Taika Waititi put his stamp on Thor starting in 2017 with Thor: Ragnarok, injecting the character and aesthetic with a much needed dose of color and personality. Ragnarok was hampered a bit by the need to contribute to the more serious overarching Thanos narrative that the MCU was employing at the time. Taika’s easy breezy silly humor had to bump heads with a traumatic and catastrophic plotline which made the film feel at odds with itself. Thor: Love and Thunder (2022) is under no such constraints and is completely in Taika’s irreverent style, and depending on how much one likes his sense of humor it could be hit-or-miss.
Thor (Chris Hemsworth) is having a bit of a midlife crisis, and is feeling intense ennui with his life as a hero. He’s bumming around with the Guardians of the Galaxy, still doing good deeds but unfocused and flighty. It seems that love and companionship is the missing puzzle piece to his happiness, but the loss of so many of his loved ones has left him guarded. Everything is turned on its head when Thor has to contend with an intense new villain named Gorr (Christian Bale) who has earned the moniker The God Butcher–so named because he is traveling around murdering various gods with his cursed weapon All-Black the Necrosword. Thor’s ex-girlfriend Jane (Natalie Portman) is back in his life as well, having acquired Mjolnir and its powers transforming her into Mighty Thor.
From the beginning it’s apparent that Thor: Love and Thunder is going to be a comedy, and except for very few scenes, it turns up the wacky humor to maximum. Sight gags, puns, quips, and random asides abound, and if Taika’s sense of humor isn’t your bag, you are not going to have a good time with this film. If it is your bag, you will very likely be laughing your ass off, and it’s invigorating to have a MCU film just here to have a blast with a stand-alone tale. All of the actors have great chemistry with each other, and it’s apparent that Hemsworth loves playing Thor. They have really upped the “himbo” energy in this installment and the character is all the better for it.
One of the more interesting aspects of the film is the way it depicts religion and gods, as it really leans into making them seem like spoiled petulant children instead of powerful omnipotent beings. There is a pitch-black nihilism running just under the surface–a world where not only do gods exist they don’t give a shit about you and are too busy having orgies and parties to help you. Gorr honestly has a lot of solid motivation for why he is angry with them as they treat him and others as things to be toyed with instead of beings to be protected and cherished. Bale gives Gorr a lot of emotion and anguish, and at times is pretty sinister. He exists in a world devoid of color, and there are a few fantastic sequences where the heroes have to fight him in a stark black-and-white environment that is overrun with Lovecraftian shadow monsters that is a great visual contrast to the colorful atmosphere that permeates the rest of the film. The CGI is a bit dodgy in places but the overall stylization helps cover it up somewhat.
There is also a romance plot line running through the narrative between Thor and Jane, that is handled competently. Jane is going through some dire health issues on top of trying to be a good superhero and Taika lets this play all the way through without undercutting it emotionally for the most part. There have been pockets of toxic fandom that are angry about the inclusion of a female Thor (even though this is straight out of the comics, but I digress), but she is not in this movie to replace Thor, she is working with him as a partner. Portman takes to the comedy like a natural and also shines when given serious beats. I would have liked to see the film delve into her journey deeper as it touches on human fragility in a way that many superhero films gloss over. Gorr also could have used more depth as his tragic backstory is quite touching and only really gets the attention it deserves in the last act.
Thor: Love and Thunder is a light addition to the MCU that is entertaining, but has some problems with focusing on the more important aspects of the story. It feels a bit too short for how many plotlines it tries to cover simultaneously, but it’s nice to see the MCU let the directors make the movie they want even if that movie ends up having some flaws.
—Michelle Kisner