Today's Cinema Sunday takes us out to see Thor: Love and Thunder.
As my daughter Randie says, "Well, let's get this over with."
As I wrote when we went to see Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, "There is an almost sense of obligation to see a Marvel movie if you want to catch up on what happens next and be ready for what's going to happen next, it is almost de rigueur to see whatever Marvel has going on this week."
You may get where Randie is coming from.
It does seem that whenever Cinema Sunday takes us out of the safe and comforting confines of the Fortress of Ineptitude, it is to see another damn Marvel movie.
Well, not quite true. We did leave the house to go see Lightyear which is NOT a Marvel movie so there.
It is however still Disney and damn it! Disney is getting all our money.
Anyway...
OK, Thor: Love and Thunder might be another damn Marvel movie but perhaps it is due some consideration beyond the mere obligation to see another damn Marvel movie.
Taika Waititi directed the damn thing as well as co-writing the screenplay and Taika Waititi is the gifted genius who helped bring to life such wonderful entertainment as Our Flag Means Death and What We Do In the Shadows and also directed the funniest and most kick ass Marvel movie to date, Thor: Ragnorok.
Thor: Love and Thunder also brings back Natalie Portman as Dr. Jane Foster which is in itself kind of big deal. Apparently Portman's time making Thor: The Dark World was such a miserable experience, Portman was done with the MCU. This is why Dr. Foster has been reduced to name drops in all subsequent Thor appearances.
So what exactly does Thor: Love and Thunder offer that would bring Natalie Portman back to the MCU?
Dr. Jane Foster is... the Mighty Thor!
Thor: Love and Thunder introduces one of the most compelling concepts from the comics, of Jane Foster being worthy of Mjolnir and becoming in her own right Thor.
The power of Thor is a blessing and a curse.
Jane Foster has stage 4 cancer. The hammer of Thor gives Jane the power of a god but it also weakens her human body, causing the cancer to advance. The power of Thor is both saving and killing Jane Foster at the same time.
A chance to play both a super powered hero AND potentially a sad and moving death scene? Of course Natalie Portman wanted back in.
And it is Dr. Foster's journey of facing death, a last chance at life and an adventure she never dreamed possible only to still have to face death is what drives the heart of Thor: Love and Thunder.
Otherwise....
Well, to paraphrase Gilmore Girls creator Amy Sherman-Palladino, "It's a Marvel movie and shit has to happen."
The shit that has to happen is....
Armed with the all-powerful Necrosword, Gorr the God Butcher is on a mission to butcher all gods.
We first meet Gorr struggling to survive in a barren desert offering fervent prayers to his god, Rapu, that his daughter will not die in this hellhole of a planet.
She dies.
And later Gorr meets Rapu who is a total dick about it. Prayers? Yeah right. Rapu wasn't listening and doesn't care.
Boom! Rapu gets killed by Gorr.
Other gods we meet in Omnipotence City are a bunch of self centered pricks more concerned with their own pleasures that of being any help to others in need. (At the top of their meeting agenda is planning for the upcoming orgy.) Zeus in particular is an especially obnoxious prick.
With gods like these, it's hard root against Gorr the God Butcher.
But he is the movie's bad guy and does some bad stuff. Like kidnapping the children of New Asgard to lure Thor Odinson into a trap to I guess kill the god of thunder (butchering gods is kinda of Gorr's thing, you know) and steal Thor Odinson's mystic axe Stormbreaker to use it's power to summon the Bifrost, enter the realm of Eternity who will grant Gorr's wish to destroy all gods.
Eternity is fairly comics accurate
But it does bring up a bunch of questions. If Eternity exists within the MCU, why didn't Thanos just use Eternity to wish half the universe dead instead of chasing down Infinity Stones to power of the gauntlet to blah blah blah.
The plan is not to let Gorr get his hands on Stormbreaker.
But shit happens, Gorr gets his hands on Stormbreaker and gets to Eternity to make his wish.
But not before Thor holding a dying Jane Foster (who used Mjolnir to power up as Mighty Thor one last time to save Thor Odinson's life at the expense of her own) pleads with Gorr to ask Eternity for a favor born from love, not hate.
Gorr makes his wish for his daughter to live again.
Jane dies, Gorr dies, the kids get back to Asgard and Thor now has an adoptive daughter and we're all good.
Final post credit scene: Heimdall welcomes Jane Foster to Valhalla.
Odds and ends
Tessa Thompson is back as Valkyrie who is King (not Queen) of Asgard. (Nice twist.) And a couple of side glances from Valkyrie at Mighty Thor shows Valkyrie could go for that.
Taika Waititi is back at the rock creature Korg who is as sweet as ever. He gets blasted to bits by Gorr at one point but his face survives which eventually grows back into a full grown Korg. At the end of the movie, Korg gets rock creature husband named Dwayne and they make a rock creature baby.
When we last saw Thor at the end of Avengers: Endgame, he was heading back off into space with the Guardians of the Galaxy and the goofy galactic gang makes an appearance here. They get sent off on a search and rescue mission before the end of the first act.
Russell Crowe's turn as Zeus doesn't work for me. With his faux Italian "Mario and Luigi" accent, the character is too much of a caricature from the outset. We know from jump that Thor's adoration of Zeus is going to be seriously disappointed.
And Christian Bale as Gorr is hard row to hoe. Look, we're down with his mad on at gods like Rapu and hell, Zeus is a really good example of a really bad god but his mission to kill all gods? Even Thor?
And get this! He kidnaps kids (bad!) and terrorizes them (more bad!) to lure Thor into a trap which only works if Thor is a good god and not a bad god who ignores the needs of others. So Gorr is all over the map and kind of hard to get behind as the story's big bad.
On a positive note, Chris Hemsworth is a dude-tastic as ever as Thor Odinson. Yeah, he has a bit of an ego (he is, after all, the god of thunder) but he's still a bit insecure (especially on the subject of relationships and particularly his relationship with Jane). But ultimately, he just wants to do the right thing as much as he can.
The "It's That Person Who Was In That Thing" Department
As in Thor: Ragnorok, we get a troupe of Asgardian actors performing a play based on the previous Thor movie. Matt Damon, Sam Neill, and Luke Hemsworth are back playing "Loki", "Odin", and "Thor" with Melissa McCarthy joining them as "Hela".
Over all, Thor: Love and Thunder is an enjoyable enough diversion but perhaps not quite as strong as Taika Waititi's previous turn behind the camera with Thor: Ragnorok.
What mostly makes Thor: Love and Thunder work as well as it does rests on the consistent charms of Chris Hemsworth as Thor and on Natalie Portman's strong story arc as Dr. Jane Foster, AKA the Mighty Thor.
Portman especially elevates Thor: Love and Thunder beyond just another damn Marvel movie.
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