Director Taika Waititi, back behind the camera for the second time in the ‘Thor’ franchise, doesn’t exactly re-define the Marvel universe with ‘Love and Thunder’, but he knows this much; even when dabbling in decidedly dark material, superhero movies are supposed to be fun.
And there’s no question, ‘Thor: Love and Thunder’ IS a lot of fun.
And to be sure, the bar has been set pretty high. After all, ‘Love and Thunder’ is the follow up to the colourful and zany third ‘Thor’ film, ‘Ragnarok’ (Yo, quick fun fact; with this movie, Thor is the first Marvel character to log a fourth chapter…in fact, when you add up his appearance in ‘The Avengers’ series, plus popping up in ‘Doctor Strange’, Chris Hemsworth has played the God of Thunder a whopping nine times on the big screen…but enough geeking out with numbers).
In ‘Love and Thunder’, we catch up with Thor, still hanging with the Guardians of the Galaxy and helping his pals win battles, but a little lost considering Asgard is history and his throne has been passed over to Valkyrie (Tessa Thompson). But then comes a bit of purpose for our hero; taking on a new bad guy. And Gorr the God Butcher (Christian Bale…..yes, Batman battles Thor, in a sense) IS a bad, bad dude. Mourning the passing of his daughter and feeling that the god he prayed to in hopes that she’d survive ignored his cries for help, he’s on a murderous path.
Oh, and remember Jane (Natalie Portman)? Thor’s mortal girlfriend? Yeah, she’s back. Only this time (in a sub plot faithful to the comic books), she’s battling stage 4 cancer, which led her to Thor’s trusty hammer, and boom!….Jane became the Mighty Thor. And she obviously spent some time in the gym too, ’cause Portman suddenly has biceps to rival her co-star!
And then there’s Zeus (Russell Crowe), Thor’s idol. The heroes pay Zeus a visit in hopes of enlisting him to go to war with Gorr, but it turns out that Zeus is a bit of an egomaniacal jerk (which, not surprisingly, allows Crowe to ham it up quite fierce. I don’t think I’ve ever seen the big guy so happy, yammering on and on with his ridiculous Greek accent and twirling his thunderbolt).
Shoot, I forgot to mention the screaming goats. There’s screaming goats in ‘Thor: Love and Thunder’. And they’re awesome.
Put it all together, and……is it a little messy? A bit. Marvel movies are traditionally solid in their storytelling and finite details – ‘Love and Thunder’ strays a bit from that plan. But most of the goodies are intact, including a heartfelt swerve that isn’t foreign to fare like this, but catches you a little off guard all the same. And above all else….again…it’s fun. You might come in expecting more, but I can’t see too much disappointment with what you get.