As an avid film viewer and Marvel fan, I was left somewhat disappointed by the fourth installment of the Thor films. Don’t get me wrong, there were good bits here and there, but collectively as a whole, the entire movie felt much more like fan service than a real film.
Let me just start off by saying that the overall pacing felt off throughout and that the dialogue didn’t always work in the situation that was being presented. A very big example of this was at the very beginning of the film when Thor (Chris Hemsworth) and Star-Lord (Chris Pratt) were saying their goodbyes as Thor was going on his own journey. A lot of the comedic banter between the two Chris’ was unnecessary as it was simply a ploy to get a cheap laugh out of the viewer much like most of the rest of the film. The comedy was often forced much like how Thor later performed the splits in order to beat the two Muppet-looking characters who were speeding at him on their hoverbikes.
Then of course there’s the skipping of so many important details. Like why was Zeus shown to be so weak? Why is it that anyone can wield Thunderbolt? What was the point of showing the Celestials in the film? Since when can Thor pass down his powers to whoever at will? And what’s up with Gorr’s kid at the end of the film? The film definitely brought forth a lot more questions than answers and it honestly missed a lot of opportunities to set up future Marvel movies. For instance, Omnipotence City was filled with almighty characters that could directly impact the Phase Four timespan of Marvel including characters such as Galactus, the Egyptian mythology, and the Eternals, yet Thor: Love & Thunder director Taika Waititi decided to instead focus the already shortened screentime of the film on Bao the God of dumplings.
It’s ironic because Waititi took the comedy that made Thor: Ragnarok a great film and overexaggerated it so much in Love & Thunder that it felt extremely uncomfortable and awkward. Ragnorok was a great movie because it changed the entire Thor franchise as it brought about more of the characters and less of the plot. Love & Thunder only failed because it tried to do too much of the same thing.
What Waititi did well, however, was display the selfishness of the gods and how that selfishness and carelessness led to the creation of Gorr the God Butcher. Even though the build-up for Gorr was extremely short, Christian Bale’s character went through a character ark of his own that culminated in the somewhat cliche of “doing the right thing” ending. Despite that, Gorr still had plenty of epic dark moments throughout the film that should be directly credited to Bale himself. Similarly, Natalie Portman also deserves some acclaim. Despite having disappeared from the MCU for like half a decade and coming back with cringe superhero one-liners, her portrayal of Mighty Thor or Jane Foster is a comeback story demonstrating the epic potential of possible Thor films in the future. It is only sad that such a character is immediately killed off and scrapped.
Thor: Love & Thunder is a prime example of a Marvel film in a declining age of superhero movies. As a devoted Marvel fanatic, I hope to see Kevin Feige continue to expand the MCU and try to replicate the grandeur of previous successes such as Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame and stray away from other current and ongoing failures including She-Hulk: Attorney at Law, and Dr. Strange & the Multiverse of Madness.
Rahil, I completely agree with your take on this movie. I had high hopes going into the movie, because of the incredible performance that was displayed in Thor: Ragnarok. Those were dashed quickly with how the movie seemed to be more comedic with less fight scenes. Also, after reading your review, I realized how many plot holes that were left as well. I never really thought deeper about some scenes, and I also have the same questions you have about Zeus and the Celestials. I thought that adding the end credit scene of Hercules was a horrible idea for a end credit scene, because now it seems that the next movie will just be a fight between the gods which I think could be good, but it will most likely turn out bad. Going back to the comedic aspect of the movie, I really thought that it was exaggerated just as you said and it led to me thinking the movie wasn’t supposed to be serious at all. I did have one slight disagreement about Jane foster’s character and how you said that it was sad that a character like her was killed off and scrapped. I think that it was needed, because it kind of related back to the movie’s theme or central idea of Thor being able to fill that hole in his heart that was left by Jane. If Jane continued living, I don’t know if they could have existed together peacefully.
I thank you for writing this post because I have much to say regarding it. I was also disappointed by this movie for a multitude of reasons. There was too much forced comedy which wasn’t funny at all as you pointed out. They didn’t give Gorr enough screen time in this movie either as he needed to be seen killing the Gods since that’s literally in his name. The Thor movies overall have been disappointing with the exception of Ragnarok. I was hoping that Waititi would be able to recreate what he did there but I was wrong. I dislike what they did to Jane Foster as she should have been a constant in the MCU when Thor made appearances in movies but she was cast aside only to be killed in such a lame way after being brought back. The set up for the battle between Hercules and Thor doesn’t seem to be as exciting as the cast and crew thought it would be as well. I hope that future Thor appearances remain in larger scale movies where he is properly utilized.
Hi Rahil,
Appreciate your candid review of this movie. I share a lot of similar reactions as you. I’m a “Thor is the strongest Avenger” truther through and through, so I was certainly someone who tossed a lot of hype to this movie in the months leading up to it — I still contend here that Thor would best Wanda in 1-on-1 combat, but feel free to disagree.
For starters, I think the main letdown was how Gorr the God Butcher was portrayed. This guy wasn’t just a disgruntled alien with a cool sword — he was supposed to be, single-handedly, one of the most potent villains of the entire Cinematic Universe. Like, for context, he defeated Falligar the Behemoth, the big spiky giant whose dead carcass we see on the snow planet. In Marvel comics, Falligar is reigning champion of the Tournament of Immortals, and was said to wrestle black holes for fun. Gorr’s relative strength level in this seemed pretty tame compared to what he was SUPPOSED to be capable of. In fact, I might even go as far as to say a comically-accurate Gorr stands toe-to-toe with Thanos level threats. My biggest problem with Love and Thunder, accordingly, is how unimpressive he seems. We hear that he’s defeated a bunch of gods and he’s bloodlusted, but we never see him do anything all that impressive. I think Gorr’s ultimate defeat becomes much more important if the movie situates his power level accurately, instead of underselling it like it does.
Hey Rahil, to start I just want to say that I also am a big marvel fan and I completely agree with your analysis of Thor’s love and thunder. I liked the previous Thor movies much more and felt that this movie was trying too much to be like the most recent installment known for its comedy rather than trying something new or at least different from the last movie. However, I only partly agree that Christian bales character was good because I believe that like you said his story was way too cliché and the way the villain was portrayed was not unique or different from other marvel or superhero villains in movies today. This disappointed me a lot as well as I thought Christian Bale was a very good actor and thought he would be given an interesting character to play. Finally, I also completely agree with your analysis of Natalie Portman and was also impressed that she was able to come back after so many years and play the same character perfectly however I understand why they had to get rid of her character and was not that surprised since many of the original marvel movie series and characters have stopped being in movies.