Director Taika Waititi’s building blocks for his latest Marvel entry include three parts Airplane! style quips and playful pratfalls, three parts romantic comedy and four parts solemn action. It’s a wonder Thor: Love and Thunder (B-) works as well as it does in spurts even though it doesn’t really hang together in a cohesive way. Chris Hemsworth is amusing and swashbuckling as the central hero, although there’s never any real action stakes as he and colleagues march through perfunctory episodes. This installment is largely about the god of thunder regaining his emotional mojo. Natalie Portman returns as a love interest with new powers and an occasionally resonant backstory; she’s good enough to warrant a bit more. As new villain Gorr The God Butcher, Christian Bale is acting in a whole different universe, menacing and maniacal under macabre prosthetics. There’s also an amusing series of sequences involving a convention of deities. The film is often a clever lark, largely inconsequential and a missed opportunity for even more fearless and frolicking fun. This one doesn’t throw down the gauntlet with quite the precision or focus necessary.
Tag Archives: Thor
“Thor: Ragnarok” Drops the Hammer of Laughter
It’s a “Hela” family reunion as Thor and Loki meet their long lost sinister sister in Taiki Waititi’s anything-goes Marvel movie Thor: Ragnarok (B-). The director’s casual humor and electric interplanetary aesthetic channeling Flash Gordon make for a much-needed change of pace after the solemn second film in this trilogy. But it’s all a bit fussy and cluttered to distract from a rather one-note protagonist. To his credit, Chris Hemsworth does get to flex some comedic chops, balancing out the scenery-chewing sequences featuring Cate Blanchett. Lugubrious back stories get in the way of the central plot, but flourishes such as an Incredible Hulk parade, a flamboyant politico played by Jeff Goldblum and a recurring gag of botched entrances and exits keep it all breezy. I wish the director had been as clever with his editing.
“Thor” (2011) is Great Fun
Director Kenneth Branagh is a bit of an inspired choice to helm the sword and sorcery on a faraway planet comic book epic Thor (B), which pits Chris Hemsworth as the titular hero against bad boy brother Loki (Tom Hiddleston) for keys to the kingdom ruled by Anthony Hopkins’ King Odin. As Thor’s earthbound love interest, Natalie Portman gets some nice sequences; but this is all about action and fantasy and virtual chess moves. The best bits are by Hiddleston as the delicious villain and Kat Dennings as comic relief. Branagh does a good job keeping viewers interested in the affairs on two planets and with some complicated subplots, and it’s largely a blissful bolt of action and fun.