Brimming with color, humor, and a whole lot of emotion, Thor: Love and Thunder is a fun, hilarious, and surprisingly heartfelt adventure.
Overall Score: 9/10
Image: Marvel Studios / Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures
Following the smash hit that was Thor: Ragnarok, Marvel Studios and Taika Waititi are back with yet another solo outing for the God of Thunder, Thor: Love and Thunder.
Prior to Ragnarok, the Thor films were widely considered some of the weakest in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). It’s not that Thor and Thor: The Dark World are bad, it’s just that neither of them are particularly outstanding or memorable. With Ragnarok, however, Waititi — for better or worse — gave the Thor franchise somewhat of a soft reboot, resulting in the total revamping of its titular character.
Essentially, that meant the abandonment of the Thor movies’ Shakespearean and epic fantasy adventure roots in favor of comedy and self-parody. Now, I don’t think that Waititi’s reinvention of Thor was a bad thing. In fact, I think that the character works really well — if not better — as a comedic one. It’s just that I feel that the sudden tonal shift between The Dark World and Ragnarok is too jarring. Before the latter was released, we last saw Thor in Avengers: Age of Ultron, and there he was still very much his serious and dignified self. But then, all of a sudden, in Ragnarok he’s cracking jokes left and right and saying a bunch of dumb things. When and why did this change occur? I guess we’ll never know for sure.
Luckily though, as Love and Thunder doesn’t share the same responsibility of having to rework the franchise like Ragnarok did, it’s able to take full advantage of the type of character that Thor has become. In other words, the movie goes all out on the humor, with its first half in particular being filled with an abundance of jokes and genuinely funny moments.
Despite this, many have said that the film suffers from being tonally inconsistent. Here, I strongly beg to differ. Sure, when it’s funny it’s really funny, and when it’s serious it’s really serious, but ultimately, I feel that it has a nice balance between its comedic and dramatic moments — something I think Ragnarok greatly lacks.
Furthermore, in Ragnarok, Thor has little to no character development. All he learns, really, is that his hammer Mjolnir is not the source of his power and that he doesn’t need it. In Love and Thunder, however, he has a proper arc and goes through real emotional growth, and, combined with Chris Hemsworth’s great acting ability, this brings the journey he’s been on since the first Thor — at least for me — full circle.
But, of course, what good is having a great hero if he doesn’t have an equally powerful adversary to go up against? The villains of the Thor franchise have always been kind of hit-or-miss. They started strong with Loki, but failed to do justice to both Malekith and Hela. Thankfully, however, Christian Bale’s Gorr the God Butcher is one of those rare one-off MCU baddies that’s tragic, compelling, and memorable. And although he’s not on the same level as Loki or Thanos, he’s still a top-tier villain. Also, it helps that Bale is a versatile actor who always disappears into his roles, and watching the movie you may forget (as I did) that it’s him beneath all of that makeup.
Aside from Gorr, the rest of the supporting cast is also brilliant. Tessa Thompson, Taika Waititi, and Russell Crowe all get time to shine as their respective characters Valkyrie, Korg, and Zeus. But none of them come close to Natalie Portman’s scene-stealing performance as Jane Foster (a.k.a. Mighty Thor). That’s right, after having been completely absent from Ragnarok, Love and Thunder finally brings Portman back to the world of Thor.
To be honest, when they first announced her involvement, I was very excited as I knew and liked the direction they were headed in, but I was also extremely skeptical as up until then Jane Foster as a character had been dull and rather forgettable. Therefore, it came as a surprise to see just how much better the treatment the writers of Love and Thunder have given her is compared to the previous films.
I guess it’s true when people say "the third time’s the charm” because Jane now also has a proper and compelling arc and she’s much more interesting than she was before. And with her character fully redeemed, Portman is able to transcend all expectations (not to mention she finally has great on-screen chemistry with Hemsworth), cementing herself as someone truly worthy of the title of Thor.
On another note, did I mention how great Love and Thunder looks? The movie is packed with vibrant colors and has beautifully shot black-and-white scenes, both of which are complemented by the excellent cinematography. Additionally, while Ragnarok was lacking in terms of good, well-shot, and well-choreographed action sequences, the ones in Love and Thunder are all of the above and so much more.
Last but not least, Love and Thunder’s score — boy, Michael Giacchino’s sure had a busy year — and soundtrack are far superior to that of Ragnarok, and it utilizes a wider range of songs by a wider range of artists that work really well within the scenes they’re featured in.
To sum up, Thor: Love and Thunder is fun and funny, but also surprisingly heartfelt and emotional. It’s a Thor film, a story about love and loss, and a romantic comedy all rolled into one. But what I find most impressive is how good it actually is and how much I ended up enjoying it. Believe me, before seeing this movie I was convinced that it would be bad and that I wouldn’t like it. Heck, I was even prepared to say “Oh, how the mighty have fallen.” Fortunately, Love and Thunder managed to prove me wrong and it completely won me over. And although it does have a few issues here and there, one can’t deny that it has great performances all around and that it has a pretty decent plot. I feel pretty confident in saying that this is my favorite out of the four Thor films, and maybe, just maybe, it might be the best one yet.
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