From August 2017 – January 2020, Keith R.A. DeCandido took a weekly look at nearly every live-action movie based on a superhero comic that had been made to date in the Superhero Movie Rewatch. In this latest revisit we’ve covered some older films—Barbarella, Vampirella, and Sparks—and we now take a gander at the releases from the latter half of 2022, starting with Thor: Love and Thunder.
While it was far from your humble rewatcher’s favorite movie, Thor: Ragnarok was a big success, which was welcome after the rather lukewarm reception to Thor: The Dark World. It was therefore not really a surprise that Taika Waititi was brought back to direct the next film featuring the god of thunder, which adapted two recent popular storylines from Thor comics.
Waititi mined two Jason Aaron-written storylines from the 2010s for the plot of Love and Thunder. The first was the God-Butcher arc in the first five issues of 2012’s Thor: God of Thunder series by Aaron & Esad Ribić, in which we’re introduced to Gorr the God-Butcher, who has vowed to murder all the gods. The second was the arc that started in the Thor comic that launched in 2014 by Aaron & Russell Dauterman wherein Thor was no longer worthy to wield Mjolnir, and Jane Foster picked up the hammer and became Thor. The storyline also brings in Eternity, created by Stan Lee & Steve Ditko for the Doctor Strange story in 1965’s Strange Tales #138, established there as the living embodiment of the entire cosmos.
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Witch King
Chris Hemsworth’s contract with Marvel Studios had ended with his appearance in Avengers: Endgame, but he agreed to do another Thor film due to Waititi’s involvement, as starring in Ragnarok revived Hemsworth’s glee in playing the character. Waititi had read the Jane-as-Thor storyline in Thor while filming Ragnarok and wanted that to be the storyline he adapted for the next film.
Back from Endgame are Hemsworth as Thor, Waititi as Korg, Natalie Portman as Jane Foster, Tessa Thompson as Valkyrie, Chris Pratt as Star-Lord, Dave Bautista as Drax, Karen Gillan as Nebula, Pom Klementieff as Mantis, Sean Gunn as Kraglin, Vin Diesel as the voice of Groot, Bradley Cooper as the voice of Rocket, and Stephen Murdoch as the voice of Miek. Back from Loki is Jaimie Alexander as Sif. Back from WandaVision is Kat Dennings as Darcy Lewis. Back from Avengers: Infinity War is Idris Elba as Heimdall in the post-credits scene. Back from Ragnarok are Luke Hemsworth, Matt Damon, and Sam Neill as Asgardian actors (joined here by Melissa McCarthy). Back from Avengers: Age of Ultron is Stellan Skarsgård as Erik Selvig.
Introduced in this film are Christian Bale (previously seen in this rewatch as Batman in three films) as Gorr the God-Butcher, Russell Crowe as Zeus, Kieron L. Dyer as Heimdall’s son Axl, India Rose Hemsworth (Chris’ daughter) as Gorr’s daughter Love, and, best of all, Brett Goldstein in the mid-credits scene as Hercules. Plus Simon Russell Beale, Jonathan Brugh, Akosia Sabet, Kuni Hashimoto, and Carmen Foon play various deities, and the children of Waititi, Portman, and Bale play some of the New Asgard children.
Pratt, Bautista, Gillan, Klementieff, Gunn, Diesel, and Cooper will all next appear in the Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special. It’s likely that Hemsworth père et fille will appear next in either another Thor film (possibly opposite Goldstein as Hercules?) or in Avengers: The Kang Dynasty. I’m also personally hoping that Dennings will be back in some capacity, maybe in The Marvels?
“What a classic Thor adventure!”
Thor: Love and Thunder
Written by Taika Waititi & Jennifer Kaytin Robinson
Directed by Taika Waititi
Produced by Kevin Feige, Brad Winderbaum
Original release date: July 8, 2022
In a brutal desert, a man named Gorr and his daughter are struggling to survive. The daughter dies, and then Gorr finds an oasis where the god Rapu—to whom he has been praying for water and survival—is having a party because he just killed a being who had the Necrosword, which can kill gods. Gorr tells Rapu that he’s the only one of his worshippers left, but Rapu is unmoved—he can always find more worshippers. Upon seeing what a selfish git his god is, Gorr takes up the Necrosword—which has been whispering in his mind to pick it up—and uses it to kill Rapu. He then swears to kill all the gods.
Via the method of Korg telling a story to a bunch of people, we find out what has happened in Thor’s life, starting from childhood all the way to how, after Endgame, he has worked to get back in shape. He and the Guardians of the Galaxy come to Indigarr thinking it’ll be a good place for a vacation. But the Indigarr gods have been killed and the temple is under attack. Thor and the Guardians fight off the bad guys, though the temple is destroyed. King Yakan—who is more than a little upset about the temple’s destruction—gives Thor a “gift” of two screaming goats.
The Guardians get a mess of distress calls, all from people whose gods have been killed. One is from Sif on Falligar specifically directed at Thor. The Guardians go off to deal with the other calls while Thor and Korg use Stormbreaker to go to Falligar. Their god—whom Thor describes as one of the nicest gods you’ll ever meet—is dead, and Sif has been wounded, her arm cut off. Thor uses Stormbreaker to return to New Asgard—which has become quite the tourist trap—which is being overrun by Gorr’s Shadow Creatures. Thor fights them alongside Valkyrie, and a woman dressed just like Thor, wielding Mjolnir, and kicking ass. It turns out to be Jane Foster.
Foster has cancer and it’s reached stage four. The only people she told were Darcy Lewis and Erik Selvig. She feels Mjolnir calling to her, and she travels to New Asgard, where the pieces come together for the first time since Hela destroyed it and turn her into Thor. It turns out that, back when they were dating, Thor drunkenly spoke to Mjolnir telling it to protect her if something happens to him, and that put an enchantment on the hammer.
The Asgardians are able to beat Gorr back, with Thor just barely avoiding being stabbed by the Necrosword. However, Gorr has his Shadow Creatures kidnap all the Asgardian children. One of those children is Axl, formerly Astrid (he renamed himself after the lead singer of Guns ‘n’ Roses), the son of Heimdall, who has Heimdall’s special abilities. Thor is able to communicate with the kids and he sees that they’re in the Shadow Realm. Stormbreaker has been acting strangely since Thor learned of Mjolnir’s reconstitution, but Foster suggests using the axe as an engine to power a ship that can take them to the Shadow Realm. First, though, they need an army. Rather than contact the Guardians or the Avengers (or even, y’know, mentioning them), Thor suggests they go to Omnipotence City to recruit help from other gods. They use one of the flying ships that tourists fly around on, attach the two goats to the front and use Stormbreaker to power it.
