Thor: Love and Thunder (2022)

[Eric Prime]

Discuss

[excel1]

This was an utter mess. Marvel is now just 2 for their last 6. Shang chi and NWH were great, BW, Eternals, DS and now Thor ranged from meh to terrible. 

 

D

 

[Menor the Destroyer]

This has only gotten worse after thinking about it. The amount of humor was story-killing and ridiculous. Momentous events and things are introduced with absolutely no sense of awe or wonder, almost all thrilling moments are undercut. 

 

Thor has been reduced to a fool and a joke. He does have his good moments and Hemsworth is charismatic in the role as usual, but it's just annoying how little dignity he has. Ragnarok, IW, and Endgame had a great balance between using Hemsworth's comic timing and respecting the character as a badass hero. Here, he's far from it. 

 

Jane's arc was actually emotional and fairly solid. Unfortunately it just isn't given proper weight, lost amid everything else. Still, her sacrifice was one of the moments that definitely worked for me in this movie. 

 

Gorr was quite good for the most part, Bale was absolutely destroying every other actor in the film with the intensity of his performance. Still, he came off as pretty stupid and weak towards the end. Again, would have preferred more focus and weight on this story.

 

Valkyrie was underused and almost a non-presence in this. Korg was also pretty anonymous and his survival helped further lower the stakes of the movie. 

 

I really disliked the way Zeus and the other gods were handled. You can argue that Zeus in mythology was vain and arrogant, etc., but it's just so cheap to make him as useless as he was in this. Odin would tear this fool apart, how did he become the leader of all the gods? Plus, Omnipotent City as a whole was a very underdeveloped and uninteresting location, despite being a place that should inspire some sort of awe or grandeur. 

 

I found Eternity to be a poor plot device, just felt way too powerful to be introduced so anticlimactically, and also felt like something that makes the Infinity Stones seem superfluous. 

 

The action in this movie was also quite poor. Gone are epic scenes from Ragnarok like Thor vs Hulk, or Thor discovering his power. The visuals in the Shadow Realm were cool, but that's about it. There is no buildup, creativity, or sense of importance to most of the fights. Thor vs Zeus was an absolute anticlimax for a battle between what should have been two extremely powerful beings. Even worse, the parts that do seem to carry more weight are absurd and impossible to take seriously, such as when Thor inexplicably manages to power up all the kids in the final battle. 

 

Overall, I also didn't like the place that Thor ended up in this movie. Having an adopted daughter is one thing, but she just wasn't developed at all in the movie, and seemed like she was thrown in there to give Thor "purpose." But the worst part for me was that somehow this little kid, who had no indication of having any special powers or battle experience, is able to wield Stormbreaker and fight alien armies. It makes no sense at all and again just feels like it was thrown in there to be ridiculous and silly. 

 

This is my least favorite MCU movie. F. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Webslinger]

Though I remain unsure of where the MCU is going in the bigger picture of its post-Endgame landscape, Thor: Love & Thunder is a winning summer blockbuster that replicates much of the humor, heart, and entertainment value of the titular hero’s previous solo outing. With writer-director and co-star Taika Waititi returning in each capacity, Love & Thunder is a diverting affair where Waititi successfully reapplies his style to a busy narrative and cuts through its layers of exposition to find the humor and heart at the center. Even when the narrative is dealing in the standard order MCU plot machinations, Waititi’s approach allows the proceedings to continue to feel breezy. He’s not allowed to have quite as much fun or play around with the franchise rule book as liberally as he did in Ragnarok, but I still found myself with a big, dumb smile on my face through most of the running time, and the emotional beats hit in such a fashion that they transcend any contrivances needed to get the characters there. Like Waititi’s other work, the comedic sensibilities are also on point and produce plenty of potentially crowd-pleasing moments. Now the elder statesman of the theatrical MCU, Chris Hemsworth slides right back into his role as Thor with charisma to spare, though he also plays the more emotional components of this installment like a pro. In her return to the franchise after an extended post-Dark World absence, Natalie Portman is a blast to watch as a Jane Foster who has gained the power of Thor; there’s a definite sense that she’s here because she finally gets to do something more substantial with the part, and she succeeds in having a fun time while also imbuing the film with a greater sense of pathos. Tessa Thompson and Taika Waititi are once again fun to watch in giddy, humorous reprisals of their roles in Ragnarok, though the reintegration of Portman’s Jane into the story cuts into their screen time. As villain Gorr the God Butcher, Christian Bale lends the film a sense of menace and emerges as one of the better MCU villains in recent memory, though his story and motivations – while clear and effective as-is – could resonate more fully with further development. The MCU has changed considerably since Thor’s last solo venture, and while this outing may not necessarily give a sure direction of where it’s going from here, Thor: Love & Thunder is a hilarious, heartfelt popcorn flick that delivers a very solidly entertaining two hours.

