CAUTION: SPOILERS!
We finally got around to see Thor: Love and Thunder, stocked with oversized popcorn, donning our 3D glasses, and ready to enjoy another instalment of Taika Waititi’s take on our beloved god of thunder.
The premise is simple: Thor’s quest for inner peace is briefly interrupted when he is tasked with defeating Gorr the god butcher and free New Asgard’s children with the help of Jane Foster (as the Mighty Thor), Valkyrie (as the King of New Asgard, which has become somewhat of a tourist attraction) and Korg (as… Korg). What follows is a one hour 59 minute madcap adventure with loud action, louder music, vintage rock, screaming goats, Hemsworth’s toned butt, plenty of laughs, and two sad stories.
Impressions
Not one to care for spoilers, I happened to listen to an Ali Plumb review of Thor: Love and Thunder before seeing the movie on the big screen. The big question was: What if this film is… just OK? (and that that’s OK too). This was quite timeous, because in addition to some of the lukewarm reviews, MCU fans were having a complete meltdown on Last Exit to Nowhere on Facebook because their high expectations had not been met.
As a Taika Waititi superfan who has seen every single project he’s been involved in – popular and obscure – and who has loved him since when he was still a nerdy Kiwi and before he even slid onto Rita Ora’s radar, I’m also keenly aware that there will be people who don’t appreciate the Taika style.
In fact, when I saw the hugely positive reaction to Thor: Ragnarok, I expected that his next MCU project would not be met with the same overwhelming enthusiasm.
Ragnarok was a breath of fresh air in a Marvel Universe that had started to go a little stale towards Endgame. It was different. It was exciting. And people were hooked from the moment Karl Urban’s Skurge showed the ladies his stuff.
Thor: Love and Thunder is still classic Taika. He continues to bring all the fun and quirkiness and none of the “film taking itself too seriously” stuff. It was all there in Ragnarok and as a fan, I expected and appreciated that style stamp. But fans are fickle, and were criticizing the movie not doing anything to drive the overall plot forward – especially as the second last MCU Phase 4 film.
Some of the critiques included:
- There was some inconsistent pacing that could have been sorted with a slightly longer run-time. Agreed, I felt that.
- The CGI quality came under fire, which makes sense in the light of a recent article about the short turnaround times for VFX teams to deliver on an increasing number of movies and series. However, we saw it in 3D so any issues there may have been didn’t bother me too much, tbh. My dodgy eyesight is both a gift and a curse.
- There was a barrage of jokes and gags. I didn’t mind this – dad bod to god bod and all…
- People wanted to see more of Jane, and they didn’t take too kindly to the fact that Jane’s cancer diagnosis wasn’t fully explored. I would have liked to see her transform into the Mighty Thor for the first time, but I didn’t feel like the lack of exploration of her condition took away from the emotional beats in the film.
- Lack of depth to Gorr. With the benefit of hindsight, this was one of the elements that bothered me the most. I would have liked to see more dimension to Gorr as a villain, and explore his tragic backstory against the backdrop of the concept of putting one’s faith in a higher power, only to discover that the higher power isn’t there (nor interested) to answer your prayers. In that way, his final scene with his daughter would have packed more of an emotional punch.
- Plot conveniences like Heimdall’s son, and the feeling that he was only created in the film to facilitate Thor’s communication with the kids.
When all this is said and done, I still enjoyed the film tremendously and give it a solid four stars. Korg – and later, Face Corg – was awesome as always. The screaming space goats made me cackle. Russell Crowe’s greasy Greek Zeus was a joy. And I loved the running gag of an increasingly jealous and misbehaving Stormbreaker.
Like many of the stories Korg told over the course of the movie, it was a weird and wonderful stand-alone Classic Thor Adventure, just like it was Classic Taika. Will it win an Oscar? Doubtful. Was it divisive? Yes! Was it totally terrible? Not at all! It was a fun time in the cinema where I could forget about my troubles for a brief moment in my day.
And sometimes, that’s exactly the purpose a movie should serve.
