Why superheroes don’t make such super movies - Thor: Love and Thunder

Thor: Love and Thunder (12A), (119 mins), Cineworld Cinemas
Undated film still handout from Thor: Love and Thunder. Pictured: (L-R): Natalie Portman as Mighty Thor and Chris Hemsworth as Thor in Marvel Studios' Thor: Love and Thunder. See PA Feature SHOWBIZ Film Thor. Picture credit should read: PA Photo/©Marvel Studios 2022/Jasin Boland. All Rights Reserved. WARNING: This picture must only be used to accompany PA Feature SHOWBIZ Film Thor..Undated film still handout from Thor: Love and Thunder. Pictured: (L-R): Natalie Portman as Mighty Thor and Chris Hemsworth as Thor in Marvel Studios' Thor: Love and Thunder. See PA Feature SHOWBIZ Film Thor. Picture credit should read: PA Photo/©Marvel Studios 2022/Jasin Boland. All Rights Reserved. WARNING: This picture must only be used to accompany PA Feature SHOWBIZ Film Thor..
Undated film still handout from Thor: Love and Thunder. Pictured: (L-R): Natalie Portman as Mighty Thor and Chris Hemsworth as Thor in Marvel Studios' Thor: Love and Thunder. See PA Feature SHOWBIZ Film Thor. Picture credit should read: PA Photo/©Marvel Studios 2022/Jasin Boland. All Rights Reserved. WARNING: This picture must only be used to accompany PA Feature SHOWBIZ Film Thor..

For those of us who have never really truly quite seen the point of the rapidly-muliplying superhero movies, Thor: Love and Thunder probably represents fairly decent entry-level fare.

It’s mostly reasonably entertaining, occasionally really quite engaging, sometimes funny and always fantastic to look at. But as the credits roll, you’ll still end up wondering why you sat there for a couple of hours.

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Thor: Love and Thunder has got a lovely final flourish as we discover why it is called Thor: Love and Thunder; and the ending is actually quite clever.

But the film itself is an odd mishmash. If you are going to give us sci-fi fantasy, then great: heap it up. But who on earth thought it would be a good idea to leaven it with the spectacle of someone dying of cancer? Even worse, someone whose cancer is accelerated when they go flinging around Thor’s magical hammer Mjolnir.

That someone is Thor’s ex-heart throb Jane Foster (Natalie Portman). The two had drifted apart some years ago when Thor (Chris Hemsworth) was too busy preventing wars and she was too wrapped up in the super-clever science that has made her a super-cool author.

It’s all the usual relationship problems, in other words – not least that they never actually really fell out of love, which is the point at which their lives converge again and Jane starts getting a few superhero ambitions of her own as Thor’s sidekick the Mighty Thor – hardly a name that he’s going to welcome. Did she really think it would make him feel good about himself? But then again, there are very few questions it’s actually worth asking about this film.

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But the show of strength is handy when they team up against a galactic killer known as Gorr the God Butcher (Christian Bale). Now, here’s really someone with an understandable grudge, a bereaved dad who turned against the gods when they deserted humankind. Since then, he’s really rather overdone it, bumping them off with a very special god-killing sword. And just to show what a rotter he is, Gorr – reliving his own loss – has kidnapped all the children from the village. Thor and Mighty Thor are on a mission, but first they stop off to enlist the help of Russell Crowe’s Zeus – maybe the film’s highlight. He turns out to be a total dead loss, a cowardly, vain, preening showman with nothing particular to show off about.

Thor has got to find his own resolve – and of course, he rