I watch all MCU movies, but it is definitely not because they tend to release around my and a friend’s birthdays. Anyway, I watched Thor: Love and Thunder over the weekend, and after ‘Doctor Strange: Multiverse of Madness’, it was a downright treat.
I know it has a bad Rotten Tomatoes rating: 68% compared to 79% for ‘Black Widow’ and ‘Captain Marvel’. Even MoM has a 74% rating. But, as an aside, the vitriol against ‘Captain Marvel’ is downright unfair. I love the movie and the character, but I do acknowledge its propaganda. But so are most MCU movies. It’s the misogyny that’s directed at Brie Larson. You know it.
I judge movies on a straightforward criterion: did I enjoy them? For the latest Thor, yes. I have been a begrudging Taika Waititi fan since I watched ‘What We Do in the Shadows’, and after recently finishing ‘Our Flag Means Death’, I was looking forward to it. After all, ‘Thor: Ragnarok’ is one of my favourite MCU movies.
It’s been directed and written by Taika Waititi, his first MCU movie where he had complete control of the movie. It stars Chris Hemsworth, Natalie Portman, Christian Bale and Tessa Thompson, with a few names with star power coming on as cameos (Hello! What’s up with Russell Crowe’s russian accent as Zeus?).
What Thor 4 has is a brilliant villain in Christian Bale as Gorr, the God Butcher, but we never see him butchering any gods as such. Rumour has it he was to be shown killing three overpowered entities, but the scenes were cut. The movie was supposedly cut to half to 2 hours from 4 hours. Because of that, it’s pretty fast-paced. Something is always happening. But the fast pace comes at the cost of doing away with emotions and character development. Bale is under-utilised in a role that he executed to perfection. He might be one of my favourite antagonists ever. The scenes with Lena Headey were cut, along with the Grandmaster (Jeff Goldblum) and Etiri (Peter Dinklage), and we can guess what they were.
It’s a good action movie, the fight scenes are not over-done, and the choreography seemed just a notch under the beautiful fight scenes in ‘Shang-Chi’. The humour is fun, but as fans have been suggesting, it might come at the cost of detracting from the Thor as majestic lore. I don’t mind it, but I can see where they are coming from. The movie doesn’t take itself too seriously. After all, we have screeching space goats (MVP of the movie). The rest of the characters are excellent in their acting, as expected. Natalie Portman makes for an engaging Mighty Thor, and I think I want to see Valkyrie and her embark on their adventures. Thor is yet again on a quest to find himself, but I guess when you live for thousands of years, that’s bound to happen. However, it’s established subtly how he doesn’t need any weapons to be ‘Thor’. We see him wield at least three weapons and go weaponless.
It’s a love story, a space opera, and an action-packed drama. But, unfortunately, the film tries to do too much in too little time. So the end verdict is that the reason Thor 4 suffers is due to its limited runtime. It would have benefited by adding 30 minutes or so.