‘Thor: Love and Thunder’ Spoiler Review — A Cosmic Adventure That Should Have Taken More Time To Breathe
Of all the movies Marvel Studios was due to release in 2022, Thor: Love and Thunder always stuck up as the one with almost guaranteed success. Taika Waititi was coming off of a very strong reception from Thor: Ragnarok among fans and critics, and an Oscar win for writing Jojo Rabbit. Chris Hemsworth is having more fun playing the character than he ever has, and the movie had enlisted both Natalie Portman to come back and also Christian Bale to play a butcher of Gods. It was the recipe for a smash hit, so now the question needs to be answered — was it really?
Spoilers ahead for Thor: Love and Thunder
Let’s get the obvious out of the way, and just say that Love and Thunder is just a fantastic time at the movies. Taika Waititi’s imagination takes over the project and goes for a wild ride led by two giant goats whose screams made me laugh every single time (kudos to the sound department in that regard). Everyone clearly had a blast filming this, and that enthusiasm comes off the screen and takes over the audience multiple times during the movie. Taika Waititi continues to show that he can start a party, and he has natural director-actor chemistry with pretty much the entire cast. After finding the perfect partner-in-crime in Chris Hemsworth, who clearly went above and beyond Waititi’s wild in-the-moment ideas, Waititi also managed to get a hilarious performance out of Russell Crowe, whose accent alone was worth the ticket price, a fun-yet-tragic portrayal of the Mighty Thor from Natalie Portman, and an absolutely chilling portrayal of Gorr from Christian Bale.
(L-R): Pom Klementieff as Mantis, Chris Pratt as Star-Lord/Peter Quill, and Chris Hemsworth as Thor in Marvel Studios’ THOR: LOVE AND THUNDER. Photo by Jasin Boland. ©Marvel Studios 2022. All Rights Reserved.
We knew that the laughs were gonna be there in a Taika Waititi project, so the only question going in was whether or not the dramatic beats would be on par with the comedic ones. After watching Ragnarok and Jojo Rabbit, I had no concerns that this would be the case too, but in that regard, I was slightly disappointed. The foundations of the movie were very strong, as Korg would say, and I can see a great pitch that probably was enough to convince acting talent of the likes of Christian Bale to join the movie (the actor has also insisted that Taika’s earlier films played a huge role to convince him to sign on), but my biggest issue with the movie is that it didn’t live up to the promise.
I think the main reason behind that was left on the editing room floor. Thor: Love and Thunder would have probably been a great movie with 20 extra minutes that would give the plot more time to breathe, and give characters more space to take in everything that is surrounding them. Jane is going through the most difficult moments of her life, and even though we see her in pain multiple times, a couple of extra minutes of the character dealing with her condition at the beginning, and a few extra conversations with Thor about the consequences of what she’s up to would have added an extra layer of depth to her death scene.
(L-R): Natalie Portman as Mighty Thor and Chris Hemsworth as Thor in Marvel Studios’ THOR: LOVE AND THUNDER. Photo by Jasin Boland. ©Marvel Studios 2022. All Rights Reserved.
I also would have liked to see more of the Mighty Thor in action. Her introductory scene, at the sound of Michael Giacchino’s glorious theme, was by far one of my favorite moments of the movie, and I feel like she didn’t have another kickass scene like that again. She did have a few action setpieces, but none of them rivaled that one. Plus, the payoff of Jane’s catchphrase didn’t really work for me. I get what they were going for, emphasizing Jane’s early days as a superhero and making fun of some silly clichés of the genre at the same time, but it didn’t land with me the way they probably intended.
I must say, though, I was surprised that they killed her off at the end, and I appreciate the boldness behind that decision. The second post-credits scene was very cathartic for me, both because seeing Idris Elba again is always a pleasure, and because it gave us a much-needed resolution of Jane’s situation as the Mighty Thor. She died in battle, and as an Asgardian, she went to Valhalla. That was great.
