Thor: Love and Thunder

Thor: Love and Thunder is more a Taiko Waititi film than it is a Marvel film. It happens to have characters from the MCU in it, sure, but it’s an action comedy from the head of Taiko Waititi. Really this review could stop here: if you like his films, there’s an excellent chance you’ll like this one too. If you’re an MCU purist, I suspect the answer is, don’t bother.

The film starts a little slowly. We end up with a team of Thor (and Korg), Valkyrie and The Mighty Thor (who is Jane Foster, wielding Mjolnir for plot reasons that I’ve been told come from the comics but are spoilers if you don’t know them already) and we have to put the pieces in place. We see them in enough detail to understand their stories, what’s going on in their lives, to set up the rest of the story before they come together for the rest of the film. I didn’t time it, but it felt like it ran a bit long, especially Thor’s section - and, somewhat surprisingly to me, that wasn’t because I wanted to punch Chris Pratt in the face. Because the camera was focussed much more on Chris Hemsworth or the ensemble, Pratt was much more tolerable for me. Maybe Starlord is just a nicer character too? He’s a bit of a bumbling idiot after all, so there’s more empathy for the character there.

The story itself is… well this very much feels like the middle book in a fantasy trilogy. There is a lot of travelling around and a lot of new places to see. I’m a sucker for a good fantasy trilogy so that didn’t bother me. The huge goats pulling the hovering longship along a rainbow bridge that we have seen in the trailer were great and yet, at times, visual comedy gold in a way that is hard to describe. Try describing why a clown car is funny in words and you’ll see what I mean. There was just enough logic that you could understand why they went from A to B to C, the fact you don’t know why other options aren’t available might bother you on later reflection, or not.

The one thing that made me howl in protest - Jane is an astrophysicist but because that’s clearly a scientist and all science is the same (yeah right) she can instantly turn her expertise to an advanced field of medical sciences when it’s important. Rubbish. Argh.

This is a comedy action romp. It’s not the best film in this category. I don’t think it’s even the best Thor movie if I’m being honest. But as a way to kill a couple of hours (it’s 119 minutes, so it’s nice and short compared to some) it’s fresh, it’s funny, and the action sequences are top notch. There’s eye candy for all as well. (You do have to put up with Russell Crowe doing a very bad Greek accent, dubious upside you get to see him in a short skirt, flouncing about. It’s funnier than it should be.) You could probably wait and catch it at home, it doesn’t feel like a big screen is necessary but I’d happily watch it again.

Bechdel Test: Pass. Jane and Valkyrie really carry this, but they compare weapons, for example, and have a planning session about stealing Lightning Bolt. So it is a pass. There are a few other conversations that pass too, like an early one between Jane and Darcy.

Ko Test: Pass. Tessa Thompson is doing the heavy lifting here but she’s in far more than five scenes. There are a few other WOC who get close and may actually pass - the villain steals a load of children and a chunk of them get to speak in a number of scenes, they’re gloriously multicultural. I’ll be honest, I didn’t count scenes but it’s around the five mark too.

Russo Test: I’m going to say pass. It’s directly and explicitly stated that Valkyrie has had girlfriends in the past and she enjoys ogling Thor’s naked body. They don’t label her as bi, it’s not a topic of conversation that comes up, but they clearly label her as having had wlw relationships. She obviously passes the rest of the parts of the test. Some will read Korg as gay too. I’m not opposed to that reading, but his whole species has only one gender, and they reproduce by spending a month over a lava pool making a new baby of the species. To me, that just reads as alien, not gay, although there’s a joke at the end about it that feels like a very gentle dig at a particular gay man stereotype, but it’s so gentle it’s clearly a joke not an attack (I suspect, given the way it’s done, it’s actually Taiko teasing someone he knows, possibly for a bet about mentioning him in the film).