My favourite movie in the Marvel Cinematic Universe is Thor: Ragnarock. When I first watched it, I hadn't seen the previous two Thor movies. My initial impression of the character was bad. I didn't like the fact that a Norse god could be lifted from its mythology and repurposed as a superhero. It seemed disrespectful.
I'm also kind of picky about how much power I want my superheroes to have. I don't want them to be like Hawkeye, who uses a bow and arrow and doesn't even bother with modern technology. That makes me feel lazy, like I could just do some pushups and practice archery and become a superhuman. But I also don't want my superheroes to be so powerful that they can level planets or warp reality. At that point, it seems unrealistic that they would have to work on a team.
My favourite power level is around most of the X-Men. I'm aware that some of them are absurdly powerful, but usually each one has a specific ability that elevates them slightly above conventional technology but is at its most effective when used in tandem with the abilities of their fellow team members. It makes sense that they are considered exceptional, but everyone plays a part, no one can do it on their own.
Clearly Thor, the God of Thunder, heir to the throne of Asgard, is the most overpowered Avenger, and it's almost a joke, acknowledged within the series, that he and Hawkeye are included on the same team as equals (between Ragnarock and Hawkeye's mini series, I have changed my mind on both these characters)
Watching Ragnarock, I initially felt that the humour was overdone. Marvel has a habit of referencing its own tropes and making fun of them. I generally like this, but not at the expense of genuinely cool scenes. While Marvel fans can acknowledge the flaws of superhero films, we are still fans of the genre and want to see it played straight for the most part.
Then the scenes kept shifting. Thor was moving planet-to-planet, and I thought it was a weird blend of mythology and sci-fi. I wasn't aware of Thor's cosmic status in the MCU at that time.
Meeting Loki was weird. I'd heard a ton about how female fans found him super attractive, so seeing a greasy, weaselly guy that gets beat up by pretty well every fighter in the film was a subversion of expectation.
Seeing Doctor Strange and The Hulk in the movie made me feel like they were using every excuse to shoehorn big names into the film to boost its marketability.
However, despite all these criticisms, I found myself laughing to the point of wheezing uncontrollably in the theatre. Eventually I came around to thinking "Okay, it's not what I thought it should be, but just let it be what it is, because I love it".
It wasn't just a comedy though. At the end, when Thor decides to sacrifice Asgard and says "Asgard isn't a place, it's a people", I was able to accept the statement when I wouldn't have been able to at the beginning of the film. The movie made me change my mind.
When Thor's spirit cries out to Odin saying that he can't win without his hammer and Odin says "Are you Thor, God of Hammers?" it was such a sweet, sarcastic, loving, and confident affirmation to his son.
The scene between Thor and Hulk after their fight, before they break out of the Grandmaster's chambers, was the funniest interaction in the entire MCU. Thor feeling emasculated, Hulk reluctantly talking about his anger issues, both of them awkwardly talking about their shared history and relationship with Banner.
I wound up watching the previous two Thor movies just to understand Ragnarock better. They were both really bad. The Dark World is some of the worst in MCU history. But it was worth it, because after I watched those, I understood more of the references in Ragnarock. I've since rewatched and the experience is even better. I can appreciate the dismissive treatment of the Warriors Three, for example.
Taika Waititi was the director of the third Thor film and assumed to be the relevant difference that made it special. Knowing that he was coming back for Thor: Love and Thunder was encouraging. It was also the first time a Marvel character got a fourth film. If Thor got a fifth film, it occurred to me he would have a proper trilogy, the Waititi trilogy, dismissing the first two mistakes that were the initial Thor movies.
Unfortunately, Love and Thunder would not appreciate the same approval that Ragnarock did.
The general feeling toward this movie was that it had a lighhthearted tone that didn't fit with the darker material. A disappointing take since the lack of playfulness of Ragnarock is much of what distinguished it from its first two films and made it refreshing. Some people say that critics of L&T were only disappointed because they compare it to Ragnarock, whereas when they watched Ragnarock for the first time, they were comparing it to the first two Thor films.
My personal relationship with L&T is mixed. I felt like it got so much almost right, but missed the mark. Missed opportunities are what come to mind when I reflect. Because of that, this review might sound a bit like fanfiction as I offer alternative to the various things I felt were near misses.
The story opens with the story of Gorr. He is the citizen of an alien planet that is plagued by a rampant lack of resources. He is also a loyal practitioner of a faith surrounding a sun god. We start off with him experiencing the unbearable pain of losing his daughter to malnourishment. Not long after, he discovers an oasis of resources where his sun god is celebrating the defeat of a difficult opponent and the subsequent acquisition of the god-slaying Necrosword.
Believing this to be a sign of meaning in suffering, Gorr puts forward his story and assures his god that he has always been faithful. The god responds that his suffering has no purpose and belittles him. In a fit of rage, Gorr grabs the Necrosword, cuts down his god, and vows to slay all gods.
Love everything about this opening. No complaints yet. I'm only mentioning it because it will be relevant to something later in the review.
We then cut to Korg telling the children of New Asgard the legacy of Thor. I think this was a very fun way of catching the audience up on where we'd left things before this move while also nodding to the classical treatment of Norse gods. It reminds me of the play that the Odin-disguised Loki was watching in Ragnarock. Same narrative tool used in a new and refreshing way. Again, only mentioning this because it comes up later in the review.
We are then introduced to Thor. He and the Guardians of the Galaxy, are on a wartorn planet. The Guardians are fighting tooth and nail for their side while Thor is reflecting on a hilltop. Starlord calls for his help and he saunters into the battle while still in his pajamas.
He declares his side's oncoming victory, engages in the battle and swiftly defeats the enemy that the Guardians were fighting for their lives against. It's a nice bit of action and a good introduction to Thor's powers. He also carelessly destroys the sacred temple of the people he is fighting for and after the fight is done, boasts about the outcome, offering platitudes about everyone's contributions but not acknowledging the destruction he caused. His audience clearly feels bittersweet about the temple but they don't challenge him.
Obviously the people are likely more happy than not to have the war settled, but Thor's disregard of their culture and his lack of concern for his friends who were risking their lives while he was meditating, and his untouchable nature on the battlefield validate at least a little bit Gorr's sentiments about the culture of gods. I will offer my first criticism here. While these themes seemed obvious to me at this time, they never really get explored later in the story. However, on my first viewing I'm still having a good time and I'm yet to be disappointed.
We're next introduced to Jane. She was a glaring omission in Ragnarock, as she was integral to the first two Thor movies. Her absence was handwaved with some Thor fans telling him "Sorry Jane dumped you" and him retorting "It was a mutual dumping!" To be honest, I was happy to not have her. Marvel has a habit of shoehorning love stories into every superheroes character arc and in the case of Thor, it felt awkward. However, this is Love and Thunder, so I would be naive to not expect love and, you know, thunder. I also trust Waititi's creative decisions at this point, as he has delivered things that I didn't think I wanted until he presented them.
So we learn that Jane and Thor broke up because they were both too busy with their respective work. Thor would travel to different planets while Jane was advancing medical science. Eventually she left him a handwritten note breaking up with him. After the breakup she developed cancer and has been undergoing chemotherapy.
We then get to catch up with Valkyrie. New Asgard has changed under her leadership and from exposure to other Earth cultures. It has corporatized, with Val doing an Old Spice commercial and cutting the ribbon on a new ice cream shop called Infinity Conez. We also see her attending a number of meetings and showing a measure of discontent with the position.
I've seen people complain about the name Infinity Conez, and how in their world it would be like the equivalent if a holocaust joke. I see that point, but for whatever reason I don't really care.
What I do care about is that we see a play where actors do a shoddy job of reenacting Ragnarock. But they did this in the last movie, and I thought the equivalent for this one was Korg's story to the children. This feels redundant and safe. On first viewing, this is the first time I saw a crack. They made it 19 minutes before I raised an eyebrow.
Jane is visiting to see the shattered Mjolnir, which is on display, thinking that it might have a rejuvenating effect that outdoes the chemotherapy. At first I wondered how they moved the fragments, but then I realized that Thor likely moved them himself. Anyway, the hammer reacts to Jane and we cut away again.
We're now with the Guardians, where they are receiving a distress signal. They see a series of images of slain gods with someone shouting about "The God Butcher". This is the only god butchering you're going to get in this film, by the way. One major complaint about L&T is that, despite this movie having a villain called The God Butcher, we don't see any god butchering. I agree with this sentiment. I don't need to see things get too dark, but the idea is that Gorr is to gods, what gods are to mortals. It's supposed to evoke a sense of vulnerability in Thor to which he is usually immune.
This is also the last of the Guardians, as Thor leaves to handle things himself. This disappointed some people who felt they were hyping a Thor/Guardians co-adventure. I don't really care. This seems like an appropriate time to leave them.
So Thor appears on a wintery planet in front of the corpse of a giant beastly god that was apparently his friend. He finds Sif, who lost her arm in battle but was left alive. She requests that Thor leave her to succumb to her injuries so that she can be admitted to Valhalla. This introduces the concept, which will be important later.
Thor denies her request on the basis that only those who die in battle get to go to Valhalla but she survived. He then jokes that maybe her arm is in Valhalla.
It's here that I want to point out a subtle change in Thor's character that I think most people missed. The fact that the humour felt refreshing in Ragnarock but stale in L&T to ask the question of how much humour should be used in films like these, but I think a more relevant question is how the humour is delivered.
You see, in Ragnarock, Thor is hilarious, but he's still proud and pompous. The humour comes from the circumstances that lead him to behave in awkward or unexpected ways. He doesn't get the jokes or make them himself. In L&T he is an actual jokester, which I think makes the humour less funny.
I got my brother to watch Ragnarock, and when he was explaining it to our mom, he said "It's really funny, but it's not a comedy. It's an action movie with just the right amount of levity." I think this is the distinction between the two films. Ragnarock was an action film loaded with humour, while Love and Thunder is a comedy with dark content. Waititi himself said that this movie is primarily a romance, but I disagree. It's a comedy.
Thor takes Sif back to New Asgard to heal and finds the place under assault from some generic monsters. He sees Mjolnir flying around destroying the invaders and calls out to it to return to him. He is surprised to find that it won't listen to him, and then returns to its current wielder, Jane with a Thor style. The hammer is being held together with its telekinetic power, which asks the question of why Thor never did this. I guess he didn't bother because he had Stormbreaker. Jane does something really cool by shattering Mjolnir and the fragments fly into the monsters like bullets, then having it reform into a hammer.
We have a flashback via Korg's storytelling about the subsequent breakup of the two of them. In it, Thor whispers to Mjolnir to always protect Jane and inadvertantly enchants it. I don't like this detail, I feel that it calls into question Jane's "worthiness" which was previously the only way that someone could lift the hammer. I would have liked it better if she had simply the character to lift it, like Captain America did.
Gorr shows up and Thor engages him. I guess the Necrosword can summon monsters? I don't think that's ever explained. When Gorr reveals the Necrosword, Thor recognizes it and says it's "cool", which I think betrays the sense of vulnerability he should be feeling. Gorr never outperforms Thor to a point that would justify a fear reaction though, which makes light of his status as "The God Butcher".
Instead of fighting to the end, Gorr opts to steal the Asgardian children and take them to the Shadow Realm as bait for Thor to fight him where he's at his strongest. This is a weird move, since his thing is that he believes the gods don't help people, but he's relying on Thor to go to the Shadow Realm to save the children. Weird cognitive dissonance.
We see the children in the Shadow Realm being tormented by Gorr, who strikes fear in them by ripping the head off some rodent-like animal. This is another thing I found weird about Gorr. He's a father. He's motivated by the loss of his daughter. He should have a soft spot for children but instead he targets and antagonizes them. He even compares one of them to his daughter but it doesn't stop him from mistreating them.
