Thor: Love and Thunder Review - A High Quantity Joke-Filled Marvel Movie

The first Avenger to receive the fourth movie is Thor and this is it. Directed by Taika Waititi and many fans were excited to see his return to direct after the huge success that Thor Ragnarok received worldwide. With many of the previous movie cast returning.

Along with the cast of Ragnarok, came some new cast in the form of the Guardians of the Galaxy which means that Love and Thunder is post-Endgame. Set in phase 4 of the Marvel Cinematic Universe this is the gateway to expanding Thor’s story.

Thor: Love and Thunder had a budget of $250 million and has currently (at the time of the writing of this review) $315.5 million box office.

Overview

Thor: Love and Thunder is the fourth movie that Thor has received. Many fans were excited about this movie because of the characters they were bringing to life, mainly The Mighty Thor. I was excited about this movie but this quickly changed.

Love and Thunder is just short of a 2-hour movie so already that means the movie will be going at a quick pace to get through the entire story. The story, mainly Jane Foster and Gorr’s stories respectfully felt insanely quick. Thor’s story was a decent pace.

Leading up to my viewing of Thor: Love and Thunder, I kept seeing many negative tweets, posts, videos, and photos of the movie, I normally ignore these before going into the movie, however, the abundance of negative posts did get me worried, and I see why.

I’ll explain why.

THE JOKES. One of the major things I saw was people complaining that Taika Waititi ruined Thor because of the jokes and after seeing this movie, I have to agree. When Taika Waititi first directed Thor Ragnarok, that movie had the right balance of seriousness and jokes and it worked, and it worked incredibly well.

However, Taika Waititi did add more jokes than he should have. Every 30 seconds or so there was a joke implemented into the dialogue or scene. Taika Waititi added a running joke of having 2 goats stay with Thor throughout the entire movie. It was annoying.

Another thing to take away was the use of CGI. In some shots, it was absolutely awful. You know, the movie has been out for around a week now. It’s a major Marvel movie, you’d think the CGI would be perfect but no. It wasn’t and this was even highlighted by Taika Waititi himself in a video promoting the movie, he said and ridiculed the CGI and VFX.

Story – SPOILERS BELOW

In a 119-minute movie, you have to go into it expecting a fast-paced story. You got exactly that. Immediately it jumped into the opening scene for Gorr. While this was a perfect way to introduce us to a villain I do wish that scene was expanded. It’s also bad when Christian Bale has said that they left a lot of stories revolving around Gorr on the “cutting room floor” and that he would have loved for fans to see it.

Another thing about Gorr is that I would have liked to see more of him throughout the movie. The story had him just “appear” in places with no explanation. Take the invasion of New Asguard for instance. We had no explanation for that. How did he know where to go, and who to look for? There was no god there. Thor is the god, Valkyrie is not a god by any means. Why did he go there when Thor was off-world, literally.

Another rushed story I felt was Jane Foster. While we did get scenes revolving around her cancer storyline, it was rushed. Her entire story was. From the beginning to the end. I will admit, the story with her being The Mighty Thor was badass. Natalie Portman absolutely killed the story.

One thing about the overall story was the input of Korg. While I love the character, I think this story would have been much better with Chris Hemsworth narrating the story since it’s Thor’s life. Having the director be a major part of the story took me completely away from it.

Characters

Now about the characters in this movie. Where do I begin? Before I explain a few characters, I will say, MANY characters were wasted. I fully put this blame on Taika Waititi. He wasted characters but seeing the characters was great nonetheless.

Thor was Thor. His role was great, I loved seeing all versions of Thor and by this, I mean him at different points in his life. The story did leave it open for him to return once again as Thor. Chris Hemsworth gave Thor some major development throughout the movie.

Jane Foster was brilliant. Although her story was rushed. She was brilliant. I loved every scene with her in it. From the cancer storyline to see her kicking ass as The Mighty Thor. A major dislike for me was that this seemed to be a “fantasy” for Taika Waititi. A one-movie appearance. I could be wrong but the post-credit scene says different.