Because they weren’t specifically invited to Omnipotence City, they disguise themselves and show up in time for Zeus’ grand entrance. Valkyrie and Foster want to take Zeus’ thunderbolt. Thor tries to make a verbal appeal, but Zeus brushes him off, saying that it’s only minor gods being killed. Privately, Zeus does admit to being scared, but he’s confident that Gorr’s plan to find Eternity will fail. Thor now realizes that Gorr’s plan is to go to Eternity’s realm, where he will be granted a wish—he’ll obviously wish for the gods to all be killed in one shot.
Realizing that Zeus will be of no help—and also won’t let them leave for fear of Gorr’s learning of Omnipotence City’s location—Foster, Valkyrie, Korg, and Thor all attack. Zeus uses his thunderbolt to shatter Korg’s body, but his face survives and Valkyrie ties his face to the back of her head, giving her effective three-hundred-and-sixty-degree vision. Korg is also able to summon the goats, who make a grand entrance. Thor throws Zeus’ thunderbolt back at him, impaling him, and seemingly killing him.
Our heroes fly off, down one soldier—Korg is just a face now—and without the army they were hoping for. But they do have Zeus’ thunderbolt, which is a mighty weapon.
Foster finally confides to Thor about the cancer. They also kiss.
Once they arrive in the Shadow Realm, they’re pissed to see that the kids are no longer in the cage where Thor has “visited” them via Axl’s powers. Foster figures out that what Gorr needs is Stormbreaker—or, more generally, the bifrost, which Stormbreaker can generate—to open the door to Eternity, so she tosses Stormbreaker away. Thor, Valkyrie, and Foster fight off both Gorr and the various Shadow Demons, with Valkyrie badly wounded. Thor is forced to summon Stormbreaker back because he needs the weapon to fight the demons. He tries to engage in a tactical retreat, but Gorr manages to grab the axe at the last second. Everyone is sent back to New Asgard, but now Gorr has Stormbreaker.
Foster has dropped the hammer, and she’s reverted to her cancer-ridden normal form. She and Valkyrie are taken to the infirmary, and the doctor informs Thor that wielding Mjolnir has taken energy away from her body’s ability to fight the cancer. The only way she’s going to beat it is to not become Thor again. Thor convinces her to stay behind when he goes after Gorr, and Valkyrie is too badly wounded to go, either. So Thor uses Zeus’ thunderbolt to go to the center of the universe to confront Gorr.
The Asgardian kids are all there, and Thor recruits them to be his army. They grab whatever they can find lying around, and Thor imbues their weapons with the power of Thor temporarily. The kids fight the Shadow Demons while Thor takes on Gorr—who is using Stormbreaker to open the portal to Eternity. Back on Earth, Foster can feel that Thor is losing, and she grabs Mjolnir and flies to the center of the universe using Valkyrie’s Pegasus. Thor is heartbroken that she chose this, but also needs her help, as Gorr was kicking his ass.
Foster fights off Gorr while Thor fights to reclaim Stormbreaker—which he eventually does, but not until the door to Eternity is opened. Still, he’s able to give the axe to Axl (ahem) who gets the kids safely home to New Asgard. Between Zeus’ thunderbolt and Mjolnir, the two Thors are able to destroy the Necrosword, thus depriving Gorr of his power.
However, the gateway is still open, and Gorr stumbles through it. Thor and Foster follow. Thor convinces Gorr that it is better to choose love over revenge, and that he should use his wish to bring his daughter back, which he does. Thor promises to look after her.
Foster succumbs to the cancer and dies—but, like Odin in the last movie, her death involves disintegrating into golden sparkly bits.
Korg narrates the final bit, establishing that the kids not only got home safe, but were now being trained in self-defense by Valkyrie and Sif; that Korg’s body reconstituted, and he’s found a boyfriend, Dwayne; and that Thor is now traveling the galaxy defending the downtrodden with Gorr’s daughter Love, her wielding Stormbreaker while Thor wields Mjolnir (which Love has decorated with funky colors).
In Omnipotence City, we learn that Zeus is not dead, though he is wounded, and he’s frustrated that people have given up on gods in favor of superheroes, and he’s gonna send his son Hercules to destroy Thor to remind people to fear gods again.
Foster’s golden sparkly bits reconstitute themselves in Valhalla, where Heimdall thanks her for looking out for his son and welcomes her to the home of the dead gods.
“And one last thing: eat my hammer!”
Even with my lack of enthusiasm for Ragnarok, I was seriously looking forward to Love and Thunder, mainly because the movie was announced by making it clear that (a) Natalie Portman would be back as Foster and (b) Taika Waititi would be adapting the Foster-as-Thor storyline from 2014, which I loved.
So to actually sit down and watch this train-wreck of a movie was a massive disappointment.
First of all, there’s the other story the movie chose to adapt, which did not work at all. From the beginning, the MCU has established itself as being much more scientifically based than even their source comics. Thor made it abundantly clear that the occupants of Asgard were not gods, merely powerful immortal beings who were worshipped as such on Earth, but are thought of throughout the rest of the galaxy as just another set of aliens. The notion of multiple pantheons all across the galaxy comes in out of nowhere, and makes no sense to suddenly drop in after fourteen years.
Which is a pity, as Christian Bale is one of the best things about this movie, magnificently inhabiting the bitter misery of Gorr. The opening bit with his daughter dying in his arms and then discovering that Rapu has nothing but contempt for him is beautifully done, and sets the tone for a really good movie, which the bits after the Marvel Studios logo mostly fail to deliver on.
The movie put a bad taste in my mouth right from the start when Korg is providing exposition about Thor’s previous MCU appearances, specifically mentioning who has died in his life. Frigga, Odin, and Loki are referred to lovingly as his mother, father, and brother, and then the Warriors Three are fobbed off as three other people who don’t get names or listed as friends, just “that guy” and “whoever that is.” Then, neither Natasha Romanoff nor Tony Stark nor Steve Rogers are even mentioned as friends he lost for some stupid reason, and then we see that he’s back in fighting shape after Endgame in a cheap-ass training montage.
While I had some issues with aspects of how Endgame dealt with Thor’s PTSD (specifically the unnecessary fat jokes), in general it and Infinity War did a good job of showing Thor’s pain at losing Asgard and so many of his dearest friends. Here, it’s just him sitting beatifically on a planet wishing he had love, which feels reductive.