Moving from Jane to Thor, the lead character of the film probably could have used some extra minutes in the beginning to let us know where the character is at, exactly. Having Korg as a narrator was a great decision, but it was eclipsed by the bigger mistake of having a lame narration walk us through some of the key moments of the film. I appreciate that Waititi went out of his way to catch audiences up with where the story is, but once we were up to date, the narration felt like as an excuse to rush through the opening and get down to the plot. It told us where Thor was at, instead of showing us.
Thor: Love and Thunder has been described by Taika Waititi as Thor’s mid-life crisis throughout the entire marketing campaign. This was also implied in the teaser trailer released late April, with Thor burying Stormbreaker and Hemsworth’s voice-over saying “My superheroing days are over”. Sadly, though, I never felt like the movie fully explored that side of the character.
Chris Hemsworth as Thor in Marvel Studios’ THOR: LOVE AND THUNDER. Photo by Jasin Boland. ©Marvel Studios 2022. All Rights Reserved.
But if the movie let down a character, it must be Christian Bale’s Gorr the God Butcher. The actor has not shied away from saying there is so much stuff he shot that was edited out, and I fully believe it. For a character nicknamed “The God Butcher”, he didn’t really do a lot of god-butchering. We know that Bale shot scenes with Peter Dinklage and Jeff Goldblum, where he probably slaughtered both characters, but we never got to see them. Even Lady Sif’s first scene was probably trimmed down, and might have even featured Gorr killing off Falligar the Behemoth. This last part is pure speculation, though, but I will say that I was very disappointed with how the character was portrayed in the final cut of the film. And if I’m being honest, I think Bale was underwhelmed too, from what we can gather from his interviews.
Gorr is a character out of your worst nightmare, and he has some very creepy scenes, yet most of the work is done with CG creatures that are basically cannon fodder for our heroes to show off their skills. His arc is also all over the place, and feels like it was put together in post-production. He has a very solid start, after he has to watch his daughter die and is betrayed by his own God. But then Marvel turns to one of his latest clichés of having a dark spirit take over a mysterious object and give the villain their motivation. They did it with Wanda in Multiverse of Madness, and they now did it with Gorr in Thor: Love and Thunder. It would have been more impactful to remove the whole magic aspect of the sword and have Gorr seek revenge against all Gods because of how they have treated his people.
Christian Bale as Gorr in Marvel Studios’ THOR: LOVE AND THUNDER. Photo courtesy of Marvel Studios. ©Marvel Studios 2022. All Rights Reserved.
Gorr’s motivations were a bit of a mess. When he first grabbed the sword, he was avenging his daughter and his people. Then, the sword possessed him and he vows to destroy all Gods. Then, all of the sudden, in the next scene he is actually looking for Stormbreaker, even though we don’t learn about this until much later in the film. He has now changed course and is looking for Eternity, something we don’t learn from him but from dialogue between other characters. We, the audience, assume that he is going to wish that all Gods die, and that’s because they tell us that’s the case. But no, we were wrong, because Gorr is actually not that interested in butchering Gods and would rather have his daughter back. Something we probably had forgotten about by now, since the character never showed any sort of desire to bring her back.
In the end, the movie would have ended much sooner if Gorr had just asked Thor for a trip through the Bifröst to get to Eternity and wish his daughter back. In fact, that would have made for a much more interesting movie — Thor looking for Eternity to wish Jane’s cancer to go away, and Gorr to get his daughter back. Who will get there first? And who would be the villain in that situation? I generally don’t like to play the game of “fixing Thor: Love and Thunder“, just because it’s easy to sit in front of my computer and moan about it, while the real filmmaker has to go out and actually make the film. But it pains me that this movie had the potential to be much better than it was, not just because of what the marketing promised us, but because the pieces are there for a great story, it just needed more cohesiveness.
