Thor: Love and Thunder Movie Review
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Thor: Love and Thunder (TLT) just hit the theatres and sad to say, it didn’t live up to my expectations.
TLT is the 4th movie of Thor and with the success of the previous movie, Thor: Ragnarok, I watched it in theatres with many expectations. There was a lot of hype in this film as it’s filled with stars including Natalie Portman as Mighty Thor/Jane and Christian Bale as Gorr. Comedy director Taika Waititi also returns to direct this film. However, these individual talents didn’t play well with the spectacle.
Underutilized antagonist
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The film’s villain Gorr has the title of the God Butcher. He was once a devoted follower of his god. His daughter died in his arms as they wander the desert. The grieving father then reached a paradise and met his god Rapu. Expecting a blessing in return, Gorr was mocked by the god and realized how selfish they are. He was then chosen by a cosmic weapon called Necrosword to kill Rapu and then vows to exterminate every god in the universe.
This is a great origin story for a villain but this vow was never shown in the film. He killed Rapu on screen while the others were never shown. At least a montage of his killings could have made it better but instead, it’s a bunch of exposition.
The issue that I can see here is that the creators felt Bale’s performance was too mature for the younger audience to see. There are plenty of scenes that Bale did but didn’t make it to the final cut. These include his long freaky cry after his daughter’s death followed by mutilating his tattoos that symbolize his devotion to his god.
Despite low screen time, Bale still gave a great performance for the character. It’s a good decision not to make him look like an alien similar to the comics and keep his humanlike appearance. This improves the acting performance of Bale as we can see his facial expressions so that we can empathize with his grief.
Thor developed backward
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It’s expected that the film will have plenty of jokes around because of Waititi. However, making a character dumb for the sake of comedy doesn’t always work.
This is the 4th Thor movie but his character is dumber than ever. Thor lived for hundreds of years, after Ragnarok he lost his family, lost his planet, and half of his people, and failed to kill Thanos on the first try. These events should have made him better. But whenever he’s on-screen he’s just joking around. It’s like proving that Gorr is right. Thor’s actions after the kids were kidnapped and when his weapon was stolen, it doesn’t feel like a big deal for him. It seems like what’s at stake is an afterthought and Thor and his team just wanted to fight.
Too many jokes
Comedy is Waititi’s strength. He delivered it well in Ragnarok where he adopted humor as means to cope. In TLT however, most of its jokes aren’t good. Some moments should have been serious but it turns into a comedic effect.
The screaming goats only made me laugh at first but three or more times, it’s becoming annoying. New Asgard is the land of survivors who lost their homes and people turned into a big tourist attraction. They also have an Ice Cream store that has a theme about what killed half of the universe. Thor gives a stupid speech after the kids were kidnapped by a murderer.
Maybe I’m just taking things too seriously because of how I expected the story should play out. I’m not saying it should be a humorless film either. The film is still good and worth watching. But it missed many opportunities with Gorr’s story.