The setup of Thor teaming up with the Guardians of the Galaxy at the end of Endgame was ripe for comedy gold, the sort of thing that you’d think would be right in Waititi’s wheelhouse. But no, they’re written out of the movie as fast as humanly (Asgardianly?) possible, after barely being a factor in the film. (The one exception to that last phrase is Peter Quill’s heartfelt advice to Thor about love and the importance of having someone to feel shitty about, which is wonderfully called back to later.) It’s especially maddening because Thor formed a close bond with Rocket in both Infinity War and Endgame, not to mention the haft of Stormbreaker being a piece of Groot, neither of which is acknowledged or made use of.
Just in general, throughout the vast majority of this movie, Thor is portrayed as a complete moron, and it’s tiresome and not particularly funny. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that the same filmmaker who thought that the story of the complete destruction of Asgard was fodder for a goofy-ass comedy, but giving us a Thor who’s a big dumb idiot is childish and just not that interesting.
It doesn’t help that Hemsworth has lost his ideal sparring partner. This is the only one of the four Thor movies (and only the second of Thor’s eight appearances) that doesn’t have Tom Hiddleston in it as Loki. One of the greatest things about the MCU version of the Norse gods is the Hemsworth-Hiddleston double act, and it’s seriously missing from this one.
On top of that, we have several elements that just make nothing like sense, starting with Thor suddenly, for the first time in eight movies, treating Mjolnir and Stormbreaker like pets. The two tools suddenly start having personalities as well, from Mjolnir acting like a devoted puppy mostly to Foster, and with Stormbreaker acting like a jealous ex. It would be fine if either of these inanimate objects had been portrayed as such before, but they haven’t, and all it does is add more sophomoric humor to a movie that’s already choked with it.
Then there’s Thor talking about finding a team to fight Gorr, and why does he need to find one when he’s got two already? He’s an Avenger and he’s now at least sorta-kinda friends with the Guardians of the Galaxy. Why isn’t he asking them for help? (This is one of the major problems with doing a shared universe in live action, whether in movies or on TV, as actor availability too often dictates, and warps, plot.)
It’s especially frustrating because when he’s not played like a doofus, Thor is a very compelling heroic character. His scenes with Foster are mostly really good (the only missteps are, yes, when he acts like an idiot), and once it comes time to fight Gorr in the Shadow Realm and at Eternity’s chamber, he’s much stronger. (Whatever its flaws, the movie has fantastic fight choreography, though Waititi inexplicably feels the need to add Guns ‘n’ Roses music to, like, every fight scene, which grows repetitive. Plus Heimdall’s kid renames himself Axl. We get it, you like GnR, but sheesh…) Indeed, the absolute best part of the movie is when Thor temporarily grants the Asgardian kids his powers, and watching the kids with now-glowing eyes attacking the Shadow Demons with their bric-a-brac weapons is epic. Especially the kid who uses her stuffed bunny as a weapon, zapping the demons with Lightning Bunny Vision!
But then that’s followed by the worst part of the movie. While Waititi and the production staff deserve credit for getting the psychedelic look of Eternity right, Waititi and fellow writer Jennifer Kaytin Robinson decide for reasons passing understanding to turn Eternity into a genie who grants a wish to whoever makes it to Eternity’s realm. (We won’t even get into how “Eternity’s realm” makes no sense, since Eternity is the embodiment of all reality, but whatever.) Of course, when I first saw the movie, I thought to myself, “Self,” I thought, “this is how Foster will get saved. Thor will go to Eternity’s realm and be granted a wish and he’ll wish for Foster to be restored.” We then get there, and Gorr gets his wish—which, true to what we saw at the beginning of the film, is to bring his daughter back—and I’m waiting and waiting and waiting and nothing. Foster just dies in an abject failure of Screenwriting 101.
So here we go again. Natasha Romanoff. May Parker. Wanda Maximoff. And now Jane Foster. The MCU keeps killing off its strong female supporting characters, and it’s a really really really bad look, and one that needs to fucking stop. (And it won’t, as I’ll be making this complaint again before this rewatch segment is out.) Yes, we see Foster in Valhalla with Heimdall, which at least opens the possibility of her returning, but there was no reason to have her die here, and the means to keep her alive was right there in the script with the ability of Eternity to grant wishes.
It’s especially frustrating because the second-best part of the movie was Foster’s entire storyline, from her gleefully explaining Einstein-Rosen Bridges to her fellow chemo patient to her refusal to even admit that the cancer is that bad when talking to Darcy to her kicking ass as Thor (and also her hilarious inability to come up with a decent catchphrase, one of the humorous bits in the movie that actually landed). Natalie Portman absolutely shines in this movie, especially selling how sick Foster is when she isn’t Thor.
Tessa Thompson is also superb as the Valkyrie, providing her usual acid commentary, and I love how she and Foster bonded. It was good to see Jaimie Alexander back as Sif, finally, though why Waititi felt the need to maim her and keep her out of the film’s climax is beyond me.
The movie isn’t a total disaster. New Asgard being a major tourist town is a masterstroke, and I love seeing how the place has been commercialized. Korg is always fun to have around, as is the Asgardian acting troupe, and I love them throwing in that Kraglin keeps getting married everywhere they go.
And, for all that I hated the notion of sledgehammering multiple pantheons into an MCU that wasn’t really equipped for it, I absolutely adored Russell Crowe’s over-the-top gloriousness as a Zeus that was straight out of the sword-and-sandal epics of the 1950s, complete with outrageous accent. Plus, there’s that mid-credits scene. As much as I disliked this movie, that’s how much I’m looking forward to the next movie that pits Brett Goldstein’s Hercules against Thor. (Having Roy Kent play Hercules is the latest in a series of letter-perfect casting decisions made by the MCU folks.)
Also, the goats are awesome. Though I wish they’d actually named them Toothgnasher and Toothgrinder. But that would require Waititi to actually give a crap about Norse mythological stories, and why would he care about that when doing Thor movies?
We’ll be taking the next couple of weeks off for the holidays. In the new year, we’ll cover the remainder of the 2022 releases, starting on Wednesday the 4th of January with Samaritan, followed by Black Adam and Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.
Keith R.A. DeCandido has two new works out today: issue #1 of his Resident Evil: Infinite Darkness prequel comic book The Beginning (with art by Carmelo Zagaria) hits the stands today from the fine folks at TokyoPop; and his Star Trek Adventures role-playing game module Incident at Kraav III (co-authored with Fred Love) is now available from the equally fine folks at Modiphius Games.
On Thor not wishing to save Jane, I thought it was explicit that only the first being in would get a wish. Gorr was first in, he gets the wish, no one else ever gets one (though of course it’s easy enough to say it’s one person every eon or whatever and throw in time travel if they want to use it again later).
Well, I am delighted to see I am not the only person who didn’t care for this, I did like it more than Ragnarok, but they both had the problem of being so divergent from the previous movies.