Tessa Thompson as King Valkyrie in Marvel Studios’ THOR: LOVE AND THUNDER. Photo by Jasin Boland. ©Marvel Studios 2022. All Rights Reserved.
There is one character I haven’t really discussed until now, and that’s Tessa Thompson’s Valkyrie. And for good reason, because I, much like Taika Waititi in the third act of the movie, almost forgot she was in the movie. I really don’t know what happened, but she was another victim of the editors rushing through the first act of the film — we get one shot of Valkyrie being King of Asgard, and if it weren’t for the one line between her and Thor, we wouldn’t even remember that she was in command. Thompson has said in interviews that Valkyrie is not happy with the day-to-day operations of being King, but the movie only explored that through a very quick joke during the first act, and promptly moved on.
The character had a few highlights in the second act, when the plot was set in motion, and I enjoyed her tête-à-tête with Korg while they were traveling to the Shadow Realm, but then the movie just sidelined her, using a battle injury to make her sit out the third act of the film. That was very convenient, so she wouldn’t shadow Thor and Jane’s final moments. I was very disappointed and thought that it was very lazy writing on their end.
Tessa Thompson as King Valkyrie in Marvel Studios’ THOR: LOVE AND THUNDER. Photo by Jasin Boland. ©Marvel Studios 2022. All Rights Reserved.
I know I’ve mostly been pointing out all the flaws I saw in the movie, but I must say, before I wrap up, that there’s a lot to love and thunder around here. I thought the ending was great, with Thor finally resolving his mid-life crisis (at least the one Waititi has described in interviews) by adopting Gorr’s child, and I love how they used that to tie in the title of the movie. If you are looking for a good time at the movies, it’s definitely worth it. I just think it could have been slightly better.
Additional cosmic bits:
- The movie has more cameos than I imagined. We knew about Matt Damon, Luke Hemsworth, and Sam Neill coming back, and Melissa McCarthy had been spotted on set as Hela too. That was a lot of fun. But for some reason, I did not expect Kat Dennings as Darcy coming back, though I was very glad they made the call, and I definitely never thought we’d see Stellan Skarsgård back in the MCU.
- Of course, there is one additional cameo, which is following up on Marvel’s new trend of casting hot names in key roles for a post-credits scene. Brett Goldstein made his debut as Hercules in the mid-credits scene, possibly setting up a new Thor movie. Goldstein is an Emmy-winning actor from Ted Lasso, and was surely not just cast for a quick pop in one scene. I am just not a fan of how they are introducing these characters — first Eros, then Clea, and now Hercules, have all been introduced as a “To be continued…” in a mid-credits scene that feels like Kevin Feige going down the list of actors in Hollywood, offering them jobs, and saying “We’ll figure it out”. I’m sure there is a plan, and I can’t wait to find out what it is, but I’m just a bit skeptical right now. I can’t wait to be proven wrong.
- Thor will return. And apparently, Thor himself didn’t even know about this. Waititi said in a recent interview that he’d be on board for a fifth Thor movie if Hemsworth was also on board and the story was different enough. But for now, this is a non-statement from Marvel. We were introduced to two Thors in the movie, and the post-credits scene could even leave the door open for a return from the Mighty Thor should she escape Valhalla (I don’t think it will happen, but it’s not like the MCU has not resurrected characters before). Feige also hinted at multiple Thor incarnations we haven’t met yet, and since we know the multiverse is gonna play a key role in the years to come, it’s possible Chris Hemsworth won’t even return for the role (though the actor has insisted he’d love to do it as long as the fans will have him).
Miguel Fernández is a Spanish student that has movies as his second passion in life. His favorite movie of all time is The Lord of the Rings, but he is also a huge Star Wars fan. However, fantasy movies are not his only cup of tea, as authors like Scorsese, Fincher, Kubrick or Hitchcock have been an obsession for him since he started to understand the language of filmmaking. He is that guy who will watch a black and white movie, just because it is in black and white.
