Thor: Love and Thunder (2022) – 3/5

Popcorn cinema all the way

„Thor: Love and Thunder“ (weak title explanation at the end) is a co-production between Australia and the United States and I guess the Australian impact here comes from director Taika Waititi and also lead actor Chris Hemsworth. Okay, Waititi is fom New Zealand, but close. You will find other English native speakers in here that are not American. The title gives it away of course that here we have the at this point newest cinematic addition to the Marvel universe. Avengers is through, but the franchise still keeps going of course with how much money it makes by luring people into theaters. Maybe this film was in advance considered a contender for number one in terms of money for 2022, but I doubt it’s gonna reach that. It should have been a little bit better for that, but I am not sure. Have not checked these pages for a while that show us how much money a movie made. Anyway, I mentioned Waititi already and he is the director here as he was in the past with Thor and he (an Oscar-winning writer) got help with the script from Jennifer Kaytin Robinson and Stan Lee (rip) is listed again as well. I am not sure how accurate this is, but people love him still, so it makes sense. Chris Hemsworth is not just the lead actor here, but also a producer and if you take a closer look at the cast, you will find a few names that make this a bit of a family affair even, in terms of child actors, but also the Thor stage play we see once again here. Matt Damon was in it for that again too channeling his inner Loki. Interesting cameo again. In general, the cast is really top-notch. Natalie Portman plays the female lead, Christian Bale plays the main antagonist and Russell Crowe shows up as Zeus. I love the actor, but I am not sure how much I liked that. The Guardians are also there briefly and actors from the early Thor films like Elba, Dennings and Skarsgård (all three always appreciated), the latter only so briefly.

Waititi also lends his voice to one character as he did in the past. One of the bigger supporting characters. I do like Korg, but I think here not a lot about him really worked out. The idea that he loses his body, but is fixed again in the end is not as entertaining and memorable as they wanted it to be. Instead, all they brought in for the character was that in terms of the political landscape these days they showed us he was gay, despite all his muscles and masculinity, and that his father(s) was/were as well. And that in this world two males can also be biologically father a child in the absence of females. Or I am not even sure they specified the gender. Anyway, his talking when they were there with Zeus also was not too funny. In general, Zeus reminded me of Jeff Goldblum’s character, but let’s stay with what I wrote before that. Yeah, Waititi was really eager to make this film adapt to liberal Hollywood. Look at the moments in which we find out one of the bigger female characters is into girls. Or look at the Axl character. Was she a girl before and switched genders? I assume this was supposed to represent the T from LBGT in this film. What it really should have represented was the T in Thor and this is where the main focus should have been, so this could have become a less mediocre film. But it is what it is and you see from my rating that I still enjoyed the watch for the most part, even if there were weaknesses. Speaking of those, in terms of both drama and comedy, Waititi came short at times when he tried to turn this film into more than pointless fun. He definitely tried, but solid moments like the hologram scene with the kids where I thought Gorr would come and attack Thor were too rare. But no, he did not come. He only told a creepy story to the kids on one occasion. The kids also had their flaws. Like come on, as they say, they are indeed kids and not warriors and yet with some sticks they find, they manage to keep Gorr’s monster army busy and all survived? Not buying it.

With Portman and Bale, they were even aiming a bit at the idea to give their characters enough depth with their pain so they could gain awards attention. I guess this is what you do when you got Oscar winners at your disposal. Still, I struggled a bit early on with the idea of Portman’s character transforming from almost dead to super warrior, even if I got used to it a bit while watching the film. I found her much more embarrassing in the trailer without knowing about the character’s sickness. Sorry, but Thor is Thor. I know you want to make equality statements and all in films these days, but Thor is Thor and his hammer must not randomly choose his ex-girlfriend. Admittedly, the way they explain it with what Thor said to the hammer to protect her is a slightly acceptable solution. This could have been worse. Christian Bale I always like to see in films. He has great energy and after they got Blanchett for the previous film, no surprise they had another really big name play the main antagonist here. Also no surprise if you see how many other big names are on board here. I actually found his character interesting. He is a bit of a one man army, but he has still all these creatures and tentacles fighting for him, but in the end it is all about him and we do not really know anything about them. They probably rather serve his weapon than him I suppose. Those you see in the scene when they steal all the children. A bit of a contradiction or maybe even explanation with his own loss that he would go for a plan like this. Then again, he never really intended to kill the kids, but he still took them away from their families, even if it was just a plan to get Thor to show up. I actually also liked their first meeting. We see that Gorr is pretty strong, but not strong enough to really defeat Thor on the spot. It was a good encounter. Okay, here and there I could have done without the comedy Waititi always gets in because in superhero films it can feel exaggerated, even if I like some of his other stuff and he surely is a good comedic writer. I mean look at what he did with his Oscar-winning project. Not many could have gotten in solid comedy with a subject like that.

Back to this film here: I really liked the Jodie Foster and Jane Fonda jokes, they were funny. I was waiting for Diane Fossey, but I guess they would have needed Jane as a first name for that. What I once again did not like was the inclusion of Chris Pratt. I simply cannot deal with the actor at all and I think he has neither decent range nor good comedic delivery. It always feels cringe. Luckily, he was in this film only very briefly. The „giving my ship to me“ quote was okay and could have been pretty funny from a more talented actor. At least the goats were really cool and I am glad they stayed for a little longer. The idea that Thor may defeat some bad guys, but he destroys a lot on the road is also okay, but has in terms of the Avengers been kinda dealt with in a previous film, so it was not too entertaining anymore with the temple there. The idea of gods getting killed I am not sure if I liked it. I mean no matter how strong Gorr (sounds almost like Thor) may be, I would have thought he runs into a stronger deity at some point, especially because they know about him, but yeah eventually Thor has to take care of it, also because some of the gods are a bit lazy. As for the end, the final scene with one free wish I am just as undecided. I think Bale really elevated the material there. With Thor being close to Jane there and what he said about the way he decided to spend what he thought were his last moments, that was a bit gooey, but also sweet. This general idea of the wishing well was a bit absurd though. I mean with how many Marvel films we got at this point, nobody else thought about acquiring that one wish? The scenes up in space were fine, also kinda interesting how space turned black-and-white once even. The voice-overs at the very start and end were so-so. They were mostly included für comedic reasons in terms of the voice and what the narrator was saying. I would not have missed them, but also no need to cut them out. The overall duration felt right with two hours and that included credits already.

One of the most talked-about scenes is probably the Zeus sequence including Russell Crowe, not really because it was this good, but because it was kinda special. Here also some things went wrong. Like the idea of Thor standing there naked and how people react was a big mess, but oh well. The premise of Thor killing Zeus, his idol and then simply leaving the place? Hm maybe too much, even if he only thinks he killed him. At the end, we see that Zeus is alive and we also see who will be the main antagonist in the next film and Ted Lasso lovers will have a big blast there. I was a big surprised honestly because in general I felt that the ending from this film felt like closure to some extent and that they are really step-by-step bringing every character to an end. I still did not like the ending too much. Okay, Thor is a family man now, sort-of a single dad, but it all felt so rushed after the moment Bale’s character died and it was just not good. I cannot say otherwise. This epilogue would have been better as another short film on Thor and there are several I think, but not as the ending of a blockbuster film. Another area where Waititi messed up a bit now. I wonder if he will be back for another. At least, the opening was better with the introduction to Bale’s character who turned more and more into a zombie you could visually find also in a horror film to be honest. But I guess the rather low ratings for this film here and also the time when it got released will keep awards attention away from him. Pity. He was maybe the best thing about it all, even if I definitely like Hemsworth in this project as well. The man has grown on me a lot over the years and I am glad about that. I give the film a thumbs-up, without this aforementioned duo, it could have been a thumbs-down.