No spoilers, but there are mid-credits and post-credits scenes, which both do an important job of setting up a possible an inevitable sequel.
Believe it or not, my biggest takeaway after watching Thor: Love and Thunder — director and Korg actor Taika Waititi’s sequel to his 2017 hit Thor: Ragnarok — is that Waititi’s favorite Mad Max film may be Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome. Beyond Thunderdome was a scrappy follow-up to the stone cold classic Mad Max 2, but it has a lot of fun elements that might make it someone’s favorite in the series, especially if they grew up with it as a child. Likewise, Love and Thunder is a messy film and nowhere near the breath of fresh air Ragnarok was, but was it ever going to be? It’s another Waititi film in the MCU, a happy-sad-silly-sweet adventure, and that remains a very good thing.
One major difference from Ragnarok is that Love and Thunder has to continue several threads from previous films, and begin all-new ones, instead of just pushing the plunger on a detonator that reads “Blow up Asgard.” The film begins about three times, first with a strikingly somber prologue depicting Gorr the God Butcher’s origin, then Thor’s adventures with the Guardians of the Galaxy, and finally the cancer-stricken Jane Foster’s transformation into the Mighty Thor. Waititi, apparently aware of how much he has to juggle, has the rambling Korg narrate the film, somewhat justifying why he spends so much time establishing/reestablishing some stuff, and almost no time on other things.
Waititi’s decisions on what to prioritize explaining pays off with varying results: for instance, there’s a terrific interlude where Korg backtracks and finally fills in the audience on what happened to Thor and Jane between Ragnarok and The Dark World, while the decision to stop treating the Asgardians as advanced aliens, and depict the gods of every pantheon as being real without any explanation, makes complete sense. On the other hand, the sudden introduction of one character overshadows the sight gag kicking off his entrance, while the decision to remind the audience what happened to Mjolnir by bringing back Sam Neill, Luke Hemsworth, and Matt Damon as the actors playing Odin, Thor, and Loki, smacks slightly of self-indulgence.
Ragnarok‘s freshness is by far by the biggest cloud hanging over this film, since every idea Waititi has bears comparison to what he did last time, like the strong emphasis on Guns N’ Roses in the soundtrack: although good, these moments are never as thrilling as the use of Led Zeppelin’s “Immigrant Song” in the previous film. The Omnipotent City sequence feels like an attempt to recapture the magic of Sakaar: while hilarious, Russell Crowe’s outrageously Greek-accented Zeus feels especially like an understudy for Jeff Goldblum’s Grandmaster (complete with orgy jokes), and even Thor’s much anticipated nude scene is essentially an escalation of the Hulk’s infamous butt shot.
The use of the relatively softer Guns N’ Roses over Led Zeppelin is a good symbol for the film’s goals as well: unlike Ragnarok, which was first and foremost a comedy about the end of Thor’s world, this is a more sentimental tale about heartbreak, and how Thor learns to (surprise) love again after the loss he’s endured in almost every film appearance. It’s lovely (no pun intended) to see Chris Hemsworth and Natalie Portman together again, with all the chemistry that seemed to dissipate in The Dark World — part of you will wish these two could star in their own rom-com, without any supervillains bothering them. Portman unsurprisingly seems to relish playing Jane as a funny action hero, while bringing the necessary pathos and gravitas to the character’s fight with cancer.
That said, the film’s villain is terrific: Christian Bale’s Gorr, whose visage here is truly the stuff of nightmares, is a far more reasonable, sympathetic, and funny character than his comics counterpart, whose quest for catharsis genuinely parallels Thor’s story thematically. He unfortunately sits out the second act, for plot reasons that are understandable but still disappointing; however, Bale’s performance, the striking black-and-white visuals that come with his powers, and his story arc means he remains a thoroughly satisfying villain. Some may be disappointed he’s not a CG monster like the print version, or that his god-killing takes place mostly offscreen, but Waititi has taken the core of a largely generic character, and made him into something truly memorable.
Waititi himself continues to be a delight as Korg, while Tessa Thompson understandably takes a bit of a backseat as Valkyrie, although her character’s survivor’s guilt is touched upon. Hemsworth remains great as the ignorant but wisecracking God of Thunder, and this time gets to act opposite Stormbreaker, which Waititi has imbued with a bitter personality in a fantastic subplot about Thor missing Mjolnir: it may’ve outshone Doctor Strange’s Cloak of Levitation as the best inanimate performer in the MCU. However, the real scene stealers are Thor’s new goats Toothgnasher and Toothgrinder, whose constant screaming is the platonic ideal of a joke that is repeated so many times it becomes unfunny and then funny again; as I write this, I’m still snickering at how uncomfortably bizarre they were.
There’s so much else to recommend that I sadly don’t have time to get into, from the Jim Henson feel of some of the visuals, to the continued, undeniable LGBTQIA+ representation in Marvel/Disney films, and loads more memorably quirky jokes and music choices (trust me when I say it’s Thor’s turn to be a witch.) Based on the overall reviews for this (at the time of writing, it’s sitting at 69 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, which is nice but too close to The Dark World‘s reviews for comfort), it seems the honeymoon period for Waititi is over, and that he might move on from Marvel and Thor, but I definitely wouldn’t mind seeing him complete his trilogy, and explore the exciting status quo he sets up at the end of this movie — plus, if my Beyond Thunderdome analogy holds any water, that would make his next Thor film the Fury Road of the franchise.