 

B+

[filmlover]

This was so messy, and a definite drop in quality from Ragnarok. There have been rumors going around that this didn't have the smoothest post-production process and it shows: it honestly feels like Taika Waititi wasn't entirely sure what movie he wanted to make, as one minute there's a big action set piece (my favorite: the nearly black-and-white sequence set in the Shadow Realm) followed by Jane and her battle with cancer the next followed by screaming goats and a campy Russell Crowe dropping wisecracks about orgies the next. I almost got whiplash from the tonal inconsistency on display.

 

A potentially uneven production is most evident in the writing more than anything else, as it feels like chunks of the movie are literally missing. Take the motivations behind Christian Bale's Gorr the God Butcher, for example. At the start he makes his mission "all gods will die." However, it ultimately turns out that he wants to reach Eternity because he just wants his daughter back? And was kidnapping the children of New Asgard even necessary to his overall plan, or was that just to set up the amusingly absurd visual of a bunch of 7-8 year olds fighting evil monsters? Hard to think of an answer to these plot holes other than "cause then there would be no movie," which is weak. Not to mention we never really get the sense that Gorr is truly that much of a threat since he ends up an afterthought most of the time. Bale brings the right amount of menace to the part and doesn't treat it like a paycheck, but also feels at odds with the rest of the movie when he's the only actor who seems fully committed to giving an actual performance.

 

The rest of the actors do fine, although they don't have much to work with (Tessa Thompson, in particular, feels underserved). Chris Hemsworth continues to be a fun presence although I feel like this sillier iteration of the character is starting to run its course, while Natalie Portman gets the chance to be a badass although the movie doesn't do her much justice in the dramatic department despite having potentially meaty material to work with. And while I thought Korg was delightful in Ragnarok, the character clearly only works in doses and not as a fairly major one like he is here.

 

It's by no means a bad movie, and at least it's a fun mess as opposed to a tedious one (ala Eternals). But this ends up coming across as a rough draft that ended up being used as the final script, and as a result can't help but feel like a lost opportunity overall. 

 

C+

[Reddroast]

Is this a perfect movie. No. But it's a fun and hilarious ride with one of the mcu's best villains and a wonderful return from Natalie Portman. This also has my favourite action set piece in all of the MCU

A-

[IndustriousAngel]

6/10, B or B- I think

it was entertaining but uneven, rarely finding a good balance between action, gags and romance. as a comic geek, I think the Jane Foster as well as the Godkiller storylines were among the strongest in all of Thor's history and I have no idea why they thought they had to squeeze both into one movie. looking back on the development of the MCU, they had a lot of patience in the earlier movies, now it seems they try more and more for rushing things along, and that's not a good idea.

[avensis]

We feel a desire not to take ourselves seriously, but the effect is exaggerated. Only the intensity in the game of Christian Bale brings a real plus. For the rest, we are closer to a children's film than a superhero film.

_{_}

 

Edited July 2, 2023 by avensis

[Taruseth]

This was more of a bad comedy with a gigantic budget than an actual superhero movie; without Bale this would have been absolutely awful. But they didn't take enough time to develop the story - could have turned out as one of the very best villains of the MCU, he still was great but they should have done more, especially with an actor like Bale.

Natalie Portman as Mighty Thor was great to watch too, those two were the best parts of the movie.

The story idea of the god slyer is good, but it feels underdeveloped in this.

The whole omnipotence city part was bad - the whole fight scene and that snap just really weren't necessary - also the Hercules doesn't look promising. Zeus vs. Thor was a complete failure, its bloody Zeus and they do this - the primary part wasn't a fight or anything it was Zeus flicking an Thor being naked - what the hell - also feel like they could have written Zeus arrogance better into all this. A city with such a name just fascinate people but it looked just okay.

Valkaryie should have been utilised so much more and Korg should have been used better.

Eternity fight lacked a sense of epicness and Eternity felt underused in a sense and also misplaced. 

 

Overall it was an enjoyable movie, but it problems couldn't be covered by Bale and Portman performances.

 

C+