Gorr the God Butcher was also brilliant, similar to Jane Foster his story was rushed. Majorly. In each scene he was in Christian Bale gave a crazy performance. That is simply down to his acting. I would love to see the scenes left on the cutting room floor, but Taika Waititi has stated we’ll never see them “because they are on the cutting room floor for a reason” although Bale states otherwise.

Guardians of the Galaxy, Zeus, and Lady Sif were all completely ruined, pointless, and just wasted. Guardians of the Galaxy was basically only in flashbacks and in the beginning, they barely did a thing. Lady Sif was used as an “information” post. Zeus is a major figure in movies and in real life. People believe in him. Taika Waititi ruined him completely.

For the full cast list, you can visit IMDB by clicking here.

Hype

Ok, this may or may not be controversial but I’ll say it anyways. In the trailers and articles released pre-movie release, I was hyped, I was excited because it’s the fourth movie for Thor, The Mighty Thor is being introduced, Natalie Portman is returning, and the Guardians of the Galaxy are in it.

Boom. The hype was completely killed with this movie. As previously stated, their overly-used jokes, are pretty much in every scene. Fantastic characters ruined, wasted, and points. Taika Waititi wrote this movie like he was indulging himself and the cast in these jokes. I think for a movie of this type where a person is literally killing gods, the story needed to be serious and not filled with orgy jokes.

Favorite Moments

Any scene with The Mighty Thor was incredible. I loved her fighting scenes and her interactions with Thor and Valkyrie. They were great but obviously let down by a rushed story and horrible VFX and CGI. The flashbacks scenes with her and Thor, their relationship, and how it blossomed and eventually ended.

Some of my favorite scenes was actually seeing Thor don different suits for different occasions. Apart from the gold helmet, the blue and gold suit with a bright red cape was probably the nicest suit in the Marvel Cinematic Universe for him.

Another favorite scene was the scene where Thor “fangirls” over Zeus only to be let down by “how the mighty have fallen”. Zeus makes Thor mad by throwing his “thunder rod” at Korg, destroying his body. Thor is angered and catches the thunder rod thrown at him by Zeus and sends it back to Zeus piercing his chest.

Dislikes

Obviously, the main one is the use of a green screen, CGI, and VFX. It was straight-up horrible. The fact that it had issues and still got released into cinemas and having the director come out and ridicule the VFX on a YouTube video promoting the movie is a bad sign.

Another issue is simply the fast-paced storyline. It was truly rushed to the point where I couldn’t keep up with the cancer storyline surrounding Jane Foster. I wish it was spread out more and focused on more. Also the relationship between her and Thor, I wish this was narrated by either her or Thor, and not Korg.

Gorr the God Butcher scenes cut that even Christian Bale wanted fans to see but Taika Waititi decides otherwise. I loved the character of Gorr, I just wish we got more throughout the movie. I think Christian Bale’s performance would be even greater if he had more scenes.

My last major point would be the post-credit scene. Jane succumbs to her cancer and makes it to Valhalla. This just feels like a waste of a great character in The Mighty Thor. I would have loved to see her appear alongside Captain Marvel in a future movie but the movie said differently.

Recommend?

Would I recommend it? Honestly, it’s hard to say. With terrible CGI and VFX, it takes away the experience of seeing a quality movie whether that be in IMAX or not. You could see it in cinemas or just wait for it to go to Disney+.

Verdict

Taika Waititi delivered a fourth Thor movie which was heavily overshadowed with jokes in nearly every scene possible. The action was superb but the story was lackluster, rushed, and just generally messed up. The movie should have been over 2-hours long to fit in more time to establish more characters and Taika Waititi also wasted characters too. Not the strongest Phase 4 MCU movie. This might be controversial but I’d put The Dark World before this movie.

Thor: Love and Thunder Review – A High Quantity Joke-Filled Marvel Movie