Main cast: Chris Hemsworth (Thor), Christian Bale (Gorr the God Butcher), Tessa Thompson (Valkyrie), Jaimie Alexander (Sif), Taika Waititi (Korg), Kieron L Dyer (Axl), Simon Russell Beale (Dionysus), Russell Crowe (Zeus), and Natalie Portman (Jane Foster)
Director: Taika Waititi
I wait all this while for Thor: Love and Thunder to hit the streaming service, because ever since the great lockdown party of the last few years, the hassle of watching a movie in the cinema has lost its appeal.
I’m not sure how it is in other parts of the world, but over here, I’d have to queue up to get any popcorn and other snacks (even if I’d already ordered them online earlier), and then I have to queue in line to get into the cinema.
Factor in the hassle of driving over to the mall where the cinema is located and the search for a parking spot, as well as the extra cost of parking and post-movie meal on top of the movie tickets… you know what, I’d just wait and watch the movie in the comfort of my home, thanks.
Because of this, I have heard from half a dozen people, when I tell them I’m going to watch this thing on streaming, to not bother with this thing. These are all fans of the MCU mind you, and have loved everything that came out up to that point, and they all don’t like this one. Hmm.
Alright, the synopsis first. Thor is slumming with the Guardians of the Galaxy when he receives an SOS from a wounded Sif. Hey, they remember that she exists! It turns out that New Asgard is facing a new threat: Gorr the God Butcher.
You see, Gorr is disgusted with all gods because his deity, Rapu, not only doesn’t save his dying daughter Love (yes, Love) but also mocks and insults him when he finally confronts the deity. Under the influence of the insidious, sentient Necrosword, he slays the god and vows to kill all the other deities he can get his hands on.
Hence: New Asgard. Wait, are there even any more gods in New Asgard?
Also, Zeus and the Greek gods as well as the Egyptian gods and who knows what else. I’m not sure what is considered a “deity” anymore in this version of the MCU, as it’s all over the place from movie to movie as well as Disney+ show to Disney+ show, and let’s not even talk about the Eternals and other powerful beings in this setting. Let’s just say the “deity” in this case as just cameos from a few famous names and underpaid extras milling around in funny costumes and leave it at that.
Meanwhile, Jane Foster has terminal cancer and oh no, she’s about to die. However, she believes that touching Thor’s hammer—I mean Mjolnir, not that… ahem—will help heal her, so off she goes to New Asgard. My, how nice of her to save herself that way while withholding that knowledge from, say, kids that are dying from terminal cancer!
Due to some contrivance, Thor has Mjolnir programmed to protect her, so by the power of Asgard, she now gets to be like Thor too! Even better, she’s the Mighty Thor because, you know, vagina. This is the present day MCU, people, so we just have to live with the fact that these people will shove at our faces how certain people are perfect because they happen to have the right sex or skin color or they sleep with certain people.
Every female superhero from now on will emerge from Kevin Feige’s forehead as a fully-blossomed epitome of perfection; skinny chicks that will take down people more powerful than they with a single blow without any training necessary because they are that awesome and by god, all of you better accept this or be labelled all kinds of names by people in the media that are of course not in the pockets of Disney.
Anyway, back to the show, Thor, the Mighty Thor, Valkyrie—whom the media shills made sure very loudly that I know likes women a lot and somehow that is a great thing, even though whomever she sleeps with plays no importance whatsoever in the overall plot—and Sif get together to stop the Gorr from goring the gods. Oh, and Korg is there too, because Taika Waititi wants to be part of his magnum opus in every way that counts.
First thing I have to say about this is that holy crap, what happened to the budget usually allocated to this kind of movies. The green screen effects look very obvious here, and the costumes and make up all look like they had been slapped on by disgruntled interns. I’d expect something like this for a Disney+ MCU show, which obviously operates on a much more minuscule budget, but this is supposed to be a big movie.
The special effects look really cheap, and the climactic moments… yikes. I actually laugh out loud—not in joy, but second-hand embarrassment at having to actually watch the inept CGIs splashed all over the screen like the handiwork of enthusiastic but not exactly artistically-inclined kids during a painting session.
The story could have had some beautiful pathos, but at this point I have zero interest in the relationship between Thor and Jane, which had been practically forgotten after the second movie and is only brought back here as a plot point. For all her talks of enjoying every moment of her time filming this movie because she’s going to be all about girl power or something, Natalie Portman acts like she has pine cones in her boots during every scene, and everyone else appears sort of just standing there as Taika Waititi drowns them all in his tidal splooge of self-indulgent nonsense.
Only Christian Bale seems to operate under the assumption that this is going to be some kind of movie that has at the very least a little bit of cred, but alas for him, this is a movie where the climax sees a bunch of kids taking up arms like they are extras in a live action Captain Planet movie or something.
That lies the biggest problem with this movie: it doesn’t have any coherent direction or tone. Oh, Taiki Waititi wants to show off how he’s the funniest man in the galaxy, so it’s a monkey’s paw situation for all you people that claim to love Thor: Ragnarok to pieces and wish that this man will do the entire MCU franchise.
This movie is what happens when no one puts a leash on him: a movie that acts like a one-liner crank machine, determined to make the audience feel only the ha-ha-ha’s. Every potentially emotional scene is ruined by an ill-timed and ill-placed punchline. Oh, New Asgard blows up again? Here’s a punchline. Oh, someone is dying? Quick, someone throw up a one-liner! All this makes the characters look like total sociopaths incapable of real emotions, and it’s hard to take any emotional moment seriously when the characters involved seem for more intent on coming up with one-liners to ruin the moment.
Sure, this happens in every MCU crap in the present year, but Mr Waititi cranks it up to ridiculous self-wankery levels, so much so that this show inadvertently becomes an unintentional parody of an MCU movie at times. Heaven knows, the special effects are bad enough for it to be passed off as an MCU-cash in from The Asylum.
It’s not a shock to me that, while he was everyone being hailed as the new MCU god prior to the release of this movie, no one wants to talk much about Mr Waititi, not after the hilarious under-performance of this movie at the box office. Yes, give him a Star Wars trilogy next, people, because that IP hadn’t already been damaged already.
At any rate, this movie is not entertaining. It’s cheesy but in a painful, rather than entertaining, way and it is so self-indulgent to an extent that I feel like I’d been strapped to a chair and forced to watch Mr Waititi perform lewd acts on himself for two freaking hours. Talk about a love of blunders, indeed.
