Thor: Love and Thunder

Ten Second Review: There’s a lot going on but it’s also a lot of fun.

It took a few films, but Thor finally carved out his space in the MCU has the larger than life technicolour comedy relief. With Watiti back at the helm, we are all set for a raucous romp on the bifrost.

As Thor and the Guardians of the Galaxy tour the universe answering calls for help, Thor yearns for more. When an old friend warns him of a new foe, The God Butcher, he will have to go deep into the shadows with a host of familiar faces to fight his hardest battles yet.

This film is full. I think that’s the best way to describe it. It’s not that any one idea is bad, but it was full of every idea. I think it was just shy of a mess and just managed to wrap up everything it opened and I just loved it. It really had the vibe of a limited run comic series or an alternative universe graphic novel. It was fun and irreverent and I think it held it together enough to be enjoyable rather than annoying.

I can and will totally understand people thinking it was too much or too loud, but I will go to battle against people that feel it wasn’t serious enough or that “emotional beats were missed”. We now have plenty of superheroes in plenty of superhero films. Not every film needs to be serious and certainly not every moment of every film. It has its heartfelt storyline and it has screaming goats, it has a sincerely scary villain and it has butt jokes. Sometimes fun is okay and sometimes it would serve critics (and the more critical public) well to remember that. 

Cinema (yes, I said cinema) is to be enjoyed as much as it is to be learned from. It is to tell stories, but not all stories have to be quiet, measured, long, dark or painful. I enjoyed Thor, but I was looking to enjoy it. If you go looking to be annoyed I’m sure you’ll find that too.