(Until Thor 3, it was fairly predicable: the Iron Man movies were about recovery; the Cap movies were about politics [primarily global politics]; and the Thor movies were about leadership and responsibility. i.e., king stuff.
. Neither Ragnarok nor Love&Thunder continue those themes, instead aiming for action-with-screwball-comedy.)
It was a fun spectacle I enjoyed in the moment of watching, but definitely a mess with lowball humor for the most part that does not hold up to scrutiny, like so many other franchise blockbusters recently. I pretty much agree on the performances that shone and the bits that worked, though they were pieces of a shiny but disjointed whole; I felt the restrictions of the shared universe definitely informing too many important elements of the narrative, a snowballing issue with these big franchises.
I also agree empowering the kids was probably the best part, visually and also thematically; much of the movie was about the responsibilities of the gods to their followers, and we see people waiting on their gods to save them, including the Asgardian citizens and those children. There’s a point in there about Thor giving them the power to rescue themselves, to get themselves home–on top of Axl taking that initiative in using his fledgling powers out of desperation to begin with–that the movie doesn’t quite linger on as it perhaps should.
It’s almost like this should have been a children/young adult story where the kids end up having to do the work themselves because the adults around them are oblivious or incompetent, but instead it’s trying to be a fun grownup story, except it’s focused on one of the dumb adults (a disservice to the earlier iterations of MCU’s Thor) from said Kid/YA story.
Natalie Portman’s relationship with the MCU has always been contentious. Yes, it’s another female character to be killed off, but if she wanted out, then she wanted out.
This film had its silly aspects, but I liked it better than Ragnarok. That film didn’t land for me emotionally, because it seemed to handle the intense emotional and tragic moments cursorily and without weight, as if eager to rush through them and get to the next bit of quirky humor. So it was a harmless, mildly diverting bit of fluff, which is hardly what you want from a movie named after the Norse apocalypse and featuring the slaughter of most of the main character’s loved ones and his entire civilization. In Love and Thunder, the emotional moments felt more genuine and substantial to me. The movie actually seemed to care about them this time, so I cared more about them too. I didn’t like the humor much better than last time, and I agree a lot of the concepts (like the abundance of gods) were rather fanciful, but the more serious and emotionally grounded parts were handled better, and therefore balanced the sillier parts.
While Hela was totally devoid of depth or dimension — an unconscionable waste of the idea of giving Thor a long-lost sister, in sharp contrast to how well Loki was handled — Gorr was a rich and sympathetic villain in the vein of Loki or Zemo or Thanos. I loved the way the conflict between him and Thor was resolved.And while Thor’s shallow egotism as a running joke could be annoying, I liked the way it played out as an arc — that the way for him to win was to learn to be selfless, to share his power with others rather than hogging the glory. Okay, that’s a rerun of his arc in the original film to an extent, but it’s still a nice resolution.
As for why Thor didn’t wish for Jane to be revived, maybe I’m misremembering, but I thought the deal was that Eternity would only grant one wish per visit, and since Gorr and Thor were there together, only one of them could get his wish. So Thor ended up making the selfless choice to let Gorr save Love, rather than claiming the wish for himself and saving Jane. And of course, Jane made the same kind of choice, to sacrifice her life to save others. (Or maybe it’s what #1 said, that only the first person in got his wish, so Thor lost his chance.)
I think the most intriguing thing I saw connected to this movie was in the behind-the-scenes special on Disney+. The sequence in the Shadow Realm was on a rapidly rotating asteroid with the sun constantly rising and falling and the direction of the light constantly changing, and under normal circumstances, there would’ve been no way to maintain lighting continuity as they edited the scene and rearranged the bits they’d filmed. So they came up with a really brilliant system that used a really high-speed camera synchronized with six banks of LED lights, so that they were able to cycle through frames lit from six different directions in a split-second with the actors hardly moving. Which meant that they could choose between six different lighting angles for the same take, by selecting only those frames corresponding to the chosen lighting direction. It was really amazing. There’s an article about it here: https://beforesandafters.com/2022/08/10/new-lighting-rig-helped-make-that-beautiful-black-and-white-moon-sequence-in-thor-love-and-thunder-possible/
Part of the reason I think Jane was killed off i think was that Portman approached her return as a “one and done” deal! It was pretty much her decision to not come back before then.
Yeah, this is a pretty fair review. While I liked it more than Keith, there’s no getting around the tonal mismatches and the undercutting of the drama with inappropriate, low grade humor.
Really frustrating when the stuff that worked REALLY worked (like Gor, like Jane’s arc). Though, I disagree in that the only true end for Jane’s arc is to die (the comic version of the story felt like a bit of a cheat for me). That truly underlined the message that the victory is the struggle, not just the outcome.
Oh, and the only humor bits that worked for me were the relationship-based ones; way more grounded and true to life than the other bits.
The only way the film works, in my opinion, is to lean hard into the framing gimmick and assume that a lot of the movie and its ridiculousness is Korg’s storytelling choices. Because technically, it’s all from his point of view and he’s telling it like a children’s story. Which doesn’t particularly fix everything about the movie, but I can tell myself that much of it is the result of depicting events in an intentionally over-the-top fashion.
I loved Thor, I loved Ragnarok, I loved the Jane-Foster-as-Thor comics run. The first time I watched this, I turned it off about 20 minutes in. The second time I watched it I had COVID and loved every second of it. I feel this may tell us more about COVID…
I think krad’s notion about the screenwriters missing the opportunity to save Jane includes the belief that the screenwriters wrote the rules about who might get to make a wish upon entering Eternity’s realm and therefore were in a position to break those rules. Unless there’s some ironclad Marvel Rulebook out there I don’t know anything about because I’m admittedly coming late to the game…?
As others have mentioned, I think the idea was that only the first person to reach Eternity would get a wish. And I also understood (perhaps incorrectly) that Gorr was planning to wish for the death of the gods, but Thor talked him into wishing his daughter back alive instead. With that understanding, I thought the ending worked. But maybe I’m remembering it wrong.
Also, the multiple sets of gods seemed to be somewhat in line with some stuff established in The Eternals. But again, I could be wrong because these latest films don’t stick with me as well as the earlier MCU movies.
There was a line to the effect that the first person to breach the wall into Eternity would get a wish, but that doesn’t even make sense. What if somebody in the last trillion years got in there before Gorr? Indeed, it beggars belief that nobody did before. Anyhow, as hwmayville said, the writers made these dumb rules (which had no relation to anything in the source material, as Eternity is not a genie in the comics), so they had the power to not do that.
