2022. PG-13. 118 mins. Directed by Taika Waititi
Everyone’s favorite God of Thunder is back for his newest
solo adventure. This time around Thor (Chris Hemsworth) has a lot on his plate
with the threat of a new villain in the form of Gorr the God Butcher (Christian
Bale). Gorr has been deceived by a God that he was a disciple for in the past
and is now seeking revenge on all Gods after losing his daughter. After New
Asgard is attacked Thor enlists the help of Valkyrie (Tessa Thompson), his
friend Korg (Director Taika Waititi) and his ex-girlfriend Jane Foster (Natalie
Portman), who now has the power of Thor and can wield his former hammer Mjolnir.
Thor: Love and Thunder is the fourth movie in Thor’s solo outings
and continues with the same style and direction as Ragnarok. Director Taika Waititi
returns to helm Love and Thunder and brings he unique vision to the character
once again. Waititi was a large reason as to why Ragnarok was able to let the
character of Thor really flourish and shine on his own. The first two movies
relied too heavily on trying to be Shakespearean and for the most part they
didn’t work. Waititi’s style of direction blends well with the world of Thor
and shifting to his brand of comedy has been a highlight of Ragnarok and now
Love and Thunder.
With the recent outings from the Marvel Cinematic Universe
there has been a lot of focus on connecting universes and showcasing new and
old characters in the form of cameos. Respectfully, those movies were fine on
their own, but we don’t get any of that in Love and Thunder and honestly, it’s
a nice breath of fresh air. This is the first time in a while we’ve gotten a
rather straightforward story that wasn’t mostly relying on nostalgia or
shocking the audience with what characters may or may not show up. Thor has an issue;
he recruits his team and they set out to fulfill their mission. Couldn’t be any
simpler than that.
Ragnarok took a lot of chances at being weird and zany and
we get no shortage of that here as well. It works for the best though as
allowing these characters to be weird and outlandish is when we see them at
their best. Thankfully, Waititi is mostly able to balance the zaniness with a decent amount of heart. The relationships
between our main characters are a strong aspect of the movie. It’s nice to see
Thor and Jane back together and we get to see how their relationship originally
ended which we only knew about before because of a couple lines in the last
movie. Adding in Valkyrie and Korg as a part of their team makes for one of the
better oddball groups to come out of the MCU.
The cast is all top notch. Chris Hemsworth continues playing
Thor with so much charisma and charm that it’s impossible not to love him. Natalie
Portman gets a lot of heavy lifting, no pun intended, as Jane has arguably the
best character arc and she plays it with a lot of heart. Tessa Thompson as
Valkyrie is good once again although it would have been nice to have her
character get a little more to do. We do get a small dose of the Guardians of
the Galaxy, but it is very short lived and seems like an afterthought. Russell Crowe is here as Zeus and it mostly feels like his character could have been left out and it wouldn't have affected the story much. Finally, there’s Christian Bale. While he doesn't get as much screen time as he should, he certainly makes
his presence known and is very menacing as Gorr the God Butcher.
Overall, Thor: Love and Thunder is entertaining enough to recommend. They do lay the comedy on a bit thick throughout the movie but there are genuine moments of humor. Chris Hemsworth still plays the character of Thor quite well and seeing him in another outing is always welcome.
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