Thor: Love And Thunder Movie Review:
Chris Hemsworth Is Back In Taika Waititi’s
Celebrated Humorous Playground With The
Risk Of Saturation; PS: Love You Christian
Bale!
Thor: Love And Thunder is entertaining and way better than Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness.
Star Cast: Chris Hemsworth, Natalie Portman, Christian Bale, Tessa Thompson, Taika Waititi, Vin Diesel, Chris Pratt, Bradley Cooper, Russell Crowe, Dave Bautista, and ensemble.
Director: Taika Waititi
What’s Good: Christian Bale is Gorr and no one else can take it from him now. Taika Waititi brings his USP humour as Chris Hemsworth moulds himself deeper in the style. Natalie Portman is a treat of course.
What’s Bad: The same humour that gave Thor a new life might even break him. The cracks are visible now and the saturation point seems to be coming closer.
Loo Break: Definitely not! This God on vacation is doing way more adventurous stuff than giving priority to nature’s call.
Watch or Not?: This question doesn’t even make sense. Do you think of missing a movie in the MCU timeline even?
Language: English (with subtitles).
Available On: In Theatres Near You!
Runtime: 119 Minutes. (Yes, it’s very short)
User Rating:
So after the events of Avengers: Endgame and everything that happened around Thor, the God of Thunder took some time off and went on a self-healing/affirmation process. He leads a life where he joins the Guardians Of The Galaxy on their mission and is still mighty even in clothes that look like stolen from a Rock Band member. Enters Gorr, The God Butcher, and begins the war that is to save all the Gods.
Thor: Love And Thunder Movie Review: Script Analysis
As a character, Thor has seen transformation not once but with every second movie. Good, bad, ugly, the character has been revamped so many times that you will be surprised if there is no change in the next movie. Enters Taika Waititi, who not just changed him, but even the world around. With Ragnarok, Taika introduced the illogical yet entertaining humour and made fans hooked to his product that was entirely different from the unsuccessful The Dark World.
But will that view of Thor and his world being full of jokes majorly work for the long run? About that later. Let’s dissect what is right now in close proximity, Love And Thunder. It is not that Taika Waititi is just focusing on the jokes and not much on the emotions. He has chosen Gorr to be his villain and what is darker than a man who lives in the realm of shadows, who has lost his family to a calamity and is owned by the dark powers now?
Written by Taika with Jennifer Kaytin Robinson, adapted from the Grandmaster Stan Lee’s works, Love And Thunder begins with a man wandering in a dystopian land praying to the gods to save his daughter from the famine and extinction. He loses her only to be attracted by a dark power. Boom, Taika introduces his humour and we meet the God that is first to be butchered. The opening unlike any other Marvel movie (at least I can think of) is a winner. Instant hook and a nod that the antagonist is no less than the protagonist who is a literal God.
The writing excels in bringing out the hopelessness in Thor. Remember his obesed version? Well that is extended and the hopelessness kind of continues. Even the Gods need vacation, hooks, and redemption. This part is where most of the heart in Love And Thunder lies. The love that was and still is, the planet that is dislocated to a new place, and all this is haunted by a butcher who is avenging his daughter, his grief and pain, but is also dying himself.
But what also overshadows all this is the comedy or call it the humour. Taika is known for it, but this time he sets the ratio of emotions to humour quite weirdly. More jokes and even jokes while emotions are at play only dilute the two and at some points ends up creating nothing. You notice this every time Gorr enters. There cannot be humour around him and you instantly see the difference and impact it creates. At one point Gorr and his redemption are in front of Thor and his face to face. A very raw moment but above-mentioned dilemma does affect that too.
But one has to accept the sheer audacity to have the most senseless things and make them look entertaining. There is a royal dumpling king Bao on a throne at one point and is hilarious. That is enough for you to guess how bizarre the news turns are.
Also, why mute words when an adult audience is sitting and watching the movie Disney? And if Chris Hemsworth’s butt is only cut in India and not other countries, fans won’t forgive you.
Thor: Love And Thunder Movie Review: Star Performance
Chris Hemsworth is a director’s actor and you can easily guess that. He manages to crack the Hopeless Thor quite naturally and the actor gets better at portraying his emotions. There is a hilarious angle where he is supposed to be in a dilemma about his two weapons (Storm Breaker and Mjolnir) that is hands down the best thing about this portrayal.
Christian Bale is the man of the hour. He embodies Gorr like he was born to play him. With everything about his character in control, his gaze will even spook the viewer, forget everyone involved on screen. Bale gets to be the guy who goes through transformation and he makes sure you are with him on the journey. The camera does the rest by keeping frames around him tight and letting his brilliant expressions do the job and prove his mettle.
Natalie Portman is back after what seems like an eternity and is entirely revamped. She gets to be Chris’s redemption and every single thing about her is so charismatic this time around. The character deserved this for the longest time and I am happy they didn’t do ‘Black Widow’ to it.
Tessa Thompson is what Taika Waititi would be like if he cast himself in the movie as an actor. He writes Valkyrie as a character that voices his emotions in the movie and it’s easily visible. The hints at her s*xuality and not making a fuss about it is commendable.
Thor: Love And Thunder Movie Review: Direction, Music
Taika Waititi does what he does best. The filmmaker has already called his film the most random, hilarious, and massive product, which it does end up becoming. But my fear lies in Thor’s future. There was a time when Mighty Thor’s entry would trigger a sense of intrigue and fear that everything ends here. But since Ragnarok, all his entries have only triggered laughter and served as a comic point baring a couple of them.
Now if at any point, Thor has to be in a setup like the Moon Knight, will we be able to bring that emotion of intrigue, thrill and fear back, or just end up giggling? What has made Thor can also easily break him. The saturation point of humour is even visible in Love And Thunder.
One doesn’t need to tell you how amazing the visuals are because it’s the MCU and we don’t expect anything but the best at least in terms of visuals. But the background score could have been much better, because Ragnarok was an iconic one. Also, there is Star Lord in here, how is there a lack of music? Not appreciated.
Thor: Love And Thunder Movie Review: The Last Word
Thor: Love And Thunder is entertaining and way better than Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness. But the style is at the rim of saturation and the future needs to be shaped differently. There is no way you will miss this regardless of reviews, so go and watch!
Thor: Love And Thunder Trailer
Thor: Love And Thunder releases on 08th July, 2022.
Share with us your experience of watching Thor: Love And Thunder.