Theatrical Review: Thor- Love and Thunder

Date: Saturday, July 9 2022
Time: 1:45pm (movie began after 20 minutes of trailers)
Party: 3 (my mom, aunt and myself)

Director: Taika Waititi
Writers: Taika Waititi and Jennifer Kaytin Robinson
Composer: Michael Giacchino and Nami Melumad

Cast:
Thor- Chris Hemsworth
Dr. Jane Foster- Natalie Portman
Valkyrie- Tessa Thompson
Gorr the God Butcher- Christian Bale
Narrator/Korg- Taika Waititi
Zeus- Russell Crowe
Plus some cameos from the Guardians of the Galaxy and other former Thor franchise cast members

Review:

Note- some mild spoilers for all Thor films

Overall, the Thor franchise has been an interesting one. It started like a period piece that suddenly crossed paths with the modern world. The second film was a little more of the same plus “meeting” an infinity stone.

Then with the third one, things got a little strange. Someone at marvel had an epiphany that Thor didn’t have a distinct identity or personality and something needs to be done to fix that.

Personally I didn’t have a problem with the previous installments and really don’t know why anything needed to be “fixed.”

But Ragnarok gave Thor a self deprecating sense of humor, added Valkyrie as a cool badass female character and… not only destroyed Thor’s hammer but also his home. (For anyone who knows Norse mythology, that’s not a huge spoiler- ragnarok translates to destruction)

"Thor: Love and Thunder" builds on the previous film but also took a page from the guardians of the galaxy playbook— they added a killer soundtrack.

Fair warning, though- There’s at least 3 Guns N’ Roses songs so if that’s not your thing, hunker down.

Considering how often they’ve played the “sweet child o mine” trailers, I kept thinking how that better have been in the movie somewhere. It may be my favorite song of theirs, but with all the trailers, I was getting kinda sick of it flying in and out of my brain. (And yes, it was featured in the movie as well as the end credits)

Hopefully Axl rose, slash and the rest of the band received proper compensation for their work.

The only other song that sticks out in my memory was “our last summer” by abba. It was during a over-cheesy montage and I’ll never think of that mamma Mia track the same way again, haha

(And of course just thinking about this scene makes the song wanna run laps through my head for the next several minutes)

In case anyone’s curious, the guardians of the galaxy only have maybe 10 minutes of screen time in the entire movie… we appreciate the thought but a lot of us, including my aunt, were left wanting a lot more.

And their movie isn’t due for release until next may. Mega tease!

There’s a bunch of other cameos of characters from previous Thor films… very short lived cameos, but I appreciated their inclusion all the same

An interesting new approach they took for the movie- adding narration and flashbacks courtesy of Taki wait (also the film’s director and co-writer)

The movie also starts with the villain’s origin story and inspires some thought-provoking discussion on how the gods relate to their followers… his experience is so harrowing that you really can’t blame him for taking on the mission of destroying the gods. Possibly one of the most sympathetic villains in the history of cinema, except for maybe one thing…

His powers introduce a horror element into the marvel franchise… a little too creepy for me in some places but plenty of kudos to the visual effects people for bringing that to life.

We finally catch up with Dr. Jane Foster after years of absence… my memory of the previous sequels are so bad, I don’t remember the two of them even breaking up. The flashbacks explain them well enough but I’m also not sure if they rewrote that part of the story just so it fit into the odd humor this movie has.

We also learn that she’s very sick but doesn’t want to tell people. This is another good conversation this movie brings up. As soon as you tell anyone you’re dealing with whatever, they treat you differently. Either they feel sorry for you or trip over themselves to compensate for you… either way, the interactions you have with them aren’t what they used to be. Another regular topic of discussion- perseverance is an important quality to have but when does it get to a point when it’s better to rest? Because if we don’t allow ourselves a break every now and then, our bodies will make that decision for us and the timing won’t be convenient.

How Jane and Thor ultimately reunite- she read up on his hammer and supposedly it has medicinal properties. So she goes to New Asgard (part seafolk village, part tourist attraction- complete with its own reenactment cast… some great cameos here) to find the hammer. It’s now in shards on display in the village but something insane happens. It comes back together and bestows the power of Thor to her.

However, as Valkyrie later explains, Jane may have the powers but some of the other hero stuff needs a little work. Notably- her slight obsession with figuring the perfect heroic catchphrase.

The two of them plus Valkyrie and Taki from the 3rd film run into the villain at new Asgard and put up good resistance. But when he leaves, he takes the children of the village with him and it’s up to the trio to get them back.

At one point they meet Zeus and try to recruit him to help take down the villain. It goes about as well as you’d expect.

What wasn’t expected- how over the top Russell Crowe portrays him. All I’ll say- hang back and enjoy the show.

Despite the seriousness of the situation at hand, there’s plenty of laughs to be had along the way. In addition to the tension between Thor and Jane, there’s also the “love triangle” between Thor and his weapons. The hammer still works really well and the fact it’s in pieces actually becomes an advantage in battle. But every now and then, when Thor longs for the good old days with the hammer, the camera zooms in on his axe and he tries to dispel any jealousy.

Also- there’s the little matter of the screaming goats… if there’s any gag people are going to take away from this movie, that’s the most likely candidate.

Another topic of curiosity I had to draw some attention to…. not to sound like an old codger or anything but “back in my day,” shit used to be a bad word. Granted, there are far worse 4 letter words out there that should never be used in civilized conversation and this movie was getting a PG13 rating anyway. But I couldn’t help but notice the liberal use of that word in this movie in particular. I wasn’t counting but it was at least a dozen times. If memory serves, one of those instances was from a kid. On the one hand, I’m like “what’s the world coming to?” But on the other, the recurring line (first introduced by Chris Pratt) about how it’s better to “feel shitty” about someone than nothing at all… that rhetoric is too perfect to argue with.

Outside the theater there was a sign alerting people with light sensitivity about some trigger points in this movie… I’m not sure exactly what they’re talking about unless it was referring to the rainbow bridge Thor’s vessel used to travel.

This movie was made to see on the big screen- but I think maybe we were just a little too close. Huge kudos to the cashiers for suggesting seating arrangements that allowed the three of us could sit together. However I wound up with a little bit of a headache after seeing the movie and I think the visual effects plus the fact we were in the back row of the first section of seats might have contributed to that.

So maybe choose seats a bit further away from the screen if you have that option.

Whether this is the best Thor movie ever… I can’t say for sure. I’d probably have to binge all of them to know for sure. But considering I haven’t seen a marvel movie in theaters since endgame, this particular movie was worth coming out to see.

We have Shang-Chi and the ten rings and Black Widow on dvd so I haven’t been completely out of the loop… there’s just been this weird void in my chest since “I am Iron-Man” was last spoken. Seeing his image briefly in the marvel logo at the start of this movie- not gonna lie- I almost choked up.

This particular section of the marvel universe has been the perfect cross section of eye candy, mythology and sci-fi… I don’t think I realized how much I needed it to get back into the swing of things, especially with how the last 2 years have been.

Grade: A

Trailers (a lot of repeat offenders...):

• Nope- Jordan peele movie
• Paws of fury- this trailer actually showed who did what voice
• Super pets
• Strange world
• Avatar

New trailers

• Bullet train- some movie with Brad Pitt being an agent and someone involved in one of his previous jobs comes back for revenge
• Amsterdam- the new David O Russell movie starring Margot Robbie and Christian Bale... looked really interesting