Although it was successful at the box office Thor Love and Thunder did not fare quite as well with online fans. Some skepticism it deserved as our initial review pointed out.
The script contains significant gaps in the plot that might have papered over awkward transitions. The final cut just hopes we don’t notice that powers and motives can come across somewhat arbitrary. Another pass on the story surely could have fixed things. To cite one of many issues, why can’t Gorr simply wish both himself and his daughter back to health at the end? Nobody said anything about limits to a wish that he planned to use to kill every god in the universe.
It’s also possible audiences felt a bit of Taika Waititi overkill. Since directing Thor: Ragnarok, the director and actor has popped up everywhere, some more welcome than others. His MCU character Korg, who was at best a two-joke character to begin with, feels like he has officially worn out his welcome. And the ending of this film suggests that even Waititi finally knows it. Freshening Korg up by making him a mere talking face for half of the film is at least a change.
Yet upon second viewing, it seems like some exaggeration has entered fan perceptions. So many of the jokes and gags are writ so large — like the screaming goats — that it’s easy to feel like they dominate the whole story. In fact, there’s at least as much serious stuff. Both Christian Bale’s Gorr and Natalie Portman’s Jane Foster run parallel, doomed tracks with a power source that also drains their lives. And they effectively cancel each other out at the end, like opposite signs of an equation, by sacrificing themselves for love. Waititi’s script, co-written with Jennifer Kaytin Robinson, isn’t deft enough to do much with that parallel, or render it as any significant commentary on duality. Like that last wish, it feels just out of reach. But it’s not nothing.
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