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Thor: Love and Thunder - A Review

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****THIS IS A SPOILER FREE REVIEW!! THIS REVIEW CONTAINS ZERO SPOILERS!!****

My Rating: 2 out of 5 stars

 My Recommendation: SKIP IT. A manic misfire of a Marvel movie. If you are a Marvel completist then save your money and wait for it to stream on Disney +.

In order to set the context for my review of Thor: Love and Thunder, which premiered in theatres Friday July 8th and is the newest film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe – and the Marvel behemoth’s 29th movie overall, it’s important to note that I am an enormous fan of the film’s writer/director Taika Waititi.

Waititi directed my favorite Marvel movie, Thor: Ragnarok – of which Love and Thunder is a direct sequel, and also adapted his 2014 vampire comedy movie What We Do in the Shadows into my current favorite television show of the same name, which is set to premiere its fourth season on FX this coming Tuesday.

The reality is that Waititi’s distinctive comedic style is an acquired taste, and, like the new strain of Super Gonorrhea going around, I most certainly have acquired it.

Which brings us to Thor: Love and Thunder. As exhilarating as Thor: Ragnarok was, Thor: Love and Thunder is disappointing. Yes, it has its moments, but those moments are very few and very far between.

The film’s plot is relentlessly convoluted, and revolves around Gor the God Butcher, a surprisingly subdued Christian Bale, who seeks revenge on the gods for the death of his daughter. Gor kidnaps the kids of New Asgard, who are the perfect dream children for Disney’s human resources department because of their remarkable ethnic diversity, and uses them as bait to draw in Thor and his goofy companions.

The plot twists and turns make just about no sense at all, and the tonal shifts of the film are jarring to the extreme. Make no mistake about it, the film is a comedy, but it opens with a little girl dying and then puts other little kids in frightening peril as a key plot point. The comedic tone and the kids in peril plot mix together like birthday cake at a beheading.

Needless to say, this PG-13 movie is much too scary/dark to be suitable for kids under 13…and frankly, much too shabby to be worthwhile to adults with half a brain in their head.

There are some bright spots though, among them the brief appearance of the Asgard Players acting troupe, which features Matt Damon and Melissa McCarthy dramatizing great moments in Asgardian history on stage. As well as Korg, Thor’s sidekick (voiced by Waititi himself) repeatedly mis-stating Jane Foster’s name…a gag that made me laugh every time. There’s also an absolutely absurd appearance by a hammiest of hams Russell Crowe as Zeus. Crowe’s Zeus is a gonzo piece of bloated bizarreness but I found it amusing as hell.

Another very bright spot is Chris Hemsworth. Hemsworth is so good as Thor it’s simply miraculous. Hemsworth is, of course, buff beyond belief and impossibly handsome, but he’s also effortlessly charming and astoundingly funny.

Unfortunately, Natalie Portman is the exact opposite. Portman returns to the Thor franchise as Dr. Jane Foster, Thor’s ex-love interest, except this time, through some not very clear plot machinations, Dr. Foster is somehow turned into a Thor…and takes the title of The Mighty Thor.

Portman as Jane Foster/Mighty Thor is more wooden than a log cabin and makes a cigar store Indian seem lively in comparison. Portman pushes so hard to be frolicky and fun but she’s so stiff and unnatural that when she attempts to smile, she seems like a cadaver getting a colonoscopy.

Portman may very well be a talented actress, or she may not be, but what she definitely isn’t is a gifted comedic actress and that is glaringly obvious in Thor: Love and Thunder.

Other issues with the film abound. For example, Gor’s villainous minions are these shadow creatures that are so generic and bland as to be ridiculous.

These shadow creatures highlight the film’s other big problems, namely its lack of visual clarity and cinematic crispness, as well as its pedestrian fight sequences…in other words the movie features third-rate action sequences and looks like shit, which is criminal for a movie with a $250 million budget.

And last but not least, the movie, like seemingly all Marvel movies and tv shows nowadays, of course, features some heavy-handed human resources inspired social engineering and woke pandering and preaching. The previously mentioned rainbow of Asgardian kids being a perfect example. As is the cringiest of cringe scenes where Gor calls Portman’s Thor, “Lady Thor”, and she angrily responds “my name is The Mighty Thor! Or you can call me…DOCTOR! JANE! FOSTER!” My only wish was The Mighty Thor aka Dr. Jane Foster had been wearing a pink pussy hat in that scene for affect. That cringilicous scene along with the “female Avengers unite” scene from Avengers: Endgame, should only be legally permitted to be played in voluminous vomitoriums because they’re such gag-worthy, girl-power garbage.

On top of all that, the final act of the film is entirely rushed and completely devoid of any dramatic impact while being detached from narrative coherence.

Due to my love of Thor: Ragnarok and my Waititi fandom, I was looking forward to Thor: Love and Thunder. I was also curious to see if, after the cinematic and creative debacles (and for the most part, box office misfires) of the recent spate of Marvel movies, from Black Widow to Shang-Chi to The Eternals (God help us!) to Dr. Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, Thor: Love and Thunder, with the brilliant Waititi at the helm and the equally brilliant Chris Hemsworth in the lead, could stop the bleeding over at the Marvel money factory that pays for Mickey Mouse’s mansions. I am here to report that it doesn’t.

Thor: Love and Thunder will do fine at the box office, but it won’t signal a return to Marvel magnificence. The reality is that Marvel is in deep shit, and if they don’t realize that then they’re delusional. Their new movies are sub-par, their tv shows are cratering in quality (I’ll have a review of Ms. Marvel out late this coming week – here’s a preview…”YIKES!”) and it is now very clear that the Marvel monstrosity has lost the plot and has their head’s so far up their asses they’re incapable of finding it.

Marvel has dominated cineplexes and our culture for nearly fifteen years, but Thor: Love and Thunder is just one more piece of proof that the bloom is off the Marvel rose and I’m here to tell you that it ain’t coming back.

The bottom line is that Thor: Love and Thunder is nothing but a major disappointment. If you are a Marvel completist, then wait for Thor: Love and Thunder to stream on Disney + in a few weeks or months, and watch it then, because it simply isn’t worth your time and hard-earned money to see in the theatres.

 

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