And if you need to assume an unreliable narrator to make the story work, then the storytellers have failed.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
Agree with you 100% Keith. I was excited to see this movie because it was the first Post-Endgame (timeline-wise) movie centered on one of the original Avengers. I was thinking it would be a funny Guardians/Thor team-up movie that would show how civilizations outside of Earth have handled things since the Blip.
But instead it ended up being Waititi deciding to take all the “funny” of Ragnarok and turn the dial up to 11. And they did the same thing with Thor that they’ve done in every OTHER Thor movie – he starts out as an idiot and becomes a wiser, better man by the end.
Why does Thor’s character growth need to be reset at the beginning of each movie? Why can’t he ever be the wiser, more mature one, paired with someone else who is a hot-headed idiot (which they totally could have done if they kept the Guardians for more than the opening sequence).
I left the theater after this one with a solid “meh” feeling. There were good parts, for sure. But the bad outweighed the good in this one for me.
“Okay, you get one wish. I’m Eternity, so you can literally wish for anything, no matter how big or small.”
“Okay, my choices come down to… destroy all gods everywhere, or bring back my daughter. Hmmm.”
“I said literally anything, and that’s all you got? Why not universal peace, or the return of your whole family, or the return of your whole species?”
“Nope, all the gods or just my daughter.”
*Jane Foster quietly continues to die in the background… cough cough*
“Okay, fine. I want my daughter back. No one else. No one else deserves to benefit from my wish.”
*Jane dies.*
“Okay, and now, as I die, I’ll give my daughter to Thor, who just saw his former love die in his arms even though I totally could have helped. Wait, what do you mean I could have wished to stay alive with my daughter? Oh sh-” *dies*
I finally watched this for the first time a few weeks ago (while flying on a plane) and I have to say, I think Waititi has thoroughly ruined the character of Thor. It was just non-stop joke after joke to the point where it felt like a parody instead of a real Thor movie.
The film explicitly states that only the first person there gets a wish. Gorr was first. Portman’s Thor being cured was never on the table. Nor should it have been. She succumbs to cancer in the comic version of this too. Also, Waititi did the “they’re real gods now” nonsense back in Ragnarok. It was one of the major criticisms of the movie. The gods thing isn’t new to Love & Thunder.
The real problem with the Eternity wish nonsense is that it creates a plot hole of epic proportions for the entire MCU. Lesser plot holes are trapped orbiting the gravity of L&T’s supermassive plot hole. If Eternity grants a wish, why the hell wasn’t that how the Avengers undid the Snap? In fact, why wasn’t it how Thanos killed half the universe? It’s much easier than assembling all the infinite stones. And yes, Eternity is absolutely more powerful than the infinity gauntlet. Eternity is #3 on the power hierarchy, and #1 (The One Above All) & #2 (The Living Tribunal) really only concern themselves with matters that effect the entire multiverse, not individual universes. Even then only rarely.
Aside from that, why does Waititi keep taking the darkest stories Marvel has to offer, and turning them into jokes? Ragnarok was literally the end of a world. Armageddon. And Gorr? Gorr is a horror movie. Gorr is a walking holocaust. Literally: he had a concentration camp of gods where he starved, tortured, worked, and crucified them. This was a guy that, when you begged him to kill you next because you couldn’t stand to watch him skin your loved ones alive anymore, would instead cut off your eyelids so you had to watch. I’m not making that up, he did that to some poor shmuck. Waititi took his 3,000 year campaign of deicide which saw bodies of gods in piles so big you could see them from orbit and had him behead ONE god off-screen. His power was also reduced to a tiny fraction. Comic Gorr could toy with Galactus as a cat toys with a mouse. MCU Gorr can barely handle Thor one-on-one.
Gorr’s tale is my favorite Marvel story. It’s dark beyond description, but it’s written so well that it never comes off as edgelord nonsense. Waititi watered it down so much that there’s nothing of it left except the names. Why does he keep taking the darkest stories and turning them into this cringe crap comedy? If you want to make a goofy Jim Carrey level “comedy”, fine. But take the stories that are appropriate for it and stop ruining these!
It should also be noted that he already used most of the best parts of Gorr’s story in Ragnarok. The whole “What are you the god of again?” thing? That was ripped from Gorr. The zombie warriors were basically his black berserkers. The shadow projectiles, also his. Even the design of the sword she manifests is the comic appearance of All-Black the Necrosword.
Giving the kids powers wasn’t the best part of the movie. Using children as soldiers is kind of a war crime. A big one at that. Everyone rightfully gave Stark crap for bringing Parker into Civil War, why does Thor get a pass for doing MUCH worse by using much younger, and many more, as soldiers against something far more malicious? I’m fine with the hero doing something terrible because it’s necessary, but let’s acknowledge both in and out of universe that it is terrible.
Jason Aaron‘s tenure is my favorite Thor run of all time, so I had high hopes and was left equal parts delighted and frustrated (much like Ragnarok).
Regardless, it’s cemented my fear that Thor’s overstayed his welcome in the MCU.
Mr. Magic: I disagree. It’s Waititi who overstayed his welcome in the MCU. This version of Thor has thrived as a character in comic books for 60 years, and he’s based on a mythical character who’s thrived for more than a millennium, so the notion that he’s outstayed his welcome after eight motion pictures is farcical.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
I wouldn’t worry that much about Thor’s place in the MCU….Chris is talking like he might have one more and then be done.
@16/Rifneno: Thor didn’t “use the children as soldiers.” He didn’t force them into it. Gorr was the one who abducted them, and they were willing to fight alongside Thor to escape, because it was the only way they could. Plus, they’re Asgardian children, so they’re already superpowered. Plus, it’s only a movie, so no children were in actual danger and we can enjoy the fiction of children’s heroism the same way we can with Harry Potter or Stranger Things.
I’m no fan of classic comics Thor like the Simonson run so I don’t come at this from a fan point of view and I like Love and Thunder a great deal. To me it’s just after Ragnarok as one of my favourite Thor stories.
Overly dramatic and portentous Thor is pretty boring in my book. I’d rather have the Ultimates version where we aren’t sure if he’s the real deal or just crazy or else the later MCU version of dude-bro jock Thor. He’s the kind of person I’d hate to hang around in real life because of how oblivious he is to everyone else’s feelings most of the time and who thinks that everything revolves around him, but when contrasted with people and situations where it *isn’t* all about him (like Mjolnir choosing Jane Foster) I think his cluelessness works well.
In some of the Marvel shorts we saw Thor bluff that he didn’t care about being chosen for one of the teams in the Civil War and I think that’s another great use of Thor putting up a front and making things about him.
This is by far my favourite version of Thor.
