Review: Marvel's "Thor: Love & Thunder"

Thor: Love & Thunder is a little hard to nail down. One the one hand, it’s everything that audiences have become accustomed to with an MCU film, albeit in a pared down form. On the other, though, it’s a risky experiment where the focus is on relationship and emotion, rather than spectacle. And, as such, audiences are understandably split on the film, with very little middle ground. People either absolutely love it, or they loathe it with the entirety of their beings.

One of the issues audiences seem to be having the most is that the movie is far more of a comedy than anything else. In every other MCU installment, while humor was always an important element, it was never the driving force. The films were about good versus evil, epic showdowns, and scientific ballyhoo. With Love & Thunder, though, everything is building to a joke. The focus isn’t on set pieces. The action is the background for the humor.

Take, for instance, the first big battle scene where Thor returns to New Asgard to fend off Gorr the God Butcher’s shadow beasts and meets with Jane Foster for the first time in nearly a decade. Sure, there were hammers flying and axes swinging, but the point of the scene was the reconnecting of wayward lovers. It was about showcasing how they drifted apart and the mixed up feeling they both still had, even after so much time had passed. The battle sequence was simply the tool to bring them back together.

The problem is that’s not what anyone was expecting. Even though it was clear from the trailers that there was going to be a higher level of introspection for the character of Thor, with the film essentially breaking him down and rebuilding him to exist in the MCU after the Infinity Saga, most were still expecting the film to follow the general format of Marvel movies, and, well, it didn’t, at least not it the traditional way. Audiences kept waiting for the issues between Gorr and Thor to build and become something tangible. But that just never happened, because Gorr and Thor weren’t really enemies, at least not in the way Thor was at odds with a character like Hela or Thanos. More accurately, they were opposing forces heading towards each other on the same track. It was inevitable that they collide, but that collision wasn’t the point and was essentially void of animosity (outside of Gorr’s general hatred for God’s, but it wasn’t really about Thor, personally).

This all leads to the biggest issue with the film: marketing. Simply put, Thor: Love & Thunder didn’t end up being what Disney/Marvel said it would. The trailers and all the advertising showcased a rollicking action comedy that promised adventure throughout the cosmos. And while that was certainly an important element, the actual product is more akin to a traditional romantic comedy than anything else, being, at least tonally, more similar to a film like Harry Met Sally, than any of its Marvel forebearers.

In terms of the film itself, when looking at it through the lens a rom-com, it’s actually quite successful. Chris Hemsworth and Natalie Portman have electric chemistry and it’s their relationship that keeps the movie moving. The dynamic they create, of two people who really loved each other, but couldn’t get over their differences, feels both authentic and timely. And then the yearning they still have after coming back into each other’s lives feels honest, like this is a story that could just as easily be happening in Nicolas Sparks-inspired film.

Beyond the central characters, the real stand out of the project is Christian Bale as the primary antagonist, Gorr the God Butcher. The character is a little more developed than the average Marvel baddie, and he comes across as a more of a sympathetic villain, along the lines of Killmonger. The opening sees him lose his daughter in the desert wasteland of his planet. After she dies, he comes across an oasis that happens to have the God he’d been worshipping in it. Upon realizing that the God didn’t care for him or his people, he snapped and the Necrosword came to him. This wasn’t an issue of being corrupted, such as Wanda/Scarlet Witch was with the Darkhold in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, but rather he became worthy of the weapon, mirroring Thor with Mjolnir. And throughout the movie, even as he does seemingly evil things, it’s all pointed toward an ultimate goal, that is, from his point of view, a good thing: to rid the universe of uncaring Gods. And what’s more, his goal is understandable, especially given his history. If the relationship between Thor and Jane is the beating heart of the film, Gorr is the steely spirit.

In terms of missteps, there were several places where the film missed the mark. For instance, the Guardians of the Galaxy were utterly wasted. It was clear that they only popped up in the project because Thor left Earth with them after the events of Endgame. There was a ham-fisted attempt to establish the emotional core for the film at the start, with Thor and Star-Lord having a deep conversation, but it just came across as forced. Love & Thunder is, first and foremost, a Thor film, but if you are going to include such heavyweight characters, there should be more of a reason to it and they should have more to do, even within the confines of a cameo.

Also, the introduction of the Greek Gods was lacking. While it was certainly fun to see Russell Crowe chewing every bit of scenery he could get his jaws around as the rowdy Zeus, bad accent at all, it came across as too campy. Zeus, given the lore behind the character, should have a similar characterization to Odin, as a powerful monarch that even the other Gods fear. Rather, he was a bawdy loudmouth that was easily dispatched by Thor and his friends. It’s kind of like the Mandarin bait-and-switch from Iron Man 3, and really felt like a missed opportunity, even if it did lead to the MCU debut of Hercules (fingers crossed this leads to an adaptation of The Incredible Hercules!).

All things considered; this film is far more successful than not. To say that Love & Thunder is the worst film in the MCU is a bit much, though. Rather, it is the most misunderstood installment since Iron Man 3. Marvel has always prided itself on its ability to blend genres, like how Captain America: The Winter Soldier was a political thriller and Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness included a lot of horror elements, Thor: Love & Thunder is unabashedly a romantic comedy. But audiences just weren’t aware of that, and as such, it missed the mark because it wasn’t what fans were expecting. But taking it as a rom-com, it stands as one of the more successful films of the last several years and it’s earnest portrayal of lost love rekindling more than makes up for its few failings.