Hammer time
THOR: LOVE AND THUNDER
Cert 12A ★★★ In cinemas now
Five years ago, Chris Hemsworth’s god of thunder hammered a sizable dent in the box office with Thor: Ragnarok. With its cheesy heavy metal styling, self-aware comedy and Jeff Goldblum’s gold lame dressing gown, director Taika Waititi provided a crowd-pleasing alternative to The Dark World, the space deity’s dour previous film.
Often for the better, but sometimes for the worse, Love and Thunder is our flaxen-haired hero turned up to 11.
Thor is now a full-on comedy character – an insecure himbo trying to make sense of the overblown world he lives in.
There are some very funny moments, the most memorable involving a cameo from Russell Crowe as vain Greek god Zeus.
Apparently, a lot of research goes into Crowe’s terrible accents. This time he seems to have been poring over old recordings of Harry Enfield’s kebab shop owner Stavros.
But tonally and narratively it’s a mess – a ramshackle blend of low-stakes action scenes, Guns N’ Roses needle drops and franchise-building sub plots.
The plot sees him tangle with Christian Bale’s Gorr The God Slayer, introduced in an excellent pre-credit sequence where he finds the “Necrosword” and vows revenge on the gods who allowed his infant daughter to starve to death. Bale is eerily intense but soon gets lost in the cosmic sketch show.
Waititi switches to rom-com mode when Thor reunites with old flame Dr Jane Foster (Natalie Portman) who has been granted the powers of Thor by his damaged magical hammer Mjolnir.
Since the mass resurrection in Avengers: Endgame, death isn’t a serious issue in Marvel’s Cinematic Universe.
Scenes of Jane undergoing chemotherapy for stage four cancer should have been left in the comic books.
Often for the better, sometimes for the worse, our hero is turned up to 11