Hello Fellow Journeyers,
The next movie that came down the pipeline this summer was Thor: Love and Thunder. While I was not nearly as excited for this one as I was for Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, I was still interested to see what Thor's next adventure entailed. Let's get into it!
What's the story about: Thor: Love and Thunder finds Thor in a difficult place following the events of Avengers: Endgame. Giving up his rule as king of (New) Asgard to Valkyrie, he's on a mission to discover what his true calling is in life...because being a superhero isn't lifegiving enough. Jane Foster is reintroduced in dramatic fashion to help discover her own place in the world.
Honestly, at this point in Phase 4 of Marvel's continuous story, I am tired. The content Marvel has produced has had some high points (looking at Loki and Spiderman: No Way Home primarily), but there are so many low points (the list is...long) that have shockingly sapped me of energy to go into anything with an optimistic outlook anymore. With Thor: Love and Thunder, there just isn't very much to analyze of value or substance. 😖 As I've said with many Disney properties lately, there's just a lack of depth to the stories they are telling and it feels like Marvel has definitely been squeezed into this category also.
This movie's main problem is that it tries to do too many things without sticking to any one thing really. There's Jane Foster's reintroduction and origin story of becoming a superhero, all while battling a crippling condition (This could've easily been its own movie and probably should've because Natalie Portman has the acting power to make it work). There's the introduction of a villain who had great potential, but was ultimately wasted. There's the Guardians of the Galaxy characters, Korg, Valkyrie, the goats, the other gods of Omnipotence City, the Asgardian children, Thor's hammer, Thor and Jane's relationship history. And finally there's Thor's storyline, which is easily overlooked because of everything else going on. It's all very bathed in spectacle and lacked emotional resonance of any kind. I wanted to appreciate the ideas and storylines but since they were given so little time to breath, it just fell flat.
Which leads to my second biggest beef with the Thor movies now: unnecessarily rampant comedy that takes all dramatic tension from the story. If there's a story beat, there will always be another joke to roll out. I will say it till the end of time: Chris Hemsworth is funny as Thor. You don't need everyone else to also be a comedian! All of Jane's serious moments are upended by jokes, all of Thor and Jane's relationship problems are squeezed between jokes, the adventure as a whole is impossible to take seriously or even enjoy because it's too busy making fun of something to tell a story of any kind. I believe that Waititi wanted to take the elements of Ragnarok and expand upon them to give people what they want, but there was a lot lost when rearranging everything to fit a new idea.
Final Verdict: ★★ 2 Stars - Thor: Love and Thunder was Marvel's first fourth movie in a character's story and honestly, the load feels as heavy as not having a clear end can have. Love and Thunder's strengths include the various actors' magnetism and the visual spectacles that abound. Other than that, this movie has proven that Marvel appears to be running out of ideas, mining the strengths of the past entries, and the overall vision is confused and inconclusive. For phases 1-3 in the MCU, most movies would rank between 3 and 5 stars. Some low points, but the overall story and high points really helped stabilize the outliers. Now, it feels like the standard has dropped where the highest points are good, but not great. They can't lift up the catastrophes that occur regularly. Thor: Love and Thunder falls in line with the low points of Black Widow, Eternals, and Dr. Strange 2. It's incredibly meh.
Let me hear from you! If you like what you read, want to hear more thoughts on this movie, other reviews, or talk movie recommendations and Essential Reading, leave a comment below.