I think it would have been much cooler if he instead told them tales of Thor, contrasting Korg's storytelling. But while Korg built up Thor by telling of his heroics, Gorr would tear him down by speaking on the arrogant and thoughtless side of him that we saw earlier in the movie. His motivation to take the children could be based on wanting to "deprogram" them. I think this would have worked so much better.
Thor wants reinforcements so he, Jane, Valkyrie, and Korg all go to Omnipotent City where the gods gather. I really enjoy Thor and Jane's banter. It's really like a couple that broke up on the premise of it being amicable, but they still have feelings for each other but are trying to prove that they are cool. This part felt like the kind of awkward humour that made Ragnarock so fun.
When they reach Omnipotent City, they enter this counsel where the gods are discussing plans for an orgy. They're gross and arrogant. This would be another good time to revisit Gorr's sentiments and maybe it's alluded to, but to me it didn't really come across. Jane and Val are disgusted and banter about taking the gods down by force. This sort of downplays the strength of the gods, which in turn cheapens Gorr's relevancy. With Jane it makes sense because she's new, but Valkerie should have more reverence.
For some reason they're wearing disguises. This doesn't really make sense since they're with Thor, who would be invited to such functions and their plan is to tell them who they are and why they need help. The real reason is because they wanted to revisit the joke disguises from Ragnarock, when they're sneaking through Sakar. Comes across as forced and repetitive this time around.
Thor mentions that a lot of things he does is based on Zeus, which is funny because of the parallels between them in Greek and Norse mythology.
They make their request, Zeus denies them. Thor gets mad and calls him out for being a coward. Zeus whispers to him that he's scared. This could have been really powerful if Zeus had demonstrated his strength somehow. But he didn't do much.
Zeus reassures everyone that Gorr won't reach Eternity. We then learn that Eternity is a powerful being at the centre of the universe that will grant the wish of the first to reach it. I've heard complaints that Thanos would have had an easier time getting to Eternity than gathering the stones, and that the heroes would have had an easier time reversing the damage of the snap this way than through their timeline shenanigans. I agree with this. Maybe they should have given Eternity a more specific power or barrier of entry. Like maybe the one that returns the Necrosword to it will have a wish granted.
Zeus tries to force them to stay in Eternity City out of concern that Thor could leak information on its whereabouts. They have a brief skirmish with a bunch enchanted statues. Luckily none of the gods in attendance try to intervene. Thor steals Zeus' signature weapon Thunderbolt before escaping via the Bifrost.
The skirmish and escape were inevitable, but I would have liked it if Thor and co didn't have such a strong showing. Again, it makes Gorr's feat of butchering gods seem less impressive.
After the escape, Thor and Jane talk about their feelings and he learns that she has cancer. Gorr tells Valkerie an anecdote about how all Kronen are male and they make children by holding hands. It's funny, but unfortunately Korg has a very memorable line in Ragnarock where he says that the only people to show up to his revolution were his mom and her boyfriend who he hates. So just a little inconsistent.
We also get confirmation that the person that died to protect Valyrie was her girlfriend. Seemed implied but its nice to get the verification.
They go fight Gorr in the Shadow Realm. They get wrecked and barely escape with their lives. They also lose Stormbreaker, which Gorr grabs after they open a gate home. This is bad because it turns out that Stormbreaker is the key, and now he can reach Eternity unless they go back and stop him.
Back on Earth, Jane is in the hospital and after talking to her doctor realizes that Mjolnir is reversing the healing effects of the chemotherapy. It appears that her transformations, which fill her with vitality, also purge the poison that is the chemo, even though it's a poison that fights cancer.
Thor tells Jane to stay on Earth and heal, and with Valkyrie too wounded to go back, Thor heads to The Shadow Realm on his own. He uses Thunderbolt which I guess also connects to the Bifrost.
Thor finds the children and grants them the Power of Thor to fight the shadow monsters. Some people didn't like this, as it seems like he could build a pretty insane army if he has the ability to spread his power like that, but I kind of liked it. Odin has done some similarly absurd things. It's got a godly aspect to it, and it makes sense that Thor is developing the ability to place enchantments.
