Thor: Love and Thunder

When I initially heard there would be a fourth Thor movie, I grinned because the delight from the third film in the series, Thor: Ragnarok, remained in my mind. That flick was helmed by Taika Waititi, who directs the follow-up. If Waititi can create material as well crafted, amusing, and exuberant as Ragnarok, let him make five more in the series, if he wants. Turns out, however, Thor: Love and Thunder is a misfire that’s nowhere close to the quality of its predecessor.

The movie begins by showing Gorr (Christian Bale), a gray, bald man in a barren desert with his daughter, Love. He prays for his god to help them, but Love dies. Gorr is transported to another realm, inhabited by his god Rapu (Jonny Brugh), who has little interest in this creature’s hardships and attempts to throttle him. The Necrosword proffers itself to Gorr, who kills Rapu and declares he will all gods. Thor, (Chris Hemsworth) misses his ex-girlfriend Jane Foster (Natalie Portman), arrives in New Asgard, where Gorr is set to strike. There, he meets Jane, who has Mjolnir, Thor’s old, cracked hammer, which she hopes will help her in her fight against stage four cancer. The two reunite and battle Gorr, who kidnaps many Asgardian children and confines them in the Shadow Realm. Also joining the clash against Gorr are Kronan gladiator Korg (Taika Waititi) and Valkyrie (Tessa Thompson), the King of Asgard.

The low-grade script is by Waititi and Jennifer Kaytin Robinson. Jane’s cancer doesn’t fit with the team confronting Gorr or with Thor and Jane revitalizing their romance. I understand they wanted a force that would threaten the happiness of the two leads, but the disease is an odd choice that certainly doesn’t make the film more intriguing. Jane has the choice to stay in bed and get chemotherapy, so she can defeat cancer and live her life with Thor or help her boyfriend fight Gorr and die quickly after. That’s simply bizarre, and her decision left me looking at the screen for a bit like I was peering into a deep fog. And Valkyrie is terribly underutilized. As a fierce fighter, she would be perfect to stand alongside Thor and confront Gorr in the Shadow Realm. Waititi and Robinson have Valkyrie handling beauracratic duties, which is boring. In another quick scene, she does an Old Spice commercial to promote a retail shop opening. Who should help Thor late in the action, the indefatigable Valkyrie, or the cancer patient?

Because of the jumbled script, Thor: Love and Thunder is a tonal catastrophe. In the early sequence where Gorr and Rapu converse, they seem to be in two different movies: Gorr in a tense drama and Rapu in a silly comedy. The movie has a try-anything feel, and while that may work for some movies, it’s a negative here. Because Jane has late-stage cancer, it would only make sense for the action to have a more serious tone. Instead, Waititi and Robinson go for too many laughs to prevent the movie from being too gloomy. What’s worse is, most of the humorous stabs fail. After conquering the opposing side in battle, Thor says they won with “minimal damage” and numerous structures subsequently fall. Thor “gives” Peter Quill (Chris Pratt) a ship. But since it’s already Quill’s ship, Thor comes off as stupid. The film nuttily uses personification to show Thor’s axe, Stormbreaker, becoming jealous of Mjolnir. I’ll admit, the screaming goats made me smile. There are so many jokes and gags, though, it seems like a spoof at times, which, again, is a poor fit for Jane’s disease.

There are good things. The voice-over summaries of Thor’s hammer and Thor and Jane’s relationship are tidily told. Gorr makes for a decent villain, one that would have been better if he had been in more of the movie. Also, Michael Giacchino and Nami Melumad offer an appositely energetic score. There are some killer songs on the soundtrack, such as “Welcome to the Jungle” and “Paradise City,” that give the film a shot of adrenaline. And there are better hairdos in this movie than in most superhero flicks.

Chris Hemsworth does a mostly good job as Thor. Of course, he looks incredibly strong and atkes on his foes with the right amount of force. He also handles the humor in stride and gets plausibly serious when Jane’s cancer is broached. The relationship between Thor and Jane seems off—there’s more forced biology (as in both Hemsworth and Portman are paid to act near each other) than chemistry. It’s that the cancer part is so out of place, the two don’t connect as they should. Natalie Portman is only fair Jane. She acts believably (though she’s less successful with comedy—her attempts to conceive her own catchprase don’t amuse, partly because of her), but she doesn’t bring me to feel for her struggle. As Gorr the God Butcher, Christian Bale performs at a high level. I wanted Gorr to develop fully so Bale to create a first-rate character out of him, but because of the inferior script, that doesn’t happen. Still, Bale imbues Gorr with an intensity that is gripping to see.

On The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, Waititi said of his film, “It’s like we asked a bunch of six-year-olds what they wanted in a movie, and we just said yes to everything.” Given the chaotic mixture of genres, that doesn’t seem too far off. Thor: Love and Thunder sometimes forgets the necessary focus on the drama as well. At no point did I think the kidnapped children were in great danger, keeping the stakes low. The movie swings hard on comedy (trying too hard to get the audiences to laugh) and earns, at best, a foul tip. It misses on drama. Having a character with cancer as your superhero movie’s clean-up hitter—the one needed to tip the balance in favor of the good guys—is strike three.