Taika Waititi’s Thor: Love and Thunder runs 119 minutes and carries the tagline “The one is not the only.” It is a Marvel Studios production, distributed by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, and it is the 29th film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It is also the sequel to Thor: Ragnarok (2017), which is the problem.
Trailer, via Marvel Entertainment.
Chris Hemsworth and the Midlife Crisis
Hemsworth returns as Thor, the founding Avenger and former king of Asgard. Waititi has said Thor is going through a midlife crisis in this film, “just trying to figure out his purpose, trying to figure out exactly who he is and why he’s a hero or whether he should be a hero.” That is a real idea. The film keeps almost getting to it.
Thor has joined the Guardians of the Galaxy after the Avengers’ battle against Thanos. He learns of a distress signal from Sif, played by Jaimie Alexander, and parts ways with the team. He finds her injured, and she warns that Gorr’s next target is New Asgard.
Christian Bale as Gorr the God Butcher
Christian Bale plays Gorr, a scarred wielder of the Necrosword and manipulator of shadows who seeks the extinction of the gods. Bale felt the character had a “sort of a Nosferatu slight attitude,” and he took inspiration from the music video for the Aphex Twin song “Come to Daddy” (1997). Waititi changed Gorr’s facial features from the comics, where his original look resembles Lord Voldemort from the Harry Potter films. Odd Studio created the practical makeup.
Bale is the best thing here. He plays a grieving father, not a monster, and the film is better whenever he is on screen.
Natalie Portman Lifts Mjolnir
Natalie Portman returns as Dr. Jane Foster, Thor’s ex-girlfriend, who did not appear in Ragnarok. She has been diagnosed with stage four terminal cancer. With medical treatment proving ineffective, she travels to New Asgard hoping Mjolnir might heal her. Because of an enchantment Thor unknowingly placed on it years earlier to protect her, the hammer reforges and bonds itself to her. She becomes the Mighty Thor.
Waititi adapted this from Jason Aaron’s run on the Thor comics during the 2010s, which debuted Gorr and saw Foster take on the mantle while under treatment for cancer. The film has the pieces of a romance and a tragedy. It keeps interrupting them.
Zeus and Omnipotence City
Russell Crowe plays Zeus, king of the Olympians. The group travels to Omnipotence City to warn the other gods and ask for an army. Zeus refuses, thinking the gods can stay hidden from Gorr, and believing Gorr cannot reach the realm of Eternity.
Tessa Thompson’s Valkyrie, now king of New Asgard, deals with infrastructure, economy and visiting delegates. Waititi voices Korg and the Old Kronan God. The Guardians appear: Chris Pratt as Peter Quill, Dave Bautista as Drax, Karen Gillan as Nebula, and Pom Klementieff as Mantis.
Here is the ranking of what actually works:
- Bale’s Gorr, the only figure with real weight.
- Portman’s Jane, when the film lets her be sick and afraid.
- Hemsworth’s comic timing, still the franchise’s most reliable tool.
- The Guardians, who arrive and go.
- Omnipotence City, a detour that stops the film cold.
What Love and Thunder Gets Wrong
Waititi wanted to differentiate this from Ragnarok. He sought to make a romance film and a 1980s-inspired adventure. The jokes undercut the cancer story, and the cancer story makes the jokes feel careless. A film about a man who has outlived his family and a woman who is dying should not keep winking at the camera.
The runtime is 119 minutes, and it feels longer. Gorr kidnaps numerous Asgardian children and imprisons them in the Shadow Realm, and the film treats the rescue as a set piece rather than a crisis.
The Score
Thor: Love and Thunder has two good performances and no conviction. Bale and Portman are acting in a movie about grief and mortality; Hemsworth and Waititi are making a comedy about a guy with a large tattoo on his back memorializing his dead family and friends. Those are not the same film, and the split shows in every scene where Jane coughs and Thor quips.
The published critical score is 5.7/10, Metacritic 57/100. That is the right number. This is not a disaster. It is a waste — of Bale, of Portman, and of the one idea the film had.
5.7 of 10.
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