And Crowe was hilarious as Zeus in this too. I don’t know why people complain about the accent so much, I thought it was funny.
vinsentient: while I obviously disagree with you about Thor — I thought the Simonson run was definitive and brilliant and intensely disliked the Ultimate version — I’m right there with you on Crowe, as I said in the rewatch article. He was hilariously brilliant.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
[bracing for blowback]
As someone who doesn’t read the comics and just wants to escape the day-to-day grind with a movie…..I enjoyed it. The goats made me laugh out loud EVERY TIME. I enjoyed what Waititi did with Ragnarok and was happy he continued in the same vein with this one. Also, icing on the cake for me is that he cast Hemsworth’s daughter as “Love.” So by the end of the movie (and ripping the curtain completely back), it was really a famous actor dad having a blast with his kiddo, who gets to be a superhero in her own right.
I’m not inclined to call this film a train wreck – I’d call it a case of Mr Waititi hitting the point of diminishing returns, then bouncing off – but I do agree that, like it’s predecessor, it fails to strike any kind of balance between the goofy & the powerfully tragic (and, unlike it’s predecessor, no longer enjoys the benefit of novelty).
On the other hand it’s seldom less than entertaining and has genuine strengths to go with it’s core weakness (not least Omnipotence City which, while clearly clashing with previously-established canon, has the outstanding virtue of being a setting one would love to see more of and more done with), so one cannot consider it a complete waste of time.
We get Natalie Portman WITH MUSCLES, people!
As for the Hemsworth/Hiddleston double act, my only disappointment on that score is that we STILL haven’t got their version of ‘The Theft of Thor’s Hammer’ (not least because this would also let us see how the actress who plays ‘Lady Loki’ works with the Mighty Hemsworth, who remains my favourite player in the MCU in the face of some stiff competition).
So, Thor: Ragnarok is probably my favorite MCU movie of all of them, and Jojo Rabbit is probably my favorite non-franchise movie of the past 5-10 years. So, I have a fondness for Waititi’s style and was looking forward to this movie in general. I haven’t read the comics so I don’t have a lot of context.
All that said, while I probably enjoyed this movie more than some, I totally agree that it was uneven/lopsided in tone and did not really delve deeply enough into what could have been some meaty themes. Taika seems to be the type of director who needs a steady hand guiding the reins. Or maybe we just needed more Jeff Goldblum…
At least I didn’t find it as disappointing as the Multiverse of Madness, though.
I will say – that while I hate to be arguing in favor of fridging – I think Jane’s death to cancer worked and if the wish had saved her, to me it would have felt a little like a cheat (I was going to say a deus ex machina, and…I guess that would be true!). I guess to me part of her story WAS that she was willing to sacrifice herself, and that Thor was willing to give Gorr the chance to wish for his daughter back. Yes I get they could have just made Eternity have different rules, but it seemed to work in story for me, especially since we see her in Valhalla later. I don’t think they are done with her (assuming Portman is still interested).
I feel like there was so much regarding Gorr we could have gone into though, such as what exactly qualifies one to be a god? What responsibility to gods have to their worshippers, especially when you get down to themes of service/sacrifice/suffering (and how much to allow vs intervene). But like krad, I thought the idea that Thor is a ‘god’ in Gorr’s opinion was kind of odd given that he’s basically just a super powered mortal individual with advanced technology, and not even really actively worshipped on Earth at that point. Why is Eternity NOT a god? Heck, is Gorr himself a god?
The necrosword definitely gives me Nightblood vibes, for any Sanderson fans out there.
Also, housekeeping question – since you mentioned it, will you be doing Werewolf By Night/the Guardians Holiday Special? Do those count as movies? Or are they a bit too short?
@24 Yeah, agreed about Natalie Portman. And also agreed with a real Lady Loki (I like Sylvie, but it’s going down another path; I just think with the multiverse, it’s justified we can have our cake and eat it, too).
@18
Mr. Magic: I disagree. It’s Waititi who overstayed his welcome in the MCU. This version of Thor has thrived as a character in comic books for 60 years, and he’s based on a mythical character who’s thrived for more than a millennium, so the notion that he’s outstayed his welcome after eight motion pictures is farcical.
Fair enough, Keith.
It’s just this sense of…I’ve had mixed feelings about Thor sticking around post-Endgame. As a long-lived demigod, it’s justified.
But I’ve felt the Cinematic Odinson’s gone as far as he can. I’m unsure what more you can do with his character arc (and I don’t agree with the comedic revamp; Thor can be funny, but this was too much).
I had the same concerns about Hiddleston and Loki, but the Endgame Temporal Variant and going down a completely different arc has at least been interesting.
If the Asgardians are going to stick around in the MCU, I focus needed to shift either to Brunhilde or to Jane-as-Thor, or putting Sif back in prominence.
@18 / KRAD:
Mr. Magic: I disagree. It’s Waititi who overstayed his welcome in the MCU. This version of Thor has thrived as a character in comic books for 60 years, and he’s based on a mythical character who’s thrived for more than a millennium, so the notion that he’s outstayed his welcome after eight motion pictures is farcical.
Fair enough, Keith.
It’s just this sense of…I’ve had mixed feelings about Thor sticking around post-Endgame. As a long-lived demigod, it’s justified.
But I’ve felt the Cinematic Odinson’s gone as far as he can. I’m unsure what more you can do with his character arc (and I don’t agree with the comedic revamp; Thor can be funny, but this was too much).
I had the same concerns about Hiddleston and Loki, but the Endgame Temporal Variant and going down a completely different arc has at least been interesting.
If the Asgardians are going to stick around in the MCU, I focus needed to shift either to Brunhilde or to Jane-as-Thor, or putting Sif back in prominence.
Lisamarie: as I’ve said elsewhere, WBN & GOTGHS are TV shows, really not movies. So no I won’t be including them.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
GNR have never been cool
Let all of us pray to the Allfather that Taika Waititi with his ham-handed humor and moron Thor never does another Thor movie. I’m one of those who ascribe to the movie being through Korg’s lens, not reality. It also show Waititi’s arrogance by having his character tell his story.
I like that Waititi usually swings for the fences, but there are times when I wish some dour-looking exec in a suit would gently remind him to keep his eye on the ball.
I remember being similarly annoyed by the Mandalorian episode he made (along with Jon Favreau). Yes, the schtick with the stormtroopers failing to shoot a tin can was funny by itself, but they had just murdered Quill and taken Baby Yoda captive in the previous episode, and in a rather menacing fashion. Then suddenly they were doing SNL-level jokes with them? Come on, guys, focus!
@33/Hayseed: No reason the same characters can’t be both menacing and humorous. If a character just has one mode all the time, it’s boring and one-dimensional. And after something intense and dark, it can be good to break the tension.
