By Noah Gittell
The Marvel Cinematic Universe may be the all-powerful, all-knowing behemoth of our times — the equivalent in our movie marketplace of an impossibly muscle-bound demigod — but it’s still not equipped for certain challenges. Blockbuster filmmaking is meant to reflect real-world anxieties, but the closer Marvel gets to anything that resembles the realities of being human, the less effective it is. That’s the struggle with “Thor: Love and Thunder”, which tries to meld a light-hearted jaunt through the galaxy with a somber meditation on love, death, and meaning. You will be shocked to learn which half of it works.
When we meet the heroes and villains of “Thor: Love and Thunder”, everyone is suffering. Jane Foster (Natalie Portman) returns to the franchise for the first time since 2013’s “Thor: The Dark World” as a cancer patient who has gone through several ineffective rounds of chemo, but remarkably still looks like a movie star. Gorr (Christian Bale), the film’s villain, is grieving over his lost daughter — we watch her die in his arms — so he takes up a campaign to slaughter all demigods as punishment. Thor (Chris Hemsworth), meanwhile, is merely soul-sick. Since saving the universe several times over, he has developed a bad case of the blues. Last seen riding off into space with the Guardians of the Galaxy, they abandon him in the opening scenes.
It’s perfect timing for his old flame Jane to come back into his life, but Hemsworth and Portman mostly pout their way through the film’s ludicrous first act that finds Jane harnessing the power of Thor’s hammer to cure her cancer and, whoopsie, become a Lady Thor in the process. Portman is a fine actress, but some people just don’t look right in the suit, and her Lady Thor looks like a bad case of cosplay. To be fair, the film gives her little to do in that costume besides foil Hemsworth’s wit-free attempts to reconnect. He sees Jane as the cure to his loneliness; she hides her diagnosis and pushes him away. It’s somehow even more banal than it sounds.
Bale, on the other hand, makes a fine impression as Gorr, who immediately vaults towards the top of the list of the most compelling Marvel villains. Since his days as the Caped Crusader, Bale has avoided superhero films, and he claims he only took this role to impress his children (that’s what they all say), but he’s the kind of actor the franchise needs, and brings real emotional commitment to Gorr the God Butcher. When Gorr steals the children of New Asgard, holding them captive to lure Thor, you sense real anguish in Bale’s characterization. He navigates grief, love, and a thirst for vengeance in real time, and when he interacts with the children, with both parental love and murderous rage, he summons the mood of your nightmares.
Had the overall tone of “Thor: Love and Thunder” reflected the darkness of Bale’s performance, they might have had something. Instead, it melds its existential terror with the comic hijinks of “Thor: Ragnarok”. Both films were directed by Taika Waititi, who displayed a gift for comedy with feelings in “Hunt for the Wilderpeople” and “What We Do in the Shadows”. Sometimes the balance is off, though, as in his “Jojo Rabbit”, and he makes the same mistakes here. The jokes work, but they seem shallow next to its weightier themes, and the film doesn’t devote enough time to its emotional undercurrents for them to pay off in a meaningful way.
“Thor: Ragnarok” never wanted to be more than a gas, and it benefited from distinct comedic performances. Mark Ruffalo, Jeff Goldblum, and Waititi himself (as the rock man Korg) distracted viewers from its paper-thin plot. In “Thor: Love and Thunder” most of the comedy once again comes from its supporting players. When Thor and his makeshift team of Jane, Korg, and Valkyrie (Tessa Thompson) visit the city of demigods to put together a team to fight Gorr, they encounter Zeus, played with rare comic abandon by Russell Crowe. Sporting gold armor, a white cotton skirt, and a ridiculous Greek accent, Crowe’s portrayal of Zeus as a narcissistic coward who is more interested in throwing parties than overseeing his subjects is wildly effective. The gods have abandoned us, says “Thor: Love and Thunder”, and it’s no accident that its most resonant idea is also its funniest. The film could have used more like it.
“Thor: Love and Thunder” is currently in theaters.
