Thor: Love and Thunder review: an action-packed, heartfelt rip-ride

Thor: Love and Thunder is an action-packed rip-ride of a marvel flick, whose clunky exposition isn’t enough to detract from the heartfelt central story and the (long overdue) focus on Jane Foster.

Before Taika Waititi, Thor was the black sheep of the MCU – the grandiose, unfunny hero whose first two films landed squarely near the bottom of most fans’ franchise rankings. But what once seemed to be Marvel’s stifled properties has blossomed into one of its most beloved – thanks to the artistic flair and vibrant voice of director Taika Waititi, who breathed new life into the character with 2017’s Thor: Ragnarok. Now, fresh from the success of Our Flag Means Death and with the confidence of Ragnarok‘s success in the rear view mirror, Waititi returns with his second Thor film (the fourth in the franchise) Thor: Love and Thunder. Though it lacks the universe-ending stakes of its contemporaries and sometimes struggles with clunky structure and dialogue, Love and Thunder‘s commitment to camp and the film’s heartfelt core make it a worthy successor to one of the MCU’s finest.

In the wake of Endgame and Thor’s glorious dad bod, Thor: Love and Thunder re-introduces audiences to a post-Thanos Thor living in blissful oblivion as he tries to find inner peace while fighting alongside the Guardians of the Galaxy. Though he seems content to keep stepping on the Guardians’ toes, a series of distress calls from Gods around the universe bring his attention back to New Asgard, where he teams up alongside King Valkyrie (Tessa Thompson) and the newly empowered Jane Foster/The Mighty Thor (Natalie Portman, returning for the first time since Thor: The Dark World) to take down Gorr the God Butcher, and rescue the children of New Asgard.

Let’s get the elephant in the room out of the way – the isn’t your mother’s Thor film. If you were to show Love and Thunder to a moviegoer who had just walked out of the first Thor movie back in 2011, they’d be baffled by the drastic shift in tone – and even in comparison to the markedly more vibrant and bombastic Ragnarok, Love and Thunder takes Waititi’s off-the-wall comedy style and filmmaking sensibilities to new heights, resulting in a film that we won’t hesitate to call Marvel’s most ridiculous entry yet.

On the one hand, the increased insanity in terms of town allows far-fetched comic elements like rainbow bridges and cancer-curing magic hammers – not to mention giving Hemsworth, whose comedic talents and charm was stifled during the first two films – some breathing room and the chance for forge his own identity for what could’ve been a very one-note character. On the other, though, it’s impossible to deny that even in comparison to the rest of Waititi’s body of work, some jokes and beats in Love and Thunder move beyond refreshingly silly and go straight to obnoxiously out there and (at times) repetitive.

The film’s tone – especially coming off the psychological horror of Doctor Strange In the Multiverse of Madness is almost jarring in its commitment to being stupid, so aggressively the butt of its own joke that it seems to undermine the more heartfelt, genuine moments. This is frustrating, because (as the title insinuates) Love and Thunder has a very emotional, relationship-oriented story at its core, and explores a number of interesting ideas about family and self-love – some of which are explored in-depth, but most of which are overlooked in favor of churning out another laugh.

Perhaps the most egregious victim of this dynamic is Natalie Portman’s Jane Foster, who follows her comic book arc of a terminal cancer diagnosis. When Love and Thunder picks up, we learn that Jane has found a way to harness the power of mijonir, and that whenever she’s wielding the hammer, she’s given the power of the gods and her sickness disappears. The hammer drains her life force, though – so every time she swoops in to save the day or defend the people of Asgard, she’s one step closer to death.

It’s a heartbreaking dilemma, but nonetheless, a gratifying opportunity to see Jane Foster finally afforded the narrative respect she deserves. Natalie Portman is radiant as ever, and the chemistry between she and Hemsworth that was absent for the first two films comes out in full force here – creating a surprisingly passionate, emotional dynamic between the two of them. The romance between Thor in Jane is one of the MCU’s more relatable and believable – without question one of Waititi’s strongest additions to the MCU.

In the same breath, though, Jane’s arc tends to stick out like a sore thumb when we cut away from her struggling through chemo to watch Thor do the splits fighting aliens or harness the flight of massive screaming goats. It’s emotional whiplash in the worst way, leaving the film feeling disjointed and disingenuous when it should be unpretentious and good-humored. Christian Bale’s turn as Gorr the God Butcher is similarly out of place – though the rest of the cast seems to at least understand the kind of film they’re in, Bale seems to miss all of Waititi’s comedic queues and trademark direction – giving a performance plaid entirely straight that would’ve been much more at home in Thor: The Dark World.

That’s not to say Love and Thunder is a flat-out failure: between Jane’s cancer arc, the rekindling of the Thor/Jane relationship, and the late-game revelations about Gorr’s daughter and her new dynamic with Thor, Love and Thunder boats plenty of emotional moments that help keep the film moving – perhaps almost too quickly. Still, in spite of some of the MCU’s most effective character arcs yet, Love and Thunder‘s unshakable commitment to remaining silly and unorthodox (ironically) bogs it down – creating a tonally jarring speedrun of a film that can’t quite stick the landing.