Besides, the scene was laughing at them, not with them. Making villains look ridiculous and contemptible is a standard device. Lots of WWII movies and cartoons (and a wealth of fiction since) mocked the Nazis, while still acknowledging their menace.
I’m happy, I guess, to see how many people agree with me. I turned off the movie halfway through when I realized I didn’t care how it ended.
@34 – to wit, the aforementioned JoJo Rabbit, in which the Nazis are totally played for humor…until they absolutely aren’t.
Maybe it was just lightning in a bottle for him and he tried to repeat the formula too many times, but that movie to me represents one of the most perfectly executed tonal shift gut punches I’ve ever experienced in a movie.
I enjoyed Thor Ragnarok. However, there were a few parts I didn’t like when the jokes overwhelmed the tragic moments. And when I saw the trailer for Love & Thunder, I told my son “Uh oh, looks like this one is going full Taika”. He hadn’t seen other Taika Waititi movies, so he didn’t understand. After we saw the movie, the first thing he said was “ok, yeah that was too much.” Taiki does that. He can be absolutely hilarious, but he doesn’t always seem to know when the joke has gone on too far.
I did love Christian Bale, but agree that the Gorr storyline needed a bit more room to breathe than it got, though he sold it well. I also liked the fight scenes and that it gave the offscreen Thor/Jane breakup a bit more depth. There were pieces of a good movie in there, but nothing really ever came together.
The movie was ok, in my estimation, but not very good and I think Taika should move on from the character. He’s funny and quirky and we’ve done enough of that now. Chris Hemsworth has great comedic chops, but that isn’t really Thor’s thing. Ah well, I enjoyed parts of it and sometimes that’s the best you can say.
#34
Nah, it was too goofy for its own good, I think. It slipped into that knowing wink to fans I find so damned annoying in these things. “Hey, stormtroopers can’t shoot straight, am I right?!” Ugh. Took me out of the show, and it lessened the tragedy and seriousness of Quill’s sacrifice to be taken out by a couple of bumbling mooks so soon afterward.
It’s like if a new prequel something or other showed us the murderers of Owen and Baru walking into a wall or hitting their heads on a doorway right after roasting them alive. “You can’t see anything in those helmets, am I right?! Comedy, folks!”
Look, showing fascists to be bumbling idiots is fine in a broad sense, but comedy without discipline, without strategically balancing it with drama, gets you, well, a “Gods-awful mess.”
@34. ChristopherLBennett: Entirely true, but striking a balance between “these mooks are idiots” and “these are very, very dangerous idiots” requires a certain delicacy (or at least surety) of touch & tonal control that Mr Waititi does not always manage well – one suspects that I’m not the only member of the audience left with a degree of whiplash when his dramatic shifts in tone are not as well-timed as usual.
@21. vinsentient & @22. krad: I don’t always see eye-to-eye with the Mighty krad, but in this he speaks for both of us: with hindsight the Ultimate Marvel Universe continues to dwindle in my estimation, though there’s nothing shameful in being a fan of that particular setting (which had genuine brilliance mixed in with blockheaded choices, as is the case with just about every superhero universe & variant thereon).
Having said that, given a choice between “Is Thor a crazy person with superpowers or actual Thor?” and “The Frog of Thunder!” you’ll hear me croaking with glee every time.
ED; I was never a fan of the Ultimate books. I thought they were a dumb idea in 2000, and the execution of that idea either prompted indifference or anger. The only things I liked were Nick Fury and Miles Morales. I particularly hated their versions of Captain America, Thor, and the Fantastic Four.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
The thing about Taika is, he’s Taika. Whether he’s doing an indie passion project or a giant MCU blockbuster. His indie work has gained so much acclaim, it made the big studios want to cash in on it. That doesn’t change who he is or how he constructs his comedy/heartbreak blends.
I don’t feel he deserves the flak he’s getting, because imho, the big studio execs trying to cash in on the indie audience’s money, are the ones to criticize for putting Thor into Taika’s hands–that is, if you do not like what he did with Thor.
Personally, I have enjoyed Thor’s entire journey, from the first films to the latest. Every step in his journey has informed the following steps, even the goofy ones in Ragnarok and L&T. Though, I agree with others here that Loki’s absence in L&T is definitely felt.
One of the subtler themes I think Taika was giving us is commentary on refugees and cultures who have to sell themselves to survive. He grew up watching the effects of colonization and tourist-ization on his indigenous culture. I think that says a lot about how the Asgardians are shown not just living in their neat new home on Earth, they are refugees selling their culture as a theme park exhibition. The glory and grandeur of Asgard is now only gilt on a goofy park ride.
Even the extreme joy I had in seeing the Asgardian players is dampened a bit, examined under that light. The banality of always Presenting as the god-like culture they were/had enjoyed being on Asgard, to the crowds of entitled/shallow consumers/tourists must get exhausting. (hmm, now that I think of that, I’m remembering the look on Val’s face in the photo montage of her kingly deals/duties getting progressively more disillusioned looking–but I might be wrong)
One thing that took me out of the story a bit, as a Rick & Morty fan, was when they arrived at the Shadow Realm moon, and bonked into it because it was smaller and closer than they thought it was, that scene came straight from a R&M episode!
I keep seeing R&M sight gags and scenes/storylines creeping in to the MCU (beginning with Loki), and while I’m glad R&M writers are helping with the MCU stories now, but such good writers shouldn’t have to recycle R&M stuff, blow our minds with your originality! Unless, this is more examples of studio execs deciding to plug-n-play success from one franchise into another. *sigh*
@chris Bennett – I loved watching the behind the scenes for this! Not only was the lighting (and how they did it) on the shadow moon amazing, I loved finding out that all of Gorr’s shadow monsters were 3D models of scary monsters the kids in the cast drew.
@42/Miss Anna: “One thing that took me out of the story a bit, as a Rick & Morty fan, was when they arrived at the Shadow Realm moon, and bonked into it because it was smaller and closer than they thought it was, that scene came straight from a R&M episode!”
I think Georges Méliès beat them to it by quite a few decades… https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Trip_to_the_Moon
It’s interesting. The first Thor I felt was…basically a straight adaptation of his comic origin, but was well done, but excessively concise. But overall I think they did a great job. The Dark World was…it ages well? Like I didn’t like Frigga dying but she showed she was kinda badass, her death did have impact, and the Thor-Loki dynamic was excellent. And it has had immense impact on both characters ever since. The real failure was Malekith and the Dark Elves. Ragnarok was good, the comedy was pretty well balanced and it still felt pretty serious. It was more the serious Thor characters put into a somewhat zany situation while also it was the end of the world. But it was functional.
