4 min readNew DelhiUpdated: Jul 8, 2022 04:19 PM IST
Love and Thunder has no big Thor-ic ambitions — except perhaps one. When an angry Zeus flicks clothes off that blond, biceped screen god called Chris Hemsworth, what’s down there causes watchers to gasp, swoon and collapse.
Moments like these abound in director Taika Waititi’s Thor, who takes the fun and games that he began with Ragnarok one step further to reinvent the God of Thunder as no other Marvel character. The only ones who come close, the Guardians of the Galaxy, make a brief appearance here and such is Thor’s chutzpah that even they think it a bit too cheesy.
That Waititi gets away with the most part is because of Hemsworth’s ridiculously easy charm, in that ridiculously easy-on-the-eye body, which he delivers with ridiculous ease. He is not the first guy to poke fun at himself, but he may be one of the few ones to do it so completely.
For, that’s the tone Love and Thunder is going for here. There is no moment that is Thor’s own in this film; always by his side are equally efficient partners. If Valkyrie (Tessa Thompson) is one, now King, as is the faithful Korg (Taika Waititi), the most brilliant inversion of Thor as an ultra-masculine, ultra-beefy hero is ex-love Jane (Natalie Portman) as a new Thor. All it takes apparently is Thor’s hammer, to turn her into a copy. That’s quite a bummer for Hemsworth’s Thor, who is caught quite a few times pining for his old weapon that has now taken a fancy to Jane.
Love, besides, has no gender boundaries here, and the starship (literally) that Thor and team use floats on a multicolour rainbow.
The villain is Gorr (Christian Bale), who takes a vow to kill all the gods after one of them laughs in the face of his daughter’s loss. He too wields a deadly weapon of own, Necrosword, and clearly is a big fan of Harry Potter’s Voldemort and his Dementors, basing his look on them. So much so that, pitted face to face with him, Thor is forced to advise the barely-teethed Gorr to go see a good dentist.
There is a lot of interplanetary travel, especially in the chase of Gorr but cancer casts a solemn, earthly shadow. And there is a strangely off-hand, and curiously affirmative, mention of Interstellar.
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While science doesn’t really engage Love and Thunder, it does raise some questions about that other fundamental theory which holds humans up: gods. The gods of this film, including Thor, are indolent beings, fallible, scared, mortal, who routinely let followers down, laugh that they can always count on the “sacrifice” of more, and take a tumble or two. None does it with more elan than the superbly cast actor in the cameo of Zeus, who even traipses down stairs holding up his little skirt like a girl.
Waititi strays as far away from Thor and Marvel as he perhaps can while remaining inside the big tent. A hit like Ragnarok does facilitate the taking of risks.
But while on the subject of gods and heroes, it is nice to have ones we can laugh with and at. Without ‘hurt sentiments’.
Thor Love and Thunder movie director: Taika Waititi
Thor Love and Thunder movie cast: Chris Hemsworth, Christian Bale, Natalie Portman, Tessa Thomspon, Taika Waititi
Thor Love and Thunder movie rating: 3 stars
Thor: Love and Thunder released in India on July 7. (Photo: Marvel Studios)