GORR + THOR = BORE
Latest adventure fails to capture lightning in a bottle
It pains me to say this, but I have very little love and only stern, judgmental thunder for Marvel's newest Thor movie. They've only been getting better since the first Thor hit theatres in 2011, making 2017's Ragnarok the best of the bunch, delightfully goofy fun. But every streak has to end, and director and co-writer Taika Waititi loses his way here.
Love and Thunder's opening feels more like a post-credit scene from another Marvel movie, as a grungy grump named Gorr (Christian Bale) reinvents himself as Gorr the God Butcher. He looks like a nosier version of Voldemort and is armed with something called a necro-sword, which is like a regular sword except I'm guessing from the name that it — kills people? No wait, it kills gods! Which is what Thor is! Oh no! (Rule No. 1 of spoilers: Anything in the first 10 minutes is fair game.)
So Thor has to stop Gorr, who for good measure has kidnapped all the young'uns of New Asgard, a city in Norway where Thor's people settled after the planetary destruction that was Ragnarok. Thor (Chris Hemsworth) is aided by Valkyrie (Tessa Thompson), Korg (a rock creature voiced by Waititi) and Thor.
Yep, Love and Thunder features two Thors, the second played by Natalie Portman, the thunder god's erstwhile love interest, who also sat out the last movie. Seems her scientist character, Jane Foster, is suffering from stage-four cancer — an oddly specific and dire real-world malady for a Marvel movie — and only Thor's hammer can keep her alive. But it's also slowly killing her. Not sure how or why, but it is. (Rule No. 2: You can't spoil what you don't understand.)
So while Thortman gets Mjölnir the hammer, Hemsthor has to make do with Stormbreaker, a hefty battleaxe. His subsequent pining for his old weapon is funny for about half as long as it lasts, and indicative of one of the main problems with this movie — old jokes get overtold, while new ones are undersold.
And speaking of underselling, enjoy the Guardians of the Galaxy while you can, because despite their prominence in trailers, they're little more than a collective cameo in the finished film. They do get to fight creatures that look like Muppets re-enacting Mad Max on Star Wars pod racers, which is indicative of another of the movie's problems — it's as though a film from the 1980s had been given a budget from the 2020s. Given Thor's reported price tag of $250 million, we're now at the point where Waititi finally has more money than he knows what to do with.
He throws a lot of that cash into a scene in Omnipotent City, which I briefly thought was the name of that Google-run neighbourhood which almost got built on Toronto's waterfront.
It's the hangout of the gods, and the one part of the film that nearly takes giddy, entertaining flight, though I don't know if we needed the Loki cameo. (Rule
No. 3: It's not a spoiler if you just made it up.)
But the rest of the movie is a bit of a wash. Even the climactic battle feels uninspired, like the film is just going through the motions on its way to a resolution and a couple of post-credit sequences. (Rule No. 4: It's not a spoiler if you know it's coming.)
Oh, and can we please instate a 10-year moratorium on putting Guns N' Roses' Welcome to the Jungle into your movie to pump things up? I feel like Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle was a good time to let it rest, but it's still in heavy rotation at the multiplex.
The film ends with a promise, once relegated to the Bond franchise, that “Thor will return.” We can also presume that Waititi, now with two Marvel movies under his belt, will also be back for more. I just hope that both these gods of comic thunder can manage to once again capture lightning in a bottle. Love and Thunder wasn't it.
If you told him back in 2009 — when he was first cast as Thor — that he would still be playing Marvel's God of Thunder 13 years later, Chris Hemsworth wouldn't have believed you.
Then just 25, the buff Aussie actor was trying to find his footing in Hollywood. As the nascent studio was in the early stages of planting the seeds for what became known as the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Hemsworth was a virtual unknown vying for the opportunity to wield the powerful hammer named Mjolnir and one day fight alongside the Avengers.
