Thor: Love and Thunder

The God of Thunder returns in Marvel Studios’ “Thor: Love and Thunder” and audiences find that Thor (Chris Hemsworth), has been doing missions with the Guardians of the Galaxy while he works himself back into shape and looks to find a new purpose in life. Thor has been taking the spotlight in many of the missions and when multiple calls for help arise, Thor opts to go off on his own to address a particular call for help while the Guardians head on their way to help others. It is learned that a being named Gorr (Christian Bale) has been killing Gods and Thor is eager to put a stop to him before he can do more damage. His mission soon puts him on a collision course with Gorr and The Mighty Thor (Natalie Portman) who being his ex and wielding his former weapon causes more than a few funny and awkward moments. In a race to save captured children, rally the gods, and defeat Gorr, Thor, and Jane along with Korr (Taika Waititi) and Valkyrie (Tessa Thompson), embark on an epic adventure in a race against time. While audiences have come to expect Marvel films to be epic cinematic events, this film is less on the over-the-top action sequences in favor of establishing new circumstances and challenges for the characters going forward. While there are indeed action sequences and plenty of VFX, it does not have the action or intensity of several of the past films. What it does offer is a good mix of action and humor with enjoyable characters old and new and establishes scenarios for the MCU going forward. Bale is very good as Gorr and you understand his motivations clearly as while evil, he has a degree of sympathy towards his character which makes his creepy performance all the more compelling. The cast works very well with one another and there are two scenes in the credits which open up all kinds of possibilities for the future as we are told Thor will return before the credits even begin to roll. The film also has considerable music and I joked to myself that Guns and Roses are going to be getting a big check due to their music being used frequently during the film as well as that of other artists which helps make the film an enjoyable outing from start to finish which should delight fans as we wait to see for the next cinematic offering from Marvel. 4 stars out of 5

After a rocky start, _Thor Love and Thunder_ is able to find its footing during delivering a fun and despondent Thor adventure filled with a tremendous amount of heart. It is no surprise that this film is far from perfect, and that is not more evident than the beginning of the film. The entire first act feels so disjointed and rushed. You get thrown plot point after plot point and get whipped from planet to planet which results in the viewer not being able to lock in on the story. I really enjoyed the scenes we got from Gorr and Jane during this act, but they felt a little underdeveloped and rushed. The comedy was a little thick during this section, some jokes completely missed, but it was nothing that was overbearing that it hurt the experience. Once the movie enters the second act and begins focusing on Jane the entire gets much better. It is here where you can really see the balance that Taika Waititi brought during Ragnarök with some moments rivaling the best from that film. The ending of this film has some really great action and cinematography, some may argue it's among the best in the MCU. As the movie credits rolled, I was very satisfied to the conclusion of this film and am ready for more Thor action in the future. The acting all around was excellent in this film, I found the dynamic between Jane and Thor worked much better than in previous films. They had real chemistry on screen, and you could feel the love the two previously shared unearth with each additional scene. There are some really great conversations that dive into their relationship that were done fantastically. Christian Bale was menacing as Gorr, his demeanor was sinister and completely unhinged as he delivered crazy laughs while delivering his villain manifesto. It gave me serious flashbacks to Heath Ledger’s Joker. I just wish we got to see more of him in the film, but the bit we did see was top tier villainy in the MCU. The music in this film blends with the scenes very well. When the Guns N' Roses guitar starts playing you know it is about to go down and I could not help but smile. While the beginning of this film was bad, I can admit, the ending was so great that it averaged out the movie and made it a very enjoyable experience. **Verdict:** _Good_ **Score:** _7/10_

It appears that disgraced asshat Bob Chapek (not going to link to IMDb for this asshat since his bio there is just corporate gibberish written by Disney themselves, and not updated to show that he got fired) has scared away any form of actual talent from Disney so that even when they do something that is not blatantly woke and preaching it still turns into a turd. Already in the first scenes I was going what the f… is this? Are they turning the franchise into a comedy? Thor himself has been turned into a rambling moron. The rest of the Gods are either unbelievable assholes or fat slobs only caring about their orgies or some combination thereof. Most of the movie I was just cringing in my seat. If they were actually going for more of a comedy movie than an actual Thor movie they failed miserably. The “jokes” where unfunny, unintelligent and just bad. Superhero slapstick at best. The only character that I found remotely likable and cool in the movie was King Valkyrie. Jane Foster was not too bad either. The rest was just a joke. The portrayal of the mighty God Zeus and Olympus was an affront. The bad guy was not too bad although I would not call him likable of course. He is not supposed to be likable. At least he was not turned into a parody. It is really a shame because the underlying story is not half bad… if it had been given to someone with actual talent to implement. It is predictable of course but it is okay. If it had only been given to someone who could have turned it into a real Thor movie instead of this failed comedy turd. I have to admit that I did not have my hopes up very much when starting to watch this movie. Given what Disney has turned into I was afraid that they were literally going to turn Thor into a female and luckily that did not happen. Unfortunately they found another way of ruining the franchise. This movie is nothing like the previous Thor movies. I really liked Thor: The Dark World for example. To me this movie is very close to a franchise killer. The one and a half stars is for the special effects. They were pretty good. The rest of this movie is really bad.