‘Thor: Love and Thunder’ Struggles with Tone but Still Fun
Thor: Ragnarok has got to be in the top five Marvel movies for almost everyone. It was hilarious, featured a unique visual style, and served the dual purposes of unleashing the charm that had been held back in Thor: The Dark World and continuing to inject some wacky fun back into the MCU after more dramatic entries like Captain America: The Winter Soldier and Doctor Strange. With just that one film, director Taika Waititi joined Guardians of the Galaxy director James Gunn as one of the go-to guys for humor in the MCU.
Waititi has become quite the superstar director, seamlessly navigating from acclaimed smaller movies like What We Do in the Shadows and Hunt for the Wilderpeople to blockbusters like Ragnarok and Oscar nominees like Jojo Rabbit. He’s even set to helm his own Star Wars movie. Riding on the wave of his enormous success, he’s back in the MCU with Thor: Love and Thunder, but this time he’s also penned the screenplay along with Jennifer Kaytin Robinson—no surprise, given that much of the success of Ragnarok was credited to his improvisational style and sense of humor rather than writers Eric Pearson, Craig Kyle, and Christopher Yost.
Love and Thunder sees Thor where we left him after Avengers: Endgame, riding along with the Guardians of the Galaxy and saving various people in need. He’s back in shape and enjoying being a hero again, but he still doesn’t quite feel fulfilled. His ex-girlfriend, scientist Dr. Jane Foster (Natalie Portman) is dealing with some big struggles of her own, eventually traveling to New Asgard where Valkyrie (Tessa Thompson) has been ruling as King and has turned the small town into a major tourist destination. Little do any of them know that somewhere in the cosmos, Gorr the God Butcher (Christian Bale) has vowed to kill all gods after becoming completely disillusioned with the deity of his people and gaining possession of the Necrosword, a weapon powerful enough to destroy even the strongest of gods.
Marvel has been criticized in the past for reliance on quips and a fear of letting dramatic moments feel dramatic. These are fun comic book movies, after all, and there’s sometimes a tendency to have something serious happen and then undercut it with a joke so nothing feels like too much of a downer. Much of that can be attributed to the Joss Whedon era of Marvel circa The Avengers and Avengers: Age of Ultron.
As the cinematic universe has evolved, they’ve been more willing to allow for the weight of heavier moments with arguably the best examples coming in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 and, of course, Infinity War and Endgame, which had their share of jokes but never shied away from their serious moments.
Likewise, Waititi is usually a master of this balance, bringing his trademark wackiness and giving space for emotional beats to land. Jojo Rabbit is a perfect example, featuring the director as a cartoonishly ridiculous imaginary Hitler and also containing one of the most gut-punch dramatic moments in a film in recent years. He’s been honing this skill since way back, with one of his early films, Boy, striking the perfect balance between emotion and comedy.
That’s why it’s so surprising how much Love and Thunder seems to struggle with tone.
Without giving anything away, there are moments in this film that should feel a lot heavier than they do. They’re presented in a way that would suggest drama—the music swells, the actors show emotions—but I found myself not feeling any of it. It was almost like the movie was afraid to do anything but comedy, so scenes with our main characters that should have had weight just kind of floated by with the constant stream of jokes instead of getting a few moments of reflection and impact. It was genuinely odd to experience because I think Waititi is usually brilliant at pausing the humor for moments of heaviness.
I’ve heard other people complain that Marvel humor sometimes feels forced, but I’ve never really felt that myself. I’m a die-hard comedy fan, so I’ll take as much humor as my superhero movies can throw at me. With Love and Thunder, I started to understand some of that criticism, and some jokes definitely felt repeated or jammed in to the point where I want to say, “yes, thanks, we get it.”
I couldn’t help but compare this movie to something like Guardians Vol. 2 where we have some of the funniest scenes in all of Marvel, but all the emotional beats really land. We can crack up at “I’m Mary Poppins, y’all” and cry at the Ravager funeral—all within the course of one film. That movie navigates tone so successfully because, unlike Love and Thunder, the humor never diminishes the drama and the drama never dampens the humor.
Despite some significant tonal missteps, there are major highlights that still make Love and Thunder a fun watch. Bale, in particular, is such a standout with a performance that is both cool and controlled as well as unhinged and dangerous. He’s an excellent villain and he stays proving that he’s a phenomenally talented actor. Russell Crowe is also a delight in his role as Zeus, complete with an accent that had me laughing from the first sentence. Despite some of the humor not quite landing, there are a few jokes that were genuinely hilarious, mostly due to the unstoppable charm of Chris Hemsworth, who is clearly so comfortable in this role that I could watch him as Thor in another eight movies and never get tired of him.
While we might be far away from some of the strongest entries in the MCU, the series as a whole is still a fun ride—and isn’t that the point of this whole thing? Every Marvel movie can’t be Endgame, and that’s okay as long as you still have a good time watching it.
