Thor: Love and Thunder – After leaving the Guardians of the Galaxy, Thor teams up with Valkyrie, Korg and ex-girlfriend Jane (who now has Thor-like powers) to defeat Gorr, the God Butcher. When Gorr kidnaps all the Asgardian children, the group race to save them and stop him before he finds a way to kill all gods in one fell swoop.

Thor: Love and Thunder (2022) – Director: Taika Waititi

By https://twitter.com/thorofficial/status/1528915481758797825, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=70566332

Rating: 12

Running Length: 118 mins

Starring: Chris Hemsworth, Natalie Portman, Christian Bale

Genres: Comic Book

REVIEW: THOR: LOVE AND THUNDER

After the roaring success of ‘Thor: Ragnarok’, audiences were clamouring for more ‘fun’ Thor. The arrogant god in previous Marvel movies was delightfully knocked down several pegs by director Taika Waititi’s comedy chops and we were also given Korg, Thor’s loyal friend who is always ready with a quip or witty retort. ‘Thor: Love and Thunder’ continues with this tone with a movie that has its tongue firmly in its cheek.

Unfortunately this time the comedy aspect overtakes everything else. Such an uneven tone leaves the particularly terrifying threat feeling out of place and not given the screen time it deserves. Christian Bale is excellent as Gorr, a broken and desperate man betrayed by the gods he worshipped. Such an angle is great motivations for a comic book villan but these things are disappointingly glossed over ladling yet more comedy Thor over that of his previous turns in ‘Thor: Ragnarok’ as well as ‘Avengers: Infinity War’ and ‘Avengers: Endgame’.

Unfortunately, Thor – a powerful, ageless and immortal god – has become nothing more than a buffoon, who is apparently now no stronger than his ex-girlfriend whose transformation into ‘The Mighty Thor’ is barely explained in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it scene; ‘Mjolnir called to me’ says the script and that’s your lot. Jane’s is battling with stage 4 cancer but her attitude towards it so flippant that it is barely more than an inconvenience, and this combined with the nausea brought on by the strangely bad CGI backgrounds and OTT colourful visuals, ‘Love and Thunder’ is a disappointing addition to the MCU.

It is also an oddly low stakes threat. Although Thor is the hero throughout our journey in the Marvel universe most other gods are shown to be bad, selfish or given no character. The concept of them being wiped out never comes across as something we should care about, even in this film. Their utter disinterest in their own destruction gives us nothing to cling on to in order to want them to survive Gorr’s oncoming storm – in fact, at various points I begin to feel somewhat on his side.

Overall, ‘Thor: Love and Thunder is fun if only on a superficial basis. It doesn’t seem to tie into any other Marvel offering and, as ‘Thor: Ragnarok’ does it better, ‘Love and Thunder’ simply doesn’t stand out as a movie to return to. So maybe it’s time for Thor to either retire from the franchise altogether or return to the serious Asgardian leader we know and love.

CONTENT: IS ‘THOR: LOVE AND THUNDER’ SUITABLE FOR CHILDREN?

An alien man wanders a desert with a young girl, presumably his daughter, there seems to be little hope for them. The little girl dies; the man weeps and cradles her body. He is then seen lying next to a pile of stones – her grave – and is struggling to cope with her death.

The man comes across a god who is dismissive of the man’s distress, callously saying ‘Suffering for your gods is your only purpose’. The god then grabs the man by the throat and lifts him off the ground as cracking noise is heard.

A character is stabbed in the neck and then decapitated. The stabbing is shown on screen although there is no blood.

A character goes through chemotherapy, they remain upbeat and determined not to be beaten by it. However, we mention this in case it is upsetting for children.

A huge, dead creature is seen lying in the middle distance. Thor appears disappointed that it has been killed and says it was ‘one of the nicest gods you’ll ever meet’.

An established character from previous films is seen after a fight. They have blood on them and the dialogue states that they are missing an arm, however this isn’t shown graphically so is unlikely to be too distressing.

Gorr controls numerous shadow creatures who crawl out of the ground in a very frightening, nightmarish manner. Several of them take on the form of huge spiders.

Spooky shadows in the bedrooms of children begin to move and stretch, becoming like hands that reach out and grab the children, taking them away as they scream in terror.

Gorr keeps the children captive in a large cage. At one point he sits with them and shows them a snake that appears to be like a pet to him. He tells them aggressively that ‘he loves having his head ripped off!’, which he does to the snake, holds it’s head aloft and then throws it at them. They scream in distress.

Thor’s group go to where most of the gods live and a meeting is held, headed by Zeus. He asks ‘Where do we go to hold this year’s orgy?’

When Thor speaks to Zeus, the latter becomes annoyed, shackling Thor’s wrists and blowing all his clothes off. He is seen, fully naked from behind and women standing in front of him faint. Valkyrie and Jane wonder whether they should help him but take delight in the idea of taking their time. Although some form of gratuitous nudity seems to be written into Chris Hemsworth’s Marvel contracts, this moment of the film is grossly over the top. With him being a captive and totally non-consenting, this objectification of Thor isn’t as amusing as Waititi would have us believe.

A character is hit with a powerful weapon and their body disintegrates which seemingly kills them. However shortly afterwards they are seen alive but not entirely in one piece.

Korg talks about his parents – two dads who made a baby by holding hands over a volcano and singing a song. This song has some suggestive lyrics that could be a little strong for younger kids. Later, two male members of this species are shown doing this and one is depicted stereotypically with a large moustache.

Gorr gloats to Valkyrie about the loss she suffered when her fellow fighters were massacred (as shown in ‘Thor: Ragnarok’). This visibly upsets her.

A character dies while being held by a loved one. They turn to gold dust which floats away.

CAN I SEE A CLIP?