Thor: Love and Thunder (2022) | a Review
originally published on 19/08/2022;
Hello everyone, I am the divinely mortal, G.E.M.Simov, a fan of Thor (purely because of the fact it supposedly deals with Norse mythology) come to talk to you about the most recent Thor movie - Thor: Love and Thunder.
Simple review details - I rank films on an out of 10 basis, granting up to 3 points in 3 categories, as well as a last, single point from my own self, depending on my experience with it.
A disclaimer - the terms 'movie' and 'film' will be used interchangeably in this review.
Presentation
As with most of the Marvel movies I’ve recently seen, my initial thought was that the presentation was okay-ly done, but not too fantastically. Then, however, the more I thought about it, the more I started thinking to myself that maybe the presentation of this particular movie is, actually, not just satisfactory, but rather quite exemplary.
Maybe not exemplary, but a bit more than just decent.
What makes me think so? Well, for one, I’d have to say that part of the reason why I am of this opinion is the fact that this movie is far more focused on being a comedy, rather than being a serious (as serious as Marvel superhero movies are) movie. It is a somewhat refreshing showing in comparison to the two most recent superhero movies in my mind - those being ‘Joker’ from 2019 and ‘The Batman’ from 2022. It might not be very fair to treat those as THE recent superhero movies, but those are the ones that seemed, to me, to get the critical acclaim that movies desire.
So when Thor: Love and Thunder (henceforth TLOT) shows up and is unapologetically, almost, a comedy, I find that very refreshing. Even with the Marvel stuff that’s either more recent OR more successful - you’ve got “Avengers: Infinity War” and “Avengers: Endgame”, two very serious movies based on their subject matter, and then you’ve got “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness”, which is almost a slightly slapstick movie made serious and grim by the subject matter - as the exploration of a person’s mental deterioration caused by forces outside of their control is relatively heavy - TLOT sticks out.
These aforementioned Marvel movies do feature a few laughs and goofs, but they’re interspersed almost sparingly. This movie, on the other hand, features almost exclusively laughs and goofs, except when the villain is present. Even the more serious scenes are slightly dipped in the funny paint.
I think that was not only purposeful, but also helps to grant levity to the situations that occur outside of the villains direct presence. Sure, he’s scary and threatening, but that does not mean things can’t be. After all, laughter and merriment are parts of being, as a result of which one can not just cease doing those things, even if seriousness might be required.
Fortunately, whenever one needs to be serious the movie does get serious. But, then, considering those things… Isn’t there a problem? Are those not two different movies - a funky rom-com about Thor and Thor and an existential/theological conundrum exemplified in an action flick about Gorr and his quest to kill the gods?
Perhaps they are. Perhaps they are not. They get tied together quite nicely and maybe manage to remain one whole, rather than being two different things.
Back to the manner of presentation - this movie was well presented. I could clearly hear what the actors were saying, and I had no trouble understanding what they were saying, with the exception of, maybe, Zeus, whose accent was… Why did Russel Crowe do that?
The music in the movie was, as is customary with Marvel films, very unimportant. It was there, there were a few tracks that got an: “aha!” out of me, but nothing wound up being memorable.
I absolutely loved the way the shadow realm looked, as well as the absence of color for most of the fight, safe for the godly powers/weapons. That was really neat, even if it was just a filter. I also quite liked the effects that showed up during the fight scene.
In truth, I really liked the way the creatures created by Gorr looked. They were almost eldritch in appearance, but there was never any real focus on them, which made them all the better for it. They were there, they were fodder - spooky fodder, but fodder still - and yet I quite liked them. Hmm…
I also loved the scene wherein the resolution of the story was set, as well as the appearance of the… The macguffin, let’s call it that. I really, really liked how that looked.
There was one scene that was particularly weird to me. I don’t think I liked it, purley because of the way it was presented. When someone’s face gets tied up to the back of someone’s head and the audience is shown shots of that face as the person whose head it is tied to is moving rapidly, that’s when you get the big un-fun for the eyeballs.
The outfits were great, except for Gorr. Gorr looked like ‘the Nun’ (2018).
Overall, though, the movie was not bad. I almost wanted to give it a three, but I’ll settle for a two. 2/3
Acting
It was not bad, it was not exceptionally good. As mentioned previously, the Russel Crowe accent was very off putting, but then it also really exemplified the disconnect Zeus had with the world. He was not of it, even if at one point he was part of it.
I’m going to point at a scene where a very important character dies (spoilers?) and say that Chris Hemsworth should have had a tear rolling down his side in said scene, but big strong man can’t cry so he did not.
There was nothing that stood out particularly, even if I did find the performance provided by Christian Bale to be pretty neat - that might be because I simply like the look of the character he played. Either way, nothing bad, nothing too good. 3/3
Story
The Story comes in and I’d say it is a mess. Firstly, this guy is hunting down and killing the Gods (for a very good reason). When we are introduced to ‘this guy’ (Gorr), the weapon that he winds up using belongs to a dead God, and that dead God was slain by Rapu. Rapu, then, winds up just getting instantly killed by Gorr. He gets merked SO fast that he fails to provide any resistance, making me very curious as to how it was that he got to kill the ex-wielder of the Necrosword.
Sure, one could argue surprise being the deciding factor, but… How come that’s a god if it gets surprised so?
