Thor 4 Review: Lots of Thunder Yet Nothing To Love

After the admittedly good Thor origin film by Kenneth Branagh in 2011, the rest of the films in the pre-existing Thor trilogy got a rather mixed reception from the community.

While I'd proudly call the first of which titled Dark World the utter garbage that it is, the second, Ragnarok by Taika Waititi was a rather plausible and enjoyable film that's just a little rough around the edges.

Whether fans loved or hated it didn't really matter, because Taika Waititi returned to direct his 2nd Thor film which was released in theaters recently and is already a hot topic in the geek community, Thor: Love and Thunder, the 4th Thor film and subject of this review article.

I'll admit now that this a mixed review, so while I'll be giving my stern opinion on this film with rock solid reasons in a spoiler free fashion in the earlier paragraphs, I'll get a bit more specific and detailed in naming it's discrepancies later on.

The title should make it obvious how gravely disappointed I felt after this film so I'm not even gonna waste time noising about the "good aspects" of the film when even the usual positive MCU features such as it's visuals, costume designs, cinematography and other production elements are nothing special in comparison to other works in the franchise. Also, I'm frankly tired of seeing people pretend like colourful displays and a 'fun' tone is enough to make a good film when the storytelling is dog shit.

We've been seeing the signs but this movie made it official, that Taika's vision of the God of Thunder is as nothing more than a Celestial Clown. He doesn't even try to hide it this time, as not only Thor gets dragged into the mud through cheap misplaced comedy flicks, but the entire cast as well, including new ones like the legendary Zeus and others, all apparently became part-time comedians in this big clown-fest of a movie.

There's a time and place for comedy in a film and a way to properly juxtapose humor with the thrills of an intense setting, but this film straight up threw that idea into the trash can and forced a pack of mostly cringe jokes into every point of the plot, regardless of the previously established tone or scenario.

I found this film impossible to take seriously in any way and that is owed to the poor handling of the tone, which felt like a constant drift between a haunted house and a circus, as even the scenes that are meant to be intense are watered down into cheap moments though crappy humor.

Now for the thing people wouldn't shutup about in the early reviews, the one and only antagonist of this film, Gorr The God-Butcher, played by the man himself, Christian Bale. 

I can actually applaud his performance in this film and how he truly gave his all to make his character as menacing as can be. Efforts which were still sabotaged by the poor directing of this film. 

All the acting in the world can't make up for his lack of screentime and/or showings of actual diabolical actions that'd truly have made Gorr a more frightening and impactful villain. We only saw him actually kill one god on screen and that was even before his big transformation/corruption by the 'Necro Sword' and despite all the "stories" spread about him, this is still a massive failure in establishing proper weight behind his characterization as an antagonist.

Of course I can't not talk about the brightest new star among the superpowered cast, Jane Foster played by Natalie Portman who previously existed as nothing but Thor's ex lover, but in this film became 'The Mighty Thor', weilding his ex weapon- Mjolnir. Like the other characters in the show, whilst having major shit to deal with, I couldn't take her seriously due to her cringe lines and jokes.

She was of course a character of high narrative importance, and even more glaring than her comedic flicks, what I found more daunting about her characterization in this film is how it failed to give her a proper origin story as The Mighty Thor.

 Very shaky and plainly stupid foreshadowing was given to explain the acquisition of her Asgardian powers, and even with that, there's a huge gap between her getting her powers and mastering them in the manner she displayed in this film. Not even as little as showing her suit-up for the first time, pick a hero name or, God forbid me asking for a training sequence with a legendary weapon she's never even dreamt of weilding before. Seeing her display Thor-level skills out of nowhere and the story just riding on with it was a really superficial and cranky take at a new hero introduction.

All other points aside, the plot itself is ass. A fast-paced mess with tons of daft resolutions and narrative beats that just plunge the story into greater stupidity.

It's at this juncture I'd like to ask people who actually care about spoilers to skip to the final paragraph and leave a comment.

The story had a lot of ideas that apparently just popped into the characters' heads or were introduced with no prior mention that ended up being very pivotal parts of the plot in its resolution. Concepts like "The Eternity" which was something that just sprung up during a conversation with Zeus, and without any proper mythology or foreshadowing given to such a powerful concept existing before that moment, it ended up being the entire macguffin of the third act. This is bad writing. Forget foreshadowing its existence, movie never once before even established it as a goal for the antagonist until that bland reveal.

Not a reason given for such an all powerful entity existing and not coming to play in the infinity saga.

Aside from that, certain random ability displays for hype or comedy value were also tremendously stupid. 

Scenes like Stormbreaker, a weapon  displaying the jealous girlfriend personality during flicks of Thor bantering with Mjolnir, said weapon also being used not only as a fashion gadget, but a cosmic Christmas sled to transport the gang to unknown dimensions using the unlimited bi-frost ability it now somehow has.

Not to mention Stormbreaker blandly being laid out as the 'key' to reaching Eternity.

All random and stupid examples of Thor's weapon being turned into the ultimate plot device.

Thor himself also had some stupid moments of unexplainable displays in this film. From easily defeating the all-mighty and renowned Zeus with his own weapon, to sharing his power with a group of kids who suddenly became hardened warriors capable of easily killing off shadow monsters afterwards.

These scenes aren't only absurd logically but narratively as well.

With all the bad writing and even worse execution in this film, it wasn't even a surprise with the whole ridiculous 'Daddy-Thor' ending to put an end to the farce.

This film was laughably bad in all the aspects that mattered and describing it as a joke or a dumpster fire would only be hitting the nail on its head.

A 3/10 rating is as high as I can go in appraising this film, points given to its colourful fights at least, but it is definately the worst film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe's Phase 4 so far and one of the worst MCU films in general.

I really hope the phase gets better from here because apart from the duo of solid cinematic bangers, Spider-Man: No Way Home and Shang-Chi And The Legend of The Ten Rings, the rest of Phase 4 hasn't been anything worth looking up to at all.

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