After the massive acclaim and success of “Thor: Ragnarok” in 2017, it appears that Marvel Studios have decided, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, and left Taika Waititi (“What We Do In The Shadows,” “Jojo Rabbit”) to work his weird magic with yet another Thor film. Bringing back not only Korg, Valkyrie, and Jane Foster, this new adventure seems just as brightly colored and audacious as Waititi’s last trip with the space viking. However, things simply don’t come together as seamlessly as they did in the 2017 film.
Picking up after the events of “Avengers Endgame,” which saw Thor, played by Chris Hemsworth (“Bad Times at the El Royale,” “12 Strong”) leaving for space with the Guardians of the Galaxy and Valkyrie, played by Tessa Thompson (“Creed,” “Men in Black: International”) taking up the mantel of King of New Asgard on Earth, “Love & Thunder” has Thor tracking down Gorr the God Butcher, played by Christian Bale (“American Psycho,” “The Dark Knight”) who seeks to kill all gods as vengeance. Along the way, not only does Thor reteam with Korg, played again by Waititi, and Valkyrie, but also his ex-girlfriend, Dr. Jane Foster, Natalie Portman (“V for Vendetta,” “Black Swan”) reprising her role, now with the power of Thor’s old hammer Mjolnir.
The cast are all clearly committed to the raucous tone that Waititi is going for, and there’s a clear sense of full, silly commitment across the board, from the likes of Hemsworth to minor parts like Russell Crowe (“A Beautiful Mind,” “Gladiator”) as Zeus. It ends up resulting in something closer to the likes of a children’s story in tone, like something told before bed. It has plenty of jokes, sometimes too many, and bright colors, but also darkness, visual and tonally. But it doesn’t feel overpowering, rather it’s the kind of darkness that regularly filled out animated Disney films in the 90s like “The Black Cauldron,” with creatures hiding in the shadows and monsters in closets.
Despite the difference in that darkness and the otherwise light tone, it all works because of how un-seriously Waititi and crew treat it. They aren’t disrespectful to the audience or the characters. Rather, they keep things just serious enough for the plot and arcs to work without taking things so intensely seriously to risk becoming pompous or making the darkness too, well, dark.
However, the film’s emotional arcs do represent a massive double-edged sword in the form of its main two leads: Thor and Jane. On the one hand, Jane’s arc is done remarkably well, lending the character a new sense of freshness and agency that simply wasn’t a possibility before. She’s a delight and the highlight of the film both because of her arc and Portman’s performance. Meanwhile, Thor seems stuck. While that works when played for laughs, when the film gets into the emotional side of his character, it becomes apparent that this is the same sort of story we’ve seen told with him before, in “Endgame,” and “Ragnarok,” and the first “Thor” movie. It makes his emotional arc of the film simply drag far more than it should, with Hemsworth saving it from becoming too much of a slog.
Bale, meanwhile, is an absolute delight. He plays Gorr with the kind of glee of a twisted carnival barker. Almost like if you took Willy Wonka and created a direct inverse of him. The makeup and costuming are of course fantastic, but he just gets so much glee from being so freaky and evil, without taking away from the concreteness of his arc later in the film.
Visually, the film is… well, it’s a lot. On the one hand there’s a clear style that Waititi and crew are going for here, with the same garish bright colors and neon scenery that were on display in “Rangarok.” It works for the most part, but it’s at no point convincing. Sure, no one should walk into a film like this and expect the same gritty, realistic effects of something like “The Winter Soldier,” but style only gets you so far as an excuse for some of the film’s visual messiness.
But even beyond the film’s tone, visuals, and acting, the sense of humor here is oddly enough one of the film’s weakest aspects. It works when its being tongue in cheek and at least halfway subtle. But the longer the film goes on, the weirder it all gets, and it starts to become less and less effective. Sure, if you’re pitching jokes and gags as fast as this, one out of two hitting isn’t bad. But it leads to a feeling of almost whiplash for the audience as jokes never really stop flying by. When it does work though, Waititi and co-writer Jennifer Kaytin Robinson (“Unpregnant,” “Someone Great”) deliver some of the best visual gags in all of the MCU. You’ll never look at Stormbreaker or Mjolnir the same way again.
There are also a handful of elements that are really fun as their introduced but are then dropped and never seen again. The creatures Thor and the Guardians fight in the film’s opening are insanely cool looking, and then nothing else even remotely as cool is seen again. New Asgard seems to have a new mass-market commercialize look to it. To what end? Who knows? Even the Guardians are simply dropped after the film’s first fifteen minutes, making one wonder why even include them at all. For a film that’s made headlines for being a Marvel project under two hours, there’s a remarkable amount of fat in the first act that could easily be cut, while other elements are underutilized.
“Love & Thunder” might sound like a mixed bag, but it gets it right where it counts. The cast is as great as they’ve ever been, and Waititi’s sense of humor hits more than it misses. The children’s story tone of it all really works wonderfully well, and Jane’s arc is also a delight. It’s not nearly as flawlessly executed as something like “Ragnarok” and it won’t be to everyone’s liking, but there’s still plenty to enjoy in the latest adventure of the space viking. 3.5/5
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