When I saw Thor: Love and Thunder, I was entertained. Sure, it wasn’t a masterpiece like the Dark Knight, but I had a good time watching it. I was really surprised when I heard about the reactions to the movie. The consensus was that it was too goofy. It didn’t take itself seriously. I definitely think that it did not reach the quality of Thor and Thor: Ragnorok. I do feel as though Thor: Love and Thunder is better than what most give credit for.
Before you take a read, please be sure to subscribe!
Gorr the God Butcher is one of the best MCU villains to date!
In the first scene of the movie, we witness the tragedy that Gorr that had to endure. He spent his whole life praying to his God to alleviate him and his family from their suffering. Shortly after his daughter passes away, he discovers that there was a God there all along that could’ve helped. It’s an understatement to say that this God comes off as a selfish being. After feeling betrayed, the necrosword appears. Now Gorr, for the first time, possesses the power to punish the God that he prayed to all his life. From that point on, Gorr embarks on his mission to kill all Gods.
Gorr is almost as amazing as Magneto! We can identify his emotional pain and we understand his motive. What makes him a villain is that his methods are extreme. Even though, most Gods depicted in Thor: Love and Thunder come off as selfish and lazy, there’s at least some that act altruistically. Thor’s probably the best example. Even though he came off arrogantly in the first Thor movie, he redeemed himself in many ways. He defended Earth during the New York alien invasion, he defended earth again from Ultron, he defeated the Dark Elves from destroying all the realms and he was at least able to save the people from Asgard from his sister, Hel.
While we understand why Gorr does what he does, he not entirely in the right. Like him or hate him, Gorr’s definitely has a lot more depth than the villainous Malekith in Thor: The Dark World.
Taika Watiti has successfully held onto his inner child!
The most awesome moment from Thor: Love and Thunder is when Thor gives the group of children a taste of his Thor powers! A lot of kids imagine what it’s like to have superpowers and fight bad guys. I have a strong suspicion that Taika Watiti did this when he was a kid. If I’m being honest, I did too! It was an awesome and unexpected surprise to see Taika’s childhood dream come to life! Aside from Spider-Man, almost every live-action superhero movie nowadays has an adult protagonist. It’s pretty refreshing to see Taika lean into the more fun elements of the genre. He finally let kids get into the superhero action for once!
Jane Foster is Pretty Close to being Spectacular
I noticed a trend in Marvel: Phase 4 (and to be fair, a lot of Hollywood movies nowadays). It feels like Marvel: Phase 4, was afraid to let their female characters be seen as truly flawed people that made mistakes. The best example is She-Hulk. As soon as she got her Hulk powers, she was almost instantaneously amazing at being a Hulk. She required little training and was somehow able strand her ground in a fight with Bruce Banner. When I saw that I thought it ridiculous. Bruce Banner was the Hulk for years and somehow he had trouble dealing with someone with Hulk powers for less than a week! Male superheroes were made to look inept to make the female superheroes look amazing. And it doesn’t stop there. Shang-Chi’s sister was able to knock him out despite how she had far less training than him. Shuri from, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, somehow turned out to be an amazing fighter at the end of the movie despite the fact the she’s been a scientist most her life with little to no combat training. This is a dangerous thing to do with any character regardless of their gender. It’s dangerous because it’s not grounded and real! I’ve never met a person who became an expert at something in less than a week. It’s strange that Marvel is not letting their female characters fall down and make mistakes every once in a while.
Wonder Woman is one of the best superhero movies for against this. Patty Jenkins, the director, made the smart choice to have Diana Prince to fail. When she was training in Themiscyra, she fell and stumbled many times when she was sparring with her Amazonian partners. If she didn’t go through that process, how would she have become an amazing fighter?
Sure, as soon as Jane Foster became Thor, she was amazing at it! She made little to no mistakes and rivaled Thor as soon as she got her powers. The one saving grace to her is that she goes through humility and acts selflessly. When Thor: Love and Thunder picks up, we learn that Jane Forster is diagnosed with stage 4 cancer. Of course, she undergoes chemotherapy to treat her condition. Here’s the catch though. Every time she wields Thor’s hammer, her chemotherapy becomes more and more ineffective. She gets closer to dying every time she uses Thor’s powers to help people. Even though she picked up being a Thor quickly, she had to put up a huge fight against cancer. And even though she did give off little-miss perfect vibes at times, she made the sacrifice play (which killed her) to save Thor from being slaughtered by Gorr, the God Butcher.
For these reasons, as a character Jane Foster came pretty close to being as spectacular as Wonder Woman.
We Got the Best Version of Thor
Even though Jane Foster’s Thor pretty much rivaled Thor in the instant that she got her powers, I liked what the Son of Odin strived for in this movie. Sure, he came off somewhat inept. The movie doesn’t shy away from the fact that he’s not the smartest person in the room. He was far goofier in this sequel. A big saving grace to him, is that he fought for something great. As corny as it sounds, he fought for love.
In the movie’s climax, Gorr is able to reach Eternity despite Thor’s efforts to stop him. The cosmic-level being Eternity has the power to grant the person who finds it a wish. At first, Gorr is about to make the wish to kill all Gods. If it wasn’t for Thor, Gorr’s wish would’ve came true. Thor just simply reasons with Gorr. He tells him that he doesn’t seek vengeance. Gorr seeks love (both literraly and metaphorically). As I’ve mentioned before in my Superman review, it’s really refreshing to see a character motived by compassion, love and gratitude as oppose to vengeance and tragedy. It’s just too easy to fall into the trap of getting angry at the world. Gorr gives into what Thor says and instead of killing all of the gods, he chooses to bring his deceased daughter back to life, Love.
I don’t think that Thor’s full arc from his debut is perfect, but this clearly shows that Thor has come a long way from the arrogant, man-child he was in the first Thor movie.
For these reasons, I think that Thor: Love and Thunder definitely deserves a lot of credit!