Thor: Love And Thunder Pushes Its Taika Waititiness to Godlike Levels
Can a film have too much Taika Waititi? Thor: Love and Thunder answers that question by pushing its Taika Waititiness to godlike levels, so your enjoyment of the fourth Thor movie might hinge entirely on how much you appreciate the Kiwi director’s style and sense of humor. It’s the kind of film you get when you give a director who makes vampire mockumentaries and a show about gay pirates (Our Flag Means Death—an absolutely excellent show, by the way) $185 million and free rein to do pretty much anything, including paying an inordinate sum to use Guns N’ Roses songs.
“We just wanted to spend as much money as we possibly could on some songs,” Waititi confesses. “It’s always been a dream of mine.” He further explains the idea behind the whole aesthetic of the film: “We wanted it to be this bombastic, loud, colorful palette, which kind of reflected, like, spray-painted panel vans in the eighties and rock album covers.”
He isn’t kidding, either. Thor: Love and Thunder blasts you with a shockwave of Axl Rose and Slash from the get-go and never lets up. In fact, Waititi and co-writer Jennifer Kaytin Robinson pay homage to the bandana-bedecked vocalist by naming one of the film’s characters after him—or rather, the character names himself Axl. The aesthetic of the film is 80’s rock and roll, precisely like an airbrushed van (or Filipino jeepney) come to life contrasted with scenes in stark black and white.
The monochrome scenes are part homage to Ingrid Bergman, part answer to Frank Miller and Robert Rodriguez’ Sin City and Zack Snyder’s Justice League. The contrast is not only intentional, it was inevitable. Ever since Waititi took over the director’s reins with 2017’s Ragnarok, Thor became a little less like the comics and a little more comical. A little closer to Chris Hemsworth’s real-life colorful goofball persona. “I just wanted to tap into those qualities that he’s got and sort of make Thor more Chris, really,” says Waititi.
Hemsworth responds, “(Taika) brought out the immature, young, adolescent quality that I embody and that Thor does now, which he didn’t in the original films, which was exciting and new and fresh.”
“(It’s about) embodying this space as a child would and enjoying all of it and being caught up in the wonder and the fascination of all of it. And not get bogged down in the serious sort of nature that we can when making films, you know. Personally, with these kinds of films, it’s got to be fun, and that’s what we’ve done. That’s what I’ve related to.”
Hemsworth’s childlike, sometimes childish nature contrasts with Christian Bale’s unsmiling severity. Bale plays Gorr the God Butcher, a villain whose name pretty much tells you all you need to know. “I think in Gorr, they looked for an actor (who’s the) polar opposite (of Chris Hemsworth),” says Bale, “someone not relatable, a bit of a loner, creepy, someone no one wants to be around, and nobody wants to see his ass.”
Maybe not Bale’s ass in the Machinist, but Bruce Wayne’s 86kg ass might actually have given Thor’s Asgardian rump a run for its money. The unpixelated version of the scene from the trailer where Zeus (Russell Crowe) magically flicks away Thor’s clothes and Thor is exposed in all his godly glory is definitely one of the film’s highlights and there’s no shortage of beefcake shots throughout the film.
There is, however, an absolutely criminal dearth of shots of jacked Natalie Portman. The 5’3” actress reprises her role as Dr. Jane Foster who magically becomes The Mighty Thor with the help of Mjolnir and famously bulked up for the role. “Natalie led the charge in the gym,” Hemsworth confirms, “She was there first every morning. We all went to the gym and tried to keep up with her.”
It’s a shame, then, that Waititi didn’t show more of Portman’s new physique aside from her toned arms. But then the visionary director very often subverts expectations such as when he first introduced Tessa Thompson’s Valkyrie, now king of New Asgard, in Ragnarok. “When we first met Valkyrie, she had a tremendous amount of (trauma),” says Thompson, “and she was dealing with that by drinking a lot. Taika and I talked a lot about upending what a female superhero looks like. That you sort of have this moment where she comes out, and you think it’s gonna be sort of that badass thing. And then, she immediately falls over.”
There are plenty of these comedic subversions throughout Love and Thunder, almost to the point of predictability. But if there’s anything truly predictable about a Marvel film it’s that it will be, at minimum, fun. And Love and Thunder is definitely that. The excessive use of Guns N’ Roses brings a ton of arguably unearned goodwill but it’s money well spent as "Sweet Child O’ Mine" and "Welcome to the Jungle" automatically elicit excitement and an adrenaline rush.
There’s a lot of action, an overflow of comedy, but also just enough drama to tie everything together. Hemsworth calls Bale’s Gorr, “my favorite villain in the Marvel Cinematic Universe,” explaining, “I love everyone I've worked with, but this was particularly special. There's this empathic quality there, there's a vulnerability. You kind of find yourself going, ‘oh what's he's doing is wrong, but I get the sort of the motivation behind it.’”
And the motivation, basically, is that some gods are assholes.
There’s a lot in the film that goes unexplained, including All-Black the Necrosword, an intelligent weapon that bonds with Gorr, who goes about killing various gods across the galaxy. In the MCU, gods are interchangeable with advanced alien beings, and Gorr’s Seventh Seal-inspired introduction shows him finding his way to his race’s god, who turns out to be a real jerk.
Gorr in a sense is a very relatable villain because who hasn’t felt kind of screwed over by a higher power who doesn’t quite seem to listen to prayers? Who has lost loved ones and wondered ‘why?' but never got a straight answer? We are all of us Gorr, except we don’t have a god-killing sword and don’t commit deicide.
This might be the film’s biggest failure: it doesn’t make a good argument for why Gorr shouldn’t be going around killing gods when they’re not very sympathetic characters to begin with. Even Thor causes so much destruction, the kind of property damage and casualties that Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel was rightly called out for, and it’s just played for laughs. Thor heads to Omnipotent City, a sanctuary for the different gods of the universe, to ask for help but ends up doing exactly what he was warning against! Gorr is right when he says he isn’t a hypocrite.
One of the film’s more interesting aspects is the exploration of sentient weapons. Thor’s complicated relationships with his old weapon Mjolnir (now with Jane), his current weapon Stormbreaker, and flirtation with Zeus’ Thunderbolt is played like a relationship with exes or extremely possessive pets. “All of a sudden the weapon that he’s held so dear for so many years now belongs to someone else,” Hemsworth explains, “and then he has Stormbreaker who starts to sense a little jealously there.”
It’s played for laughs but also feels like an opportunity was missed to further play up the dichotomy between these relationships and Gorr’s bond with All-Black the Necrosword. Thor: Love and Thunder is a film of parallels and contrasts, from the bombast of rock n’ roll colors to the austerity of monochrome; from the folly of gods to the wrath of god-slayers; from missing ex-girlfriends and ex-weapons. Waititi had a massive sandbox to play with but only used 119 minutes to build and destroy. It’s the shortest Thor film yet but tells a complete story without overstaying its welcome.
Thor: Love and Thunder isn’t without its flaws. In fact, it might be the most flawed Thor film yet, with many plot devices happening simply, well, deus ex machina, sometimes explained away with a throwaway line and sometimes not at all. It’s ridiculous to a fault, and then there’s the extremely questionable, unethical, and appallingly unheroic murder (needless to say, stay for the post-credits) of a god to steal a weapon that wasn’t even actually needed. That being said, if you are able to bask in its Taika Waititiness, you’ll have a rockin' n’ rollin’ good time.