Jane feels Thor losing his fight with Gorr and rejoins the battle. HOW?! We know for a fact that Mjolnir can't use the Bifrost!
Anyway, Thor knows this means that she's not doing so great health-wise.
Okay, let's hold up for a second. I think they got the order of things kind of wrong here. What should have happened was Thor gets left behind after the first encounter with Gorr in the Shadow Realm. He should have sent Jane and Valkyrie away with Stormbreaker to prevent Gorr accessing the Bifrost. Gorr should have then tortured Thor to get him to summon Stormbreaker. Then Jane should have come back to save Thor even though it meant reversing her chemo. Then we don't have to play this game where we don't know how people are teleporting between realms.
The only issue with my suggestion is that Thor doesn't get the opportunity to learn about Mjolnir reversing Jane's chemo between their trips to the Shadow Realm. He could learn about it before the first trip, but then he'd have to be okay with Jane fighting Gorr knowing it was killing her, and he wouldn't have been okay with that. I guess he could have learned right before the fight and since the damage had already been done from the transformation, he was okay with it. They might have come to the agreement that this was the last time she'd transform. But she violates the promise to save Thor. Maybe make it so the kids get rescued on the first encounter, and so Thor gets to feel even more guilty because Jane returns just for him, and her bringing Stormbreaker gives Gorr another chance to get it.
Also, and this is even more fanficcy, but Jane has this bit where she's trying to come up with a catchphrase. In the previous movie Thor has a catchphrase "Because that's what heroes do". It would be cool if when she shows up to rescue him, Thor asks "Jane, why?" and Jane says "Because that's what heroes do". It would have closed that gag and given it a purpose, and it would further emphasize her worthiness.
Anyway, Jane manages to break the Necrosword but they reach Eternity and Gorr is the first to reach it. Thor tells him that his desire isn't revenge, it's to be a good father, and that a good father would use his wish to bring back his daughter. Gorr realizes he's dying. They don't explicitly say it but I guess being cut off from the influence of the Necrosword kills you. He pines that if he were to bring her back, he would die and she would be alone, so Thor offers to step in as a father.
This is all almost really good. At the beginning, Gorr begs a god to give meaning to his daughter's life but he is tormented. Now at the end, he is reduced once again to begging to a god. But this time, the god hears his prayer, and despite having been tormented in a similar fashion to what Gorr went through, he behaves compassionately and heeds his prayer. Thor gets to learn what it means to be a "good" god, and Gorr is finally treated with the benevolence that he once believed in.
Jane dies and goes to Valhalla. I really like this, although it kind of contradicts what Thor told Sif about needing to literally die while fighting, not just succumbing to a wound afterward. Unless we count her "fight with cancer" as a fight worthy of entering Valhalla. But the way she ascends is similar to Odin, and Odin wasn't in a fight when he passed. I don't know.
Then we end with an overview of the various characters and land on Thor acting as a father to Gorr's daughter, who turns out to be named Love. It turns out that the movie was named as such for the God of Thunder and his adopted daughter Love.
Whew, that took awhile. To summarize, I liked the movie but thought it missed the mark slightly in a number of ways. I'll list them here
- Axe the play in New Asgard. It's repetitive and Korg's story already filled its purpose
- Acknowledge the relevance of Gorr's view of the gods, even extending to Thor
- Have Thor act more like the comedic straight man instead of a joker
- Get rid of Thor's enchantment on Mjolnir and just allow Jane to be worthy of it
- Let Gorr outperform Thor enough to make him seem like a relevant threat
- Have Gorr try to "deprogram" the Asgardian children through stories instead of torment them
- Allow Zeus to demonstrate his powers and be impressive before having him admit to being scared
- Make Eternity's powers more specific, more obscure, or make the method of getting to it more difficult
- Get rid of a few gags, like the disguise bit and the part about Korg's parentage
- Have Thor learn about Jane's cancer and Mjolnir making it worse before the first trip to the Shadow Realm
- Have Thor captured, with Jane, Valkyrie and the kids escaping via Stormbreaker
- When Jane returns, have her respond to Thor with "Because that's what heroes do" to close the catchphrase gag
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