But through a bit of luck, Hemsworth landed the part that changed his life. Still, as he remembers it, the whole time he was filming that first Thor movie with director Kenneth Branagh, he kept thinking: I won't be here long.
“I didn't even really understand it. I signed a contract to do Thor films and Avengers films, but for most of Thor, I thought I was going to be recast,” Hemsworth, 38, tells the Sun. “Then, when we were doing Avengers, I thought that was the end and no one would want me back.”
But the character became a Marvel fan favourite, with Hemsworth playing the godlike hero in eight different movies. After a long wait, the highly anticipated followup to 2017's Thor: Ragnarok — Thor: Love and Thunder — is now in theatres. “It's just kept on going and anything I could have imagined back then; this is well above and beyond that dream. So I'm very thankful,” Hemsworth says.
Thor's fourth solo appearance is again directed and co-written by Taika Waititi and finds the hero embarking on intergalactic Guns N' Roses-fuelled battles as he wrestles with a mid-life crisis after the events of Avengers: Endgame. As he ditches New Asgard to journey through the cosmos hoping to find inner peace alongside the Guardians of the Galaxy, his efforts are interrupted by a god-killing villain known as Gorr the God Butcher (Christian Bale) hell-bent on remaking the universe. To combat the madman, Thor enlists the help of King Valkyrie (Tessa Thompson), Korg (Waititi) and ex-girlfriend Jane Foster (Natalie Portman), who — to Thor's surprise — fulfils her comics destiny and wields his magical hammer, Mjolnir, as the Mighty Thor. Together, they set out on a harrowing cosmic adventure to stop the God Butcher before it's too late.
Of course, there's Waititi's trademark humour, but the film pulsates with an emotional arc thanks to the rekindled love between Thor and Foster.
“I wanted to introduce a concept that I think a lot of fans really don't think they want when they're watching a Thor film, and that's the idea of love,” Waititi explains. “Some fans might be like, `Ew, kissing, yuck.'
“But I think kissing is a really great thing. I love kissing. So love is this really cool thing that we explore in the film. This ended up being my first romance.”
With the rest of Marvel's original stars hanging up their tights, this fresh take on Thor will presumably help usher in the company's next phase of storytelling.
In a recent interview with Total Film, Marvel Studios boss Kevin Feige hinted Hemsworth will continue playing the character for many years after his appearance in Love and Thunder.
“I know this: there are many, many other Thor stories in the comics that we talk about a lot, and as we watch Chris Hemsworth continue to grow and evolve as a major acting talent, I would be excited to see how he keeps evolving this complex character,” he said.
Waititi echoes that sentiment, saying his leading man can easily “do this for the rest of his life if he wants.”
Hemsworth just hopes that he can do something different once again the next time out.
“The reason I watch films, and as a young kid went to the cinema, was to have a good time and be taken on some wild adventures. That's what we've aimed to do with each of these films and every time I've played the character, I've tried to do something unique and fresh with it,” the father of three says.
Hemsworth has played Thor for more than a decade — and how has his character changed across eight films?
“I think it has paralleled my own personal journey,” he says. “In the first film, there was a stoic nature to the character and I was trying to tick all the boxes of what a hero looked like, just like I was in my career. I was trying to figure out who I was and was I any good at this and did I deserve to be here — there were a lot of questions. As the films have evolved and the character has been allowed to change, I think some of that has had a lot to do with my own personal opinions on how to perform. I think allowing there to be more vulnerability with the character and not feel like I had to position myself as the traditional archetype of a hero, is what audiences have responded to.”
And speaking of vulnerable — there's a much-talked about scene in the movie where Thor flashes his butt. Hemsworth says it didn't take much to convince him to do the scene.
“I'm willing to self-deprecate and have a laugh and take the piss out of myself. It's all part of it. Taika asked me and I said, `Alright, whatever,' and it was ridiculous and funny. I don't know where we go from here, though. I've taken more and more clothing off throughout the films and now that's all of it. So this might be it.”