That problem leads into the second problem - how are these fellows, who get the moniker ‘god’ in this movie, actually gods? Take, as an example, Thor - how, come, Thor is a god? In the first movie in the franchise, it worked. He was a God who could only get to Asgard through use of the Bifrost. It seemed as though the only means of reaching Asgard were through the use of the Bifrost, which indicated that there was a clear separation between the mortal world - what was shown of Earth at the time - and everything happening in the magical/divine world, which was Asgard and the other realms.
Then the Avengers roll over and it gets slightly muddied up, but it’s still clear enough. THEN Thor 2 comes in and space elves. With spaceships. Asgard slowly starts transitioning from a place in myth to a place in reality, and by doing so Thor slowly starts losing his truly divine status and the title of ‘god’ becomes just that - a title or a means of being called so.
Then we get to Thor: Ragnarok and it gets thoroughly messed up. Asgard, you see, is a planet. And it is reachable by ship. Thor, actually, is an asgardian. Sure, he gets told that he is the God of Thunder, but… is he?
What’s to say that he isn’t just some creature (alien asgardian) empowered by infinity stone dust/existence in the same way Wanda was empowered by an infinity stone, turning her into who she wound up being? After all, is her power not godlike? Is it not impressive, especially considering what she winds up able to do in the later stages of her character’s existence?
Having that as food for thought, how come they are gods? They could just be very long-lived beings that wield great powers. They may be referred to as Gods because of the fact that they interacted with earthlings (or other, weaker on average people) who saw them as Gods, and dubbed them so. In any case, there really seems to be a… A lack of something. A lack of grounding? I can’t quite tell, but something’s missing.
They are Gods, but then there’s no real explanation as to how or why they are. That’s made even worse by the fact that when a certain someone kicks the bucket, a certain someone whom we know is mortal, they turn into gold god dust.
Makes you think and wonder how that’s that.
Another thing that leaves me with a foul taste in my mouth. Zeus - he’s here again - is made up to be super cool and super powerful. His Lightning Bolt is THE CHEESE, if you get my drift, so that indicates he, too, is VERY CHEESY.
However, the way everything winds up happening with Zeus is quite underwhelming and unpleasant. Not only does he get merked in one hit, not only does he get the tables turned on him quite violently, but he also just doesn’t seem all that great or powerful. The chains he had utilized as a means of holding down Thor were broken off with impressive ease, and his weapon seems to be useable/wieldable by anyone who wants to, even if the theme, so far, has been that God weapons are very picky.
The ending was very reminiscent of Shazam’s ending. EVERYONE gets to be Shaza– I mean Thor! Fortunately, Thor specified that it was for a limited time only. THEN there’s also the meme of Stormbreaker being useable by just about anyone (queue Axel, Gorr and the Necrosword). THEN there’s also the meme of Stormbreaker - which is in-tune with Thor and literally made through his ‘death’, as in their existences appear quite merged to me from what we get shown in ‘Infinity War’ - just not doing what Thor wants it to do and having a mind of its own.
The mind of its own thing is ludicrously hammed up here, yet only when it does not matter to the story. In fact, it is so conveniently left out of moments when it could do wonders for the story that I found it quite unnerving how inconsequential all the scenes establishing Stormbreaker as a slightly jealous girlfriend/boyfriend/friend were.
I like the fact that X (you know who it is) dies at the end. I quite like the fact that Thor does what he does, and says what he says, and how that actually does do something about Gorr. It’s very real, frankly, and it could almost be the solution to the problem being faced by Gorr… But let’s face it, a little bit of love is not going to balance out the great atrocities committed by humans in the name of their gods (and the one with the big G).
Not only that, but this seems to be the golden ticket for this film. The human aspect of it - sure, those might be godlike (god-ish?) beings doing outlandishly superheroic and inhuman things, but they’re very human inside. Dealing with one’s impending death, dealing with the death of a loved one, dealing with abandonment, dealing with emotional baggage, dealing with human things. It was very refreshing to see things explored, even if they did not truly go as in-depth as they could have, even if they went very deep through the veil of comedy…
I liked it. Especially that bit at the start which Peter Quill shares - about the emptiness and the bad, and how feeling the latter is better than feeling the former… I liked that a lot.
Still, all things considered, 2/3
Legendary Point
Does this movie get the legendary point, so craved and wanted by all and none at the same time?
This one was a toughie. I really, REALLY love the concept behind Gorr’s struggle. I love it. I absolutely adore it. This is something impressively refreshing, astoundingly pleasant and lovely.
Then, though, the movie wound up being unimpressive and Gorr was not well developed. I mean, he was decently developed - we got to see some scenes of him doing his thing, I suppose, but… He was a bit of a secondary character, even if he was the villain of the story. So NO, not giving it the point. 0/1
Conclusion
6/10. It’s a movie. A Marvel superhero movie. It’s decently well done, it’s decently competent, but it’s nothing too impressive. Watch it if you like Norse mythology… Or maybe don’t, because it barely has any of that. Watch it if you’re a fan of Marvel, or if you need to have something on the TV.
In… In the bag of mediocrity? I don’t think I’ll be revisiting this, even if I did like Zeus’ entourage and their reactions to his undressing of Thor. Ah well, let it gather dust in the bag of mediocrity. It’s mediocre.