Thor: Love and Thunder

The summer film season is typically fraught with 'franchise land', and although most of these films are usually part of a franchise, Hollywood keeps on popping them out as long as the audiences will plunk down an admission to see them. "Thor: Love and Thunder" is the fourth film of this franchise, the others being "Thor" '11, "Thor: The Dark World" '13 and "Thor: Ragnarok" '17, and this is certainly as rollicking as its predecessors. 

This film finds Thor (Chris Hemsworth) on a journey unlike anything he's ever faced--a quest for inner peace. But his retirement is interrupted by a galactic killer known as Gorr the God Butcher (Christian Bale), who seeks the extinction of gods for them allowing his daughter to die. To combat the threat, Thor enlists the help of King Valkyrie (Tessa Thompson), Korg (Taika Waititi) and ex-girlfriend Jane Foster (Natalie Portman), who--to Thor's surprise--inexplicably wields his magical hammer, Mjolnir, as The Mighty Thor, Together, they embark upon a harrowing cosmic adventure to uncover the mystery of the God Butcher's vengeance and stop him before it's too late. Can they do this or is Gorr's powers too strong?

Others to round out the cast are Russell Crowe as Zeus, Jaimie Alexander as Sif, Chris Pratt as Peter Quill/Star-Lord, David Bautista as Drax, Karen Gillan as Nebula, Pom Klementieff as Mantis, Sean Gunn as Kraglin, Vin Diesel as Groot, Bradley Cooper as Rocket and Carly Rees as Miek.

This was directed with the same excitement as the previous 'Thor' in '17 by Taika Waititi ("Eagle vs Shark" '07, "Boy" '10, "What We Do in the Shadows" '14, "Hunt for the Wilderpeople" '16, "Thor: Ragnarok" '17, "Jojo Rabbit" '19) plus TV, shorts and video shorts. This filmmaker certainly runs the gambit as far as the many different genres he has tackled, although the one element that is present in each of his films is the element of quirkiness or oddity, which makes many of his films that much more interesting. This film was over-the-top, but with his directing edge that he brought to the production, created an interesting slant to this story. If you like his brand of directing, his "Next Goal Wins", which he also wrote, has been completed for a 2022 release. It was written in an over-the-top way by Waititi ("Eagle vs Shark" '07, "Boy" '10, "What We Do in the Shadows" '14, "Hunt for the Wilderpeople" '16, "Jojo Rabbit" '19) plus TV, and Jennifer Kaytin Robinson ("Someone Great" '19, "Unpregnant" '20), based on a story by Waititi, which is based on the Marvel comics by Stan Lee and Jason Aaron. This film pulls out all the stops of being over-the-top, visual effects aplenty, and bigger than life characters. The main thing I could appreciate about the screenplay is that it came across at times to read out as a parody, especially by that of Hemsworth. It's like he made light of his character while performing the character, which came across unique. It was a bit choppy in a couple places and with that had some continuity issues, but hey, it's Hemsworth as Thor and he IS Thor. This installation of the franchise was definitely written for the 18-24 year old single male demographic--get them in the theater seats--ka-ching! And with this, you must forgive the fact that a certain amount of this script is predictable, but then welcome to the summer film fare. And the visual effects predominantly designed by ILM (Industrial, Light & Magic) were, of course, seamless--tons of them, but as I just said, welcome to the summer film fare. 

Certainly if to like Thor and Marvel, you'll love this. FYI--stay through the credits for a bit of a surprise--could there be a Thor 5? And if you like a HUGE screen, it's also presented in an IMAX format so you'll feel like you're right there. This is escapism at its finest, and couldn't use more of that in this day and age?

Out of 4 Stars: 3                                           Rated: PG-13                                             119mins.