Thor Love and Thunder Movie Review

Taika Waititi made Jojo Rabbit, a child's version of Hitler and of Nazi Germany. The film said all the right things but from a perspective that even children could relate to. This is what he's done to Thor: Love and Thunder. It's a superhero movie where Thor's biggest worry isn't some super villain but whether his adopted daughter is eating the right breakfast and wearing the correct footwear before going out. Every child has an imaginary friend, and for Thor (Chris Hemsworth), his imaginary friends are his hammer Mjolnir and war axe Strombreaker. He talks to them, and they're shown responding, even getting jealous if he favours one over the other. Other changes Waititi has made is to turn New Asgard into an amusement park, maybe taking a sly dig at Disney. The Asgardians live in this idyllic setting, serving as tour guides, hoteliers, and pub owners, regaling the visitors with plays about Thor's valour (Matt Damon, Sam Neill, and Luke Hemsworth in brilliant cameos as Loki, Odin, and Thor), imbibing them with real Asgardian mead, and taking them on rides atop flying ships. The new Asgardian king, Valkyrie (Tessa Thompson), has become an influencer and is busy endorsing everything from cereals to designer labels.

Then, the biggest change is to turn Natalie Portman's character into the Mighty Thor. Mjolnir, which was broken into pieces by Hela, resurrects itself when he finds Jane Foster worthy and turns her into another Thor. She doesn't take herself seriously and is forever looking for a catch phrase to announce her arrival in battle. And she's also dying of cancer. Again, Waitity broached Fascism and the Holocaust in Jojo Rabbit, and here too, he doesn't shy away from putting cancer in a film aimed at children, trusting in the fact that they're more mature than what the adults make them out to be in dealing with such topics. It’s great to see Chris Hemsworth and Natalie Portman back together on-screen. They've got their ups and downs, like any normal couple, but also get to face a crisis together. There’s an air of tragedy behind their bantering, and that pulls you in emotionally. Thankfully, the makers haven’t gone in for a magic cure for her, which is a relief.

The film's main conceit is the tragedy that turned Gorr (Christian Bale) into a god butcher. He's hurting because his young daughter got killed. He blames the gods for it and vows to kill them all. Waitity has shown gods to be beings of immense power who no longer care for humans and are only interested in living a hedonistic life. Zeus (Russel Crowe) is reduced to being a petulant teenager, more interested in having orgies than saving worlds.

The director can’t seem to make up his mind about how he wants to portray Gorr. He starts off as a supervillain and then comes across as a grieving father. The film, in effect, lacks a convincing villain. We don’t even see him fighting other gods to get to know how good or bad he is as a warrior. He has command over shadow creatures, but even Asgardian children are able to fight them and ward them off. Perhaps the darkness within Gorr has been muted because the target audience is children, but doing that robs the film of its bite. The film deviates hugely from the Marvel canon. There’s no sense of danger, no building up atmosphere. Thor seems to be strangely ambivalent towards the fate of Asgaridian children kidnapped by Gorr. There’s no sense of urgency towards their rescue. The Guardians of The Galaxy, his main allies, whom we see battling alongside him earlier in the film, aren’t even involved in the final rescue. Every situation is summarised in a witty one-liner. Yes, you do laugh along, for sure, but you miss the gravitas present in other Marvel films.

Perhaps this change in direction is Waititi’s way of remaining Marvel that they’ve been taking themselves too seriously and it’s time to do something new. That’s what Sam Raimi did when he turned Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness into a horror film. Here, Taika Waititi has turned Thor: Love and Thunder into a witty rom-com. All you need is love, is the film’s message. It does come with plenty of CGI fights, no doubt, but all said and done, it’s a love story through and through. And it’s a Taika Waititi film and not a Marvel product. It’s great to see that Marvel is granting such a free hand to their directors. That surely means they’re ready for some radical changes in the time to come.

Trailer : Thor: Love and Thunder