What’s behind Taika’s fall from sweetheart to hate figure
The fans who once adored the Thor: Love and Thunder director now think he’s having a laugh. Wait until they see what he does with Star Wars, writes Ed Power.
The hammer of the geeks has fallen upon Thor: Love and Thunder. Marvel’s latest big-screen romp has earned a muscular US$302 million at the global box office on opening weekend and has been well received by critics.
And yet, out in the wilds of the nerdom the reaction has been very different. Hardcore comic book fans appear to loathe the movie’s jokey tone, claiming that at moments it is difficult to tell if Love and Thunder is a superhero movie or a Mel Brooks-style parody of the genre (a sort of Blazing Spandex).
And the person they blame is not Thor actor Chris Hemsworth or Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige – but the film’s co-writer and director Taika Waititi.
‘‘Taika Waititi,’’ went one typical assessment, ‘‘has lost all of his earnest charm, dry sense of humour and reliability that made his earlier work so compelling and is now just an unfunny rich corporate d...head’’.
‘‘I’ve never seen anyone lose as much goodwill as quickly for a single movie as Taika Waititi,’’ said another. ‘‘He was Twitter’s golden boy a few months [ago]…. now all I’m seeing is hate for him.’’
It is easy to see why Love and Thunder would be so divisive. When Waititi joined the Marvel universe as director of 2017’s Thor: Ragnarok he brought a refreshing zing to the po-faced Norse God Of War. Ragnarok was recognisably a Marvel caper – but one spring-loaded with gags (helped by Jeff Goldblum gurning to the max as a villain).
Love and Thunder takes the wackiness that was a component of Ragnarok and cranks it all the way up. The film’s script is 90% banter between Thor and his sidekicks.
Russell Crowe turns up playing Greek god Zeus as a Monty Python character. There are two comedy goats whose shrieking is inspired by a complicated Taylor Swift meme. The best acting in the movie is by Thor’s axe, Stormbreaker, who fears it is being sidelined when Thor’s hammer, Mjo¨ lnir, makes a return.
The axe gags are undeniably hilarious. And yet you do have to wonder about a film that gives more screen-time to an inanimate object than to Tessa Thompson, playing flying warrior Valkyrie.
There is also a certain queasiness to writer/ director Waititi’s insistence on juxtaposing the never-ending chortling with some of Marvel’s most serious story beats yet.
Let’s start with the villain. The movie’s bad guy Gorr the God Butcher (Christian Bale, 100% not in on the joke) has kidnapped a group of children and locked them in a cell.
That plot line has landed with a thud in the United States, where people are still reeling from the Uvalde school shooting.
Even darker is the storyline of Jane Foster (Natalie Portman). Thor’s old girlfriend has been reborn as a gender-flipped ‘‘Mighty Thor’’ (she now has the hammer) after receiving a terminal cancer diagnosis. This is a film where guffaws about Thor’s bum sit alongside Portman delivering dialogue about stage four cancer. For many, that comedy cocktail has left a funny aftertaste.
And they have largely directed their ire at Waititi. The charge against him isn’t that he’s a Hollywood airhead in the vein of Michael Bay.
Or that he’s a self-glorifying hack comparable to Zack Snyder. It’s far more serious: fans see him as a sellout.
This is a film where guffaws about Thor’s bum sit alongside Portman delivering dialogue about stage four cancer. For many, that comedy cocktail has left a funny aftertaste.
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