Thor Love and Thunder Movie Review

The first fourth solo outing of any Marvel superhero, Chris Hemsworth starrer Thor: Love and Thunder was weighed down by expectations well before its release. Add to that the return of Natalie Portman to the MCU, Taika Waititi taking on the director’s hat and a dash of the ever-awesome Oscar winning Christian Bale as Gorr the God Butcher, the expectations, if any, were not unfounded. But does this crazy, trippy, colourful, Chris Hemsworth fest deliver?

Where Sam Raimi brought horror to the MCU, in Benedict Cumberbatch starrer Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, director Taika Waititi, in his return to Marvel with Thor: Love and Thunder adds shades of humour, romance and drama (not that there is no goth-laden horror).

Eight years after the events of Thor: The Dark World, Natalie Portman’s Jane Foster now holds Mjolnir – Thor’s hammer – pieces of which have magically reassembled to turn her into Mighty Thor. Absent of his hammer, Thor himself wields an enchanted axe, which has been forged from the heart of a dying star, and is called Strombreaker. But it’s not the same, as the narrative soon shows. The two soon are joined by warrior teammates in Tessa Thompson’s Valkyrie and Taika Waititi’s Kronan gladiator Korg as they embark to defeat Gorr the God Butcher (Christian Bale), a super-killer in possession of the necrosword that kills gods, who is on a mission to rid the universe of divinity.

It is not that Thor: Love and Thunder is without flaws, some might argue that Chris Hemsworth’s Mjolnir/ Strombreaker/ Lightning weilding superhero at times is diluted to mere buffoonery, or that the plot development is far quicker than other MCU flicks (Multiverse of Madness was well over two hours long), but the pros supersedes the cons.

Natalie Portman’s Mighty Thor (not Lady Thor) aka Dr Jane Foster’s story arc is fantastic – from a dying scientist, to one who gets chosen by Mjolnir into divinity (the reasons of which are riddled with dichotomy, perhaps) though not immortal, she excels in the war sequence with Gorr, which is both a visual treat and a pondering on the ways of the Gods. Christian Bale steals the show with his monochromatic Gorr the God Butcher, making the character his own. Bale brings in a malevolent intensity to the role – which even in moments of pure evil – is riddled with the sense that his descent into villainy was caused by Gods robbing him of his daughter. Cameos by the Guardians of the Galaxy, though brief feel fleshed out.

Waititi, cinematographer Barry Idoine have done a stellar job in shifting the visuals from a colourful blast to a murky black and white when Thor reaches Gorr’s realm of shadows or the Sweet Child O’Mine background score that really gets the groove going, Thor: Love and Thunder is a perfect example in great visual story telling.

While at the onset, it is like every other Marvel film with the fight of good vs evil, Taika brings to the tables an offbeat humanity interspersed with humor, often flippant, sometimes dark. Thor: Love and Thunder works because somehow Taika makes it believable that you cannot excel in a Marvel movie if you are not mocking it from within.

And thus at the centre of all the drama is a New Asgard which is also a tourist hotspot, Russel Crowe’s Zeus who is more interested in an orgy than saving a few humans or gods and screaming goats who also jump in to save the day.

In ways, it seems Taika has taken the Marvel sketchboard and etched graffiti all over it, thus, even as the plotline progresses (and boy does it move forward), it has elements of the director’s sensibilities – which in ways are truer to the original Marvel comic series than the recent MCU films have ever been.

Oh, and there are two credit scenes you CANNOT miss!