With the thoroughly excellent Ragnarok, Taika Waititi became the savior of the Thor franchise. His vibrant energy and goofy humor were exactly the lightning rod the God of Thunder needed to be elevated out of the doldrums of the MCU's basement and finally get a long-overdue piece of the sweet center stage action that Iron Man, Captain America and The Guardians of the Galaxy have been soaking up for years. Of course, the downside to making a beloved film that's widely considered to be one of the franchise's best is the wave of buzz that comes with it and that resulted in some absurdly high expectations being placed on its sequel Love and Thunder. In typical superhero follow-up fashion, these high hopes resulted in a lot of fans walking away disappointed with what Love and Thunder delivered. While I do agree that Love and Thunder isn't as special as Ragnarok, it still has plenty of charms that make it a worthwhile follow-up for Waititi and co.
If Ragnarok was the Thor's franchise Appetite 4 Destruction, this is the series Use Your Illusion I and II. Waititi takes what worked about Ragnarok (absurdist humor, a kaleidoscope color palette, irreverent weirdo supporting characters), cranks the camp amp up to a million and let's that glitter bomb behemoth run wild for 119 minutes. This corny, glam metal-infused monster cranks out absurdist gags and tonal shifts so quickly that it will make some unsuspecting viewers wish the theaters passed out barf bags to deal with all of the genre-jumping sensory overload on display. Within a matter of 5 minutes, it goes from being a romantic power ballad to a loud, goofy radio rock anthem to an over-the-top amusement park haunted house that blurs the line between spooky and silly and back again. This brand of brazenly spastic cheese harkens back to the underrepresented era of the 80's where entertainment wanted to evoke as many emotions as humanly possible while also being the most unapologetically silly shit the creative team in charge could cook up and it's a hoot to watch something that takes such pleasure in being a multi-faceted cornball opus.
Underneath all of the silly jokes and gaudy pageantry, Love and Thunder is really a story of Thor re-discovering his purpose in the world and this is where the film manages to shine brightest. Following the destruction of Asgard and the death of his father Odin in Ragnarok and the death of his brother Loki in Infinity War, Thor has been a lost soul. At the start of Love and Thunder, Thor is 3 years into his travels with the Guardians of the Galaxy that started at the conclusion of Endgame and things aren't going great. The entire Guardians crew is fed up with Thor's antics as he's anointed himself the de facto leader of their group and taken sole credit for their victories in a long string of intergalactic battles. Following a messy win on a distant alien planet, the Guardians part ways with Thor and Korg (voiced by Waititi). After receiving a distress call from his old friend Sif (Jamie Alexander)-who informs him that a man named Gorr (Christian Bale, in a deeply creepy performance that fuels the film's darker moments) has gotten hold of the Necromancer-a cursed sword that is capable of killing Gods- and is headed to wipe out his people next, he returns to New Asgard. Shortly after his arrival, he unexpectedly reconnects with ex-girlfriend Jane Foster (a very funny and charismatic Natalie Portman)-who has gained the powers of the Mighty Thor for reasons that are too spoiler-y to discuss here-and soon sets out on a crazy adventure with Jane, Korg and Valkryie (Tessa Thompson) to save New Asgard from imminent destruction.
The reunion with Foster and the danger that Gorr poses to his people sends Thor down a path of self-exploration that eventually leads him to shedding his ego, re-learning the selflessness that's supposed to drive heroism and accepting love for the powerful driving force that it can be when it's coming from a pure place. As gushy and overbearingly sentimental as this journey proves to be, this arc makes a lot of sense for Thor at this stage of the MCU and the writing from Waititi and Jennifer Kaytin Robinson (Someone Great, Unpregnant) along with Hemsworth's performance balance the sincere with the schmaltz gracefully enough to make the character's steady growth over the course of the film feel earned.
Like the other recent "polarizing" MCU titles Eternals and Multiverse of Madness, Love and Thunder is a movie that would've benefited from a bit more time in the oven. The script is a draft or two away from figuring out to juggle all its narrative threads, Bale and Thompson are both relatively underutilized and Marvel's tight scheduling demands caused the inclusion of a bunch of CGI that unsurprisingly looks very cheap and rushed. Also like the aforementioned films, it's undeniably a product of the director that made it and isn't afraid to venture into darker, weirder and campier territory than the typical MCU project. Sure, this phase has produced some films that don't have the carefully curated polish that the bulk of the earlier films had, but the trade-off for having messier storytelling are movies that are more ambitious and specific to the director's vision than just about anything that came before them. From where I'm sitting, that's a huge win for creatives and hopefully Kevin Feige and Disney will let this era of minimal studio interference continue for as long as possible.
Grade: B+
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