REVIEW: Thor: Love and Thunder is a Messy Love Story
In Thor: Love and Thunder, after spending time with the Guardians of the Galaxy trying to find himself, Thor’s (Chris Hemsworth) retirement is brought to a halt when he is faced with a new cosmic problem. A new villain, Gorr the God Butcher (Christian Bale), is causing trouble across the cosmos. With the Necrosword, the only weapon strong enough to kill a god, in hand, Gorr is set on destroying all the gods including Thor, the God of Thunder. Now, Thor must team up with Valkyrie (Tessa Thompson), Korg (Taika Waititi), and his ex-girlfriend, Doctor Jane Foster (Natalie Portman), if he intends to stop the God Butcher before it is too late. However, that is not the only problem Thor is facing. His ex now possess the power of Thor and is hiding her own secret from the space Viking.
Taika Waititi returns as director for the new adventure and once again proves why he is the right pick to direct Thor. Waititi understands the character he is not only directing, but also the character for which he is writing. With that being said, he doesn’t always get it right with the other characters involved in the movie. Thompson’s Valkyrie, who made a significant impact in Thor: Ragnarök, made little to no impact in this one. We had moments where we learned about Valkyrie’s past, but those moments were few and far between. She unfortunately could have been left out of the entire movie and nothing about the story would have changed. The same goes for Korg. It felt as if both characters were in the movie because they were in a previous Thor film, and not because they were major players to the story.
The lack of character development for some characters may be because the overall story arch was too choppy. Waititi needed to make the movie about 10 minutes longer to fill in the plot holes that were featured throughout the movie. He also could have left out a number of scenes, like the theater show taking place on New Asgard, to expand upon his characters like Valkyrie or the movie’s villain, Gorr. He was another character that was under developed and left me unsatisfied. A tad bit more development to fully explain his motives and a few more scenes to showcase how evil he could be would have truly added to the film.
Hemsworth returns as Thor, and after 3 standalone Thor movies and 4 Avengers movies, Hemsworth knows exactly what he is doing when it comes to this character. His comedic timing is perfect, and he continues to be a bright light to the MCU’s Phase 4. Portman returns as Jane Foster and provides an emotional performance alongside Hemsworth. However, Portman doesn’t have quite the same comedic timing as Hemsworth, but she doesn’t let that stop her from giving a fun performance. Bale is fantastic as the movie’s villain Gorr. He completely transforms into a devious god killer and is fantastic to watch go up against Hemsworth’s Thor.
Is Thor: Love and Thunder the best Thor movie, no, but is it better than Thor and Thor: The Dark World, yes. The movie is also one of the better movies released during Marvel’s Phase 4, but it does have it faults. If you are someone who has to see a Marvel movie in the theater, see it in theaters. If you can wait, wait until the movie is released to Disney+ so you can enjoy it on your own time. Finally, the movie has two credit scenes, one that will have a number of fans freaking out when it wraps, so make sure you stay until the very end.
Grade: B