Lots of Thunder, Not Quite Enough Love
A brief review of "Thor: Love and Thunder" - UPDATED
Thor: Love and Thunder has all the makings of another strong entry in the wider Marvel Cinematic Universe: great actors, powerful themes, cosmic vistas, and an almost universally praised filmmaker. Unfortunately, the movie fails to live up to its potential, consistently striking the wrong tonal balance by habitually taking a glib and downright juvenile approach to characters and themes that deserve much better than they receive here.
It’s a perplexing result for a broader cinematic enterprise that does regularly manage to successfully balance humor and heart, one that’s all the more baffling given director Taika Waititi displayed such dexterity in juggling these two impulses in 2017’s excellent installment Thor: Ragnarok. That’s a shame, since Love and Thunder has a lot going for it despite its shortcomings. The movie hits the right notes often enough to give us a tantalizing – and exasperating – glimpse into the better, more compelling film that might have been.
Natalie Portman certainly makes the most of her return to the MCU after a decade away, delivering a fine performance as cancer-stricken astrophysicist Jane Foster. Her character’s melancholy reintroduction in Love and Thunder stands as one of the best and most affecting scenes in the film, though it’s one that’s almost drowned out by the manic psychedelia that swirls around it. Portman sells both the all-too-mortal Jane and the Mjolnir-wielding Mighty Thor, a woman determined to make the most of her remaining time whether as a scientist or a superhero. Jane is the beating emotional heart of Love and Thunder, but sadly the film itself seems to only half realize this fact - even though the actors and filmmakers themselves appear to fully understand it.
It’s a performance that lends gravity to an otherwise comedic flashback sequence detailing the deterioration of Jane’s relationship with Chris Hemsworth’s always-charming Thor, presumably some time after the events of Avengers: Age of Ultron. Waititi clearly intends to ape romantic comedies here, and the sequence straddles the line between that genre and the rather bleak breakdown of a relationship it depicts well enough. The pair simply can’t find the time to make their relationship work, what with Thor receiving mid-dinner calls for help from “Nick Furry” and Jane trotting the globe as a groundbreaking scientist. In another, better version of Love and Thunder, this sequence could have added a bit of levity while remaining grounded the film’s underlying themes of love, loss, and cosmic indifference. As things are, however, it stands as something of a missed opportunity.
Christian Bale likewise gives a spellbinding turn as the menacing Gorr the God Butcher, Love and Thunder’s broken-hearted antagonist. In keeping with his sobriquet, Gorr has embarked upon a nihilistic crusade to kill all gods – a quest driven by the death of his daughter and the supreme indifference of one of the MCU’s myriad deities to his people’s fate. Where Thor and the movie’s other deities exist in dazzling technicolor, Gorr lives in and avails himself of the shadows in order to fulfill his vow to slay the gods. Waititi uses this contrast to great effect during the climactic battle between Thor, Jane, and Valkyrie (Tessa Thompson, reprising her role from Ragnarok) and Gorr on a barren, monochrome world. He also furnishes Gorr with a haunting skeletal visage, one complete with piercing golden eyes to further unnerve the viewer. Yet Waititi chooses to leave the questions Gorr poses regarding the silence of the gods in the face of mortal suffering largely unexplored and unanswered. Bale’s performance mesmerizes in its own right and is easily the most captivating part of Love and Thunder, but due to the movie’s larger flaws it doesn’t go nearly as far as it could have.
For all its faults, though, Love and Thunder really ought to put to rest assertions that all Marvel movies look the same – especially so soon after director Sam Raimi put so many of his own signature touches on Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. Waititi clearly isn’t afraid to go big and bold in Love and Thunder (there’s even a pair of screaming space goats that pull Thor’s interstellar longship across the galaxy on a constantly materializing rainbow bridge), even though it doesn’t really work all that well in the end. In that respect, at least, it’s a far more interesting and ambitious cinematic venture than aggressively adequate MCU entries like Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings and Captain Marvel.
Still, it seems likely that we’ll join Thor on further adventures beyond Love and Thunder. Let’s hope he gets better than he received in this enticing but ultimately frustrating outing.
Addendum: I stand by this quick review Thor: Love and Thunder - the film’s tone still doesn’t feel quite right, even after seeing the movie a second time. But if I were to write this review again, I’d emphasize what does right more much more strongly than what it gets wrong. Christian Bale’s Gorr remains an excellent, sympathetic villain, and Natalie Portman’s Jane Foster remains the emotional core of the movie. But a second viewing brings out Chris Hemsworth’s understated pathos as Thor as much as an initial one showcases out his comedic talents. It’s a movie that works much better if you’re prepared for its off-kilter tone going in.
The film’s central theme - that pain and loss are inevitable but worthwhile parts of connections and relationships with others - also comes into sharper focus on a second screening. It’s still overtaken by the film’s overall tonal imbalance and at times seems a bit on-the-nose, but it still manages to explore this worthy subject sufficiently well to merit praise. Knowing that Thor has Tony Stark and Natasha Romanoff’s names tattooed on his back as part of his list of fallen comrades imbues an otherwise comical scene in which Russell Crowe’s Zeus flicks Thor’s clothes off with a sadness that’s mostly missed on a first viewing. This melding of melancholy and humor was probably what Taika Waititi was going for in Love and Thunder, and the tragedy of the film is that such a talented filmmaker could not quite strike the right tonal balance to fully achieve his apparent goals.
Still, Thor: Love and Thunder deserves a second look from moviegoers and, eventually, streamers. The film seems destined to become a cult classic, at least insofar as any movie from the Marvel Cinematic Universe can become one.