Love and Thunder though. Someone needed to put a harness and some reins on Waititi, he went WAY overboard. The sad thing is that there are good emotional beats there. Everything with Gorr basically hit. The movie needed way more Gorr and way more Godbutcher. I’m not even made that he was toned down, comics Gorr was an ultra-psychotic omnicidal maniac, he would be very hard to do in a single film in the MCU anyway, he’d need at least a three film arc. Also, fact is, you can’t do the full Gorr and the Necrosword the All Black arc without having access to the full Spider-Man mythos anyway.
Maybe they should’ve let Raimi direct this one, or maybe they should’ve recruited Del Toro. I also liked the ending. The Love and Thunder title drop was just sweet enough. Jane going out a hero was also nice, and I’m hoping she gets to come back, perhaps as an actual Valkyrie. But there were so many stupid, I don’t care about this gags dropped in there that I could not enjoy it. It really chopped and screwed the emotional flow of the story.
Also, I don’t like the Asgardians of the Galaxy dynamic. Thor shows up ego first and everyone uses it as an excuse to dump on Quill, which I don’t find funny.
I think Mighty Thor could’ve been a film all its own, and then have Love and Thunder come after that when Thor comes back to Earth.
Also looking forward to Hercules.
So I never really followed Thor back in my Marvel reading days. While Norse mythology itself was appealing, the character always seemed weirdly incongruous to me next to the other superheroes. TBF, as a child I probably wasn’t giving him the chance he deserved, but there you are. I stopped reading comics for the most part around 1996 and so am also unfamiliar with many storylines that have been published after that point. That being said, I thought the first Thor movie was pretty decent given that I’d previously been completely uninterested in this character beforehand. But Ragnarok really landed for me. These types of movies can start to feel the same after a while, and Ragnarok was one that was sufficiently different as to be wonderfully entertaining.
That being said, I don’t think there was too much Waititi in Love & Thunder, or that it was annoying, but rather that now we’ve seen it before. Ragnarok did it first and did it better. I still really liked this movie, but I didn’t think it was as impactful as Ragnarok.
Honestly, I think it would have been a much fresher direction if they would’ve done Jane/Mighty Thor as the actual main character. Her story was one of the more interesting parts of the movie, and if they would’ve given Portman top billing and made it clear beyond the shadow of a doubt that the film was from her perspective with Hemsworth as a side character, that would’ve been a much better film.
All of the characters frequently spoke in a shared voice, the goofy voice of Taika Waititi. He can’t stay serious. His characters never know real profound sadness. His villains are never truly evil and depraved. Even his version of Hitler is just a goofy, funny, friendly guy. Thor’s Father dies & Taika Waititi thinks it’s a great set up to tell a masturbation joke about Thor’s hammer pulling him off. Jane dies, definitely nothing to cry about. Waititi missed a chance to have her queef as she died in Thor’s arms. He should stick to writing for crass and absurd characters like Rick & Morty. Maybe the Adventure Time characters? Not Thor, unless you want him to be the God of goofy gags and dumb bits.
While still better than Dark World, it’s a step down from Ragnarok to be sure. Love and Thunder tries to replicate that same brand of humor, but it doesn’t work nearly as well. A lot of it is cringe-worthy and it simply doesn’t have the same impact as the former film. Love and Thunder simply doesn’t have the equivalent to Ragnarok’s “He’s a friend from work” line.
Plus, the whole long-running gag with Thor treating his swords like pets wears thin fast (the Pantheon Gods’ love of orgy gag was far better). I know it’s supposed to be a setup for the film’s conclusion – Waititi’s take on fatherhood – but it’s still a clumsy setup. Having said that, I adore the film’s ending with him adopting Gorr’s daughter. It certainly helps that casting Hemsworth’s real-life daughter gives a realistic quality to the father/daughter set piece.
I still appreciate other aspects. Loved having Portman back as Jane Foster (and Dennings as Darcy, for that matter), and I adored the no-holds barred physical portrayal of her dying cancer-self. Pretty bold for a PG-13 film.
I didn’t miss Loki that much though. I know Hiddleston and Hemsworth have blazing chemistry, which improved a lot of their former entries. But I wouldn’t want Thor stories to always be dependant on having Loki as an antagonist/sparring partner, and I think we needed a Thor film for the character to stand on his own (plus, Thompson’s Valkyrie helps to shoulder some of that role). And given his current Disney+ status, I’m more intrigued as to what Loki season 2 has in storage for next year.
And while the soundtrack doesn’t fit with the story as well as Led Zeppelin, count me in for any movie that displays the talents of GnR as intensively as this one does. I’ve been a lifelong GnR fan, and while I find using ‘Sweet Child O’ Mine‘ for parenting stories to be a tad cliché (Big Daddy also did it to a tiresome degree), I can’t dislike a movie that opens up with ‘Welcome to the Jungle‘ – just like the best GnR concerts, it always opens with that song.
Maybe it’s just because I’m such a hopeful guy, but for me, eve bad movies tend to start out with some promise. “Moonraker” starts with the spectacle of the space shuttle launching off an airplane, followed by James Bond and Jaws fighting while skydiving; “Attack of the Clones” has a chase through Coruscant that gets my hopes up that the movie won’t be the slog that it inevitably is. I knew in the first five minutes that I would HATE this movie. The juxtaposition between Gorr begging for his daughter’s life and the silly look and behavior of the god he was praying to was just too wide a chasm for me to traverse. It’s very hard to laugh out loud at a movie where one of the central characters acts in total denial of the cancer that will kill her. Waititi just doesn’t have the dexterity as a filmmaker to make it work this time.
@48/twels: “The juxtaposition between Gorr begging for his daughter’s life and the silly look and behavior of the god he was praying to was just too wide a chasm for me to traverse.”
That actually kinda worked for me, because it highlighted the contrast between Gorr’s hope that his god would intervene to save him from this horrible tragedy and the ugly reality that the god was just another self-absorbed one-percenter frat boy to whom the life and death of mortals is just a trivial joke. It underlined how unworthy the god was of Gorr’s worship, and fed Gorr’s disillusionment and the depth of hatred he came to feel for the gods.
@49: I understood that to be the intent of the filmmakers but it just didn’t work for me and felt symptomatic of the whole film. Balancing tragedy and comedy is VERY difficult. Waititi was able to do it a whole lot better in the previous Thor film. In this one, he juggled too much and the end effect was that neither the comedy nor the tragedy had a lot of weight to it. Not to be “book-is-better-guy,” but it really felt like Waititi and the writers and producers should’ve taken another look at the source material – particularly Jason Aaron’s writing of Jane Foster as Thor – for guidance.