I know — nobody asked for yet another review or opinion piece on Thor: Love And Thunder. But after I watched it earlier this week, I had a different take on it than our reviewer Kat Chinetti. You can read her spoiler-free version or her spoiler-filled version to find out what she thought. My review will be a spoilery one, so if you haven’t seen the movie yet and don’t like spoilers, I suggest you read Kat’s spoiler-free review.
If I were Australian, I might call this movie Thor: Hugs And Chunder.
To clarify, I think Kat and I have the same take on the pretty good movie at the core of this unfortunate sandwich of a film. Or maybe, instead of a sandwich, a rolled-up flatbread wrap might be a better analogy — you have to chew through layers of meaningless, humorless flat bread to get to the layers of delicious filling.
Once again for clarity’s sake, part of what I didn’t like about writer/director (and once again Korg actor) Taika Waititi’s excessive use of humor in Thor: Love And Thunder is that I have a very low tolerance for improvisational comedy in scripted film. When it is done by a master, like Sacha Baron Cohen in Talladega Nights, it lifts all performers up to his level. And in Thor: Ragnarok, Jeff Goldblum was at his master-level best. When it is done by some talented comic actors it can sometimes work, but often it appears to be exactly what it is — a bunch of people trying to think of funny responses to what another actor said.
That improvisation almost always worked in Ragnarok, in part because it was used much less frequently than in Love And Thunder, and partly because it was often used in service to the story. Instead, in Love And Thunder we got scenes like a minute or so of a not funny riff on “Who’s on First” about “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” Why that was left in the movie when, if you’ve read any of the many, many comments by Christian Bale, it seems a ton of his shot scenes were just tossed aside, is something I struggle to understand. The movie opens and closes on Bale’s Gorr, and the decisions he makes in those two spots are the keys to the film. Why not show more of his journey from A to B, and have a few less scenes of screaming goats?
(Don’t get me wrong — having the goats in the movie at all was a thrill for a long-time Thor comic book fan like me. Just, maybe have them do something else instead of screaming every time they appear.)
I’ve seen some complaints about the fact that the Guardians of the Galaxy were given short shrift in their relatively short appearance in Thor: Love And Thunder. I disagree — I think they were a waste of time. All that the way-too-long sequence with the Guardians did was set up the fact that any of the emotional growth that Thor had gone through with the loss of Loki, his slide into depression, and the beginning of his recovery and redemption in Avengers: Endgame was thrown in the trash. This Thor is dumber and more careless than he was as a spoiled brat in the original Thor back in 2011.
To Chris Hemsworth’s credit, when he is interacting with Natalie Portman’s Jane Foster in the third act, he really sells Thor as a more mature person, albeit still struggling with being able to accept loss, which he has experienced a lot of in his previous three MCU appearances. And that is what is so frustrating about Thor: Love And Thunder.
Bale makes Gorr terrifying, disturbing and at the same time sympathetic and even touching. His emotional scenes and his action scenes both work really well. And when the truth about Jane’s cancer comes out, the scenes between Portman and Hemsworth have a believability and tenderness that outdo anything either of them have ever done together. Why couldn’t we have seen more of that? Sure, in Ragnarok the scenes with the Hulk were often funny, but they were almost always in service to the idea that Banner and Hulk were dealing with something like PTSD after Hulk’s loss of control in Avengers: Age of Ultron due to Wanda’s mind games. Almost none of the humor in Love and Thunder seemed to do anything to advance the story or plot. Meaningless improv and screaming goats.
When all is said and done, I consider Thor: Love And Thunder the ur-Our Flag Mean Death, Waititi’s HBO Max series from earlier this Spring. That series was a funny, often improvisational comedy that surprised everyone with its dramatic, heartwarming and even heartbreaking moments. By contrast, Love and Thunder is a heartfelt action comedy that fails mostly at the comedy and indulges that comedy way too much while skipping entire sections of meaningful dramatic story.
I could write double the word count if I went into all of the things that are missing from the movie or just don’t make sense, but I won’t subject you to that torture. I am nearly positive that all of that is on a cutting room floor somewhere. If so, Waititi made absolutely the wrong edits.
No numerical ranking, because I bet you can guess what it is when I’ve said Thor: Love And Thunder is a pretty good movie buried in a pretty bad movie. Go see it in a theater if for no other reason than the amazing Shadow Realm scenes. Or wait until it hits Disney+ so you can watch TikTok clips during the many unfunny comedy scenes.
