an insight into the mad ride this is.
The film explores tones of romance and comedy, with Thor doing his best Jean-Claude Van Damme splits, as well as more serious sombre moments. This is all mixed together with creatively interesting actions sequences which are scored by a great soundtrack featuring artists such as Guns N’ Roses, ABBA and Mary J.Blige.
The chemistry between Hemsworth, Thompson and Waititi is as infectious as ever, and the addition of Portman as she finds her feet as a Thor is very charming and moving. The film handles Jane Foster’s cancer storyline relatively well thanks to Portman’s prowess and the degree of sensitivity in the script. While Thompson is particularly engaging as she’s given more screen time as the bored king of Asgard revelling for a fight. It’s clear that the core cast members are having great fun, which translates well onto the big screen.
When the heroes arrive at Olympus we’re treated to a magnificent floating golden city where Gods from most religions congregate. You’ll have seen most of this in the trailer, which revealed too much. The heroes find Russell Crowe playing Zeus, it’s a funny, if very on the nose, performance.
Given this is the film’s crowning comedic set piece, it’s odd how much was shown in the trailer. But there are still some really funny moments to be had, and we’re treated to the full Hemsworth from behind.
The film has a 2-hour runtime, which makes it one of the shortest Marvel films and boy does it fly by. While it’s good fun for the most part, I do wish the writing and direction was tighter so we could have had more development for Gorr.
Christian Bale’s performance is superb. Gothic, creepy, and while they redesigned the character to try and make him look less like Harry Potter’s Lord Voldemort, it’s not overly convincing. When one sees a character in dark robes with a pale complexation and horrible teeth, it’s hard not to think of Death Eaters, Dementors and Voldemort. And while it does look good in the film, if the difference between Gorr and Voldemort is that one has a nose, then the designers of Gorr should have thought a little harder.
Regarding Gorr’s role in the film. If this were a big ensemble Avengers film, he would be a Thanos-level threat. A character powerful enough to kill hundreds of Gods with ease should be a bigger event. So while his performance is exactly the level of gothic horror it needed to be, it’s also frustrating that we didn’t see him in action more. Barring a few smaller moments in the film his violence is only ever implied. For a character called ‘God Butcher’ it would have been far more exciting to really see him live up to that title. Instead, we get some action in the film’s opening scene, but the rest is through implication or when our heroes arrive at the aftermath of Gorr’s work.
Equally I would have loved to see more from The Guardians. Endgame set up this hilarious comradery between Thor and the Guardians as a potential space epic, only for them to appear briefly in Thor’s opening scene before flying off. While it makes sense for the plot, I just wish they had delivered more.
The film ends in a way that I initially felt was abrupt and a little contrived, but with further consideration feels earned by Gorr and Thor – with a nod to how they could continue Thor’s story.
OVERAL 3 ½ / 5
Love and Thunder is an entertaining and hilarious action film. Its flaw is not giving enough screen time and thought to Gorr, but overall, the film dives much deeper into Norse Mythology, brings back the characters we love and gives them more screen time. The pros outweigh the cons in this mad ride through Taika Waititi’s madly brilliant brain.