Thor... Love and Bad Writing Decisions

Mar 18

Every now and then, there comes a certain kind of movie. A movie that makes you laugh, that makes you cry, and that makes you shake with excitement, enjoyment, and fear. Most of us love that movie, when it comes along. Unfortunately for my audience, this is not the movie I will be reviewing. Instead I'll be telling you my thoughts on “The Tale of the Space Viking.” At least, that's how the story is described at the start of the movie itself. To be frank, the truth is not nearly as epic as the film’s introduction sounds.

Thor: Love and Thunder (2022) stars Chris Hemsworth as the titular character, Thor Odinson. The film starts very soon after the events of Avengers: Engame (2019). Now, Thor is no longer the King of Asgard, as he has passed the title on to Valkyrie (Tessa Thompson). Instead he is riding with the Guardians of the Galaxy: Star-Lord (Chris Pratt), Drax (Dave Bautista), Groot (Vin Diesel), Rocket Raccoon (Bradley Cooper), Nebula (Karen Gillan), and Mantis (Pom Klemientiff). Early in the film, Thor separates from his new team as they proceed with their next journey and he sets off to investigate a terrifying message left by his friend, Lady Sif (Jaimie Alexander), who we have not seen on the big screen since the second film, Thor: The Dark World.

Thor finds Sif laying in the snow, missing one arm, and she tells him about her battle with the God Butcher, Gorr (Christian Bale), whose mission is to destroy all of the deities across the realms. So, Thor gathers his old team, the Revengers (as they called themselves in the third film) and they set off to find and defeat Gorr. Along the way, Thor encounters his old flame, Jane Foster (Natalie Portman) who now calls herself Mighty Thor, as she has bonded with Thor's former weapon, Mjolnir. Mighty Thor is wrestling with terminal cancer and the only thing keeping her going is the power that Mjolnir gives her to make a difference in the world.

Together, the group sets off on their journey across realms with a goal of stopping the God Butcher from reaching his ultimate goal: wiping all gods from existence. As old faces bond with new characters, we explore each of their personalities in greater depth than before as they start their new chapters within the Marvel Cinematic Universe. But, to be honest, this film did not inspire a great deal of excitement about these next chapters of their stories.

My first critique is undoubtedly something you've already heard in reference to this movie: there are way too many jokes. Or as I've begun to explain it to my peers, there were way too many jokes in comparison to the emotional, serious moments in the film. There was no balance. There was no cohesion. The movie made me laugh and cringe, but it did not make me feel much more beyond that.

Right about now is usually the time when I praise one or two actors in the film. This review will be different because, quite simply, no one really stood out to me in this movie. No one did anything beyond what you would see in a typical theater production. It is almost as if the actors themselves are not taking their roles here seriously. Mind you, I love each and every person in this cast. I am a big fan of their work in every other project, but this one was not it. I get that Marvel, in many ways, can seem like a joke. However, I don't think that should mean that the actors stop caring altogether.

Fun fact, when I choose to praise acting I very often tend to praise that of the villain because becoming a convincing villain, in my opinion, tends to take the most “acting”, and the emotional weight their words carry tend to stand out to me. But, apologies to Bale, it is simply not possible with this film. I did not see enough to make me confidently say that he killed it in this role. Gorr the God Butcher did not have the charisma, menace, or power that prior villains in the MCU have had, such as Hela (Cate Blanchett), the villain of the most recent Thor film.

Blanchett held power in every word she spoke and every move she made. Of course, she was given much more space to do that then Bale was, so I'll give him some grace there. But, the villain in this movie did not make me fanboy the way that many other villains do. I'm a villain lover. I root for the bad guys very often. And this one I will say probably was also right in his thinking. The gods were assholes. He just wasn't cool enough to hold my attention. That's all the rationale I really have for genuinely not caring about his presence in the movie.

Having established I didn't really give a crap about the villain, my next point probably will not come as a surprise. To me, the stakes were just too low. There was no real sense of danger in this film. At least, there wasn't looking back on it. Watching the movie, I had slightly different emotions. While watching, I thought certain characters had died. I thought the movie had subverted the expectation it had built up until the midpoint, which was that it was completely full of jokes. Then, certain characters suffered what seemed to be fatal blows back to back to back. And every single one of those characters survived as if nothing had happened.

There was no character development or time to, you know, mourn them because nothing happened. It was just fakeout after fakeout and a really disappointing misuse of wonderful artistic opportunities. The movie is a missed opportunity across the board.

I will admit that there was one death in the film that was not (so far) a fakeout. Jane, AKA Mighty Thor, died from cancer at the end of the film. Jane was one of my mid-tier favorite characters in the MCU. And let me tell you, I felt absolutely nothing. Her cancer was introduced only in this film. We didn't get to really understand her character development before that and we basically spent the whole movie mentally preparing for her death. The one emotional moment in the movie was executed in the way that it was just another emotionless moment. As a Natalie Portman fan, this knowledge saddens me.

To be clear, I did not hate Thor: Love and Thunder. It is just another movie to me. It is a movie full of missed opportunities, but not exactly negative; it was neutral. It is certainly different from the rest of the movies I've seen in the MCU, so I suppose in that regard, it continues the trend I have noticed with this phase. Just like many other MCU projects, it introduces a character who will most likely join the Young Avengers — Thor’s adopted daughter, who you will meet if you watch the film until the end.

Zooming out to the broader MCU, the movie is not 100% insignificant. Honestly, the main purpose was just for Thor to move on to the next step of the story change, introduce his child, and have him let go of his old love. I really don't know what comes next with the Space Viking, but I can say that he has become quite lame, unfortunately. I hope he goes back to being the epic warrior he became in Infinity War. Perhaps that Thor is a thing of the past. Just as some of us are reminiscing about the old MCU, that's a thing of the past as well. Phase 4 has been about letting go. Perhaps, this movie was also about letting go of the Thor we knew. Personally, I had already moved on a long time ago.