Rent Thor: Love and Thunder on Amazon Video (paid link)
Written by: Taika Waititi & Jennifer Kaytin Robinson, Taika Waititi (story by), Stan Lee, Jason Aaron (based on the Marvel comics by)
Directed by: Taika Waititi
Starring: Chris Hemsworth, Natalie Portman, Christian Bale, Tessa Thompson, Taika Waititi, Russell Crowe, Jaimie Alexander, Chris Pratt, Dave Bautista, Karen Gillan, Pom Klementieff, Sean Gunn, Vin Diesel (voice), Bradley Cooper (voice), Ben Falcone
Rated: PG-13
Watch the trailer
Plot
Thor enlists the help of Valkyrie, Korg, and ex-girlfriend Jane Foster to fight Gorr the God Butcher, who intends to make the gods extinct.
Verdict
As with many sequels, this tries to out do its predecessor. That makes for an uneven film as the fist half is goofy jokes and gags while the second half dispenses with the humor for the serious battle against the villain. Some of the gags are parody and feel out of place with a plot that teases destruction on a grand scale. The movie is certainly creative and there's a fight against the villain with a brilliant use of color, but the villain is underused. It really feels like the script's origins started by asking what's the silliest thing we could do, what's the craziest thing, and what would be the most shocking. It's entertaining, but it's not cohesive. Ragnarok remains the superior Thor movie because it placed the story and plot first. Story takes a backseat in this one. At the least, watch Thor and the villain's first encounter.
It depends.
Review
The follow up to Thor: Ragnarok tries hard but falls into the usual sequel tropes of trying to do more on all fronts. Ragnarok had a great story with a villain integral to the characters and story. With Love and Thunder the villain only exists to provide a threat for Thor to vanquish and in turn signal the end of the movie.
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| Christian Bale plays Gorr the God Butcher |
The first scene introduces the villain Gorr the God Butcher (Christian Bale). It does a great job of setting up the character, but I wish the movie used Gorr's loss of faith and ensuing need for revenge to explore Thor's story or to expound on any aspect of this movie. Gorr is a bit of a throwaway which is unfortunate. He's a great character. After the first scene we don't see much of him until much later in the movie.
We get a Guardians of the Galaxy cameo just to throw in some jokes. The dynamic this built between Thor (Chris Hemsworth) and Star Lord (Chris Pratt) doesn't work as well as it did in previous Marvel movies as it's just a Thor monologue trying to be a joke.
This brings Jane (Natalie Portman) back into the series, but her role is manipulative.
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| Natalie Portman, Chris Hemsworth play Jane Foster, Thor |
This movie is very goofy and funny, frequently needlessly so. This brings Matt Damon back to act in an Asgard play, but that just feels like a retread from Ragnarok, as it's lifting the joke nearly verbatim and doing it much less effectively. The first two thirds of this movie are mostly gags strung together. After Ragnarok I don't know if Waititi felt more confident to take it further, the studio decided he needed less oversight, or some combination thereof. The gags culminate in Omnipotence City where it really seems like bad parody of the Thor movies.
The next sequence has such an effective use of color. It's an amazing look and are direction while also being such a stark contrast to the preceding scenes at Omnipotence.. It's the first showdown between Thor and Gorr, but I expected more from this fight since Gorr has an ability to use shadows to his advantage. The fight was lacking, though it did look cool due to art direction. It's an amazing sequence and the movie is almost worth watching for that alone.
We experience a stark change in tone once we arrive at the final act. All of the goofy jokes and gags are gone. There's just no balance to it. This certainly has some surprises, but it's forced. This movie is trying to do everything. This is Ragnarok cranked up a few notches. It's like this is two completely different movies. The gags culminate with Zeus at Omnipotence City where the movie does a turn with such an amazing sequence where we Thor meets Gorr.
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| Tessa Thompson, Natalie Portman, Taika Waititi, Chris Hemsworth play King Valkyrie, Jane Foster, Korg, Thor |
This movie does a surprising job with the soundtrack. I've heard Guns N' Roses and AC/DC so many times in movies, but here they don't feel so tired. This movie makes it work and conveys the intended energy, and that really surprised me. I didn't think I'd be able to hear Welcome to the Jungle yet another time and not be bored.
Also, I have to wonder if Hemsworth had a rider to show off his arms the entire movie. Not once does he ever have sleeves in the movie.
This movie seems like it just took what people liked from the last movie and tried to build something around that instead of taking a solid story and building upon that foundation. Ragnarok successfully gave the Thor movies an identity through the comedic bent. Ragnarok was certainly funny, but at the core was a story about family. That provided a basis for the humor. In this movie the basis for the plot is Thor must save the world. That's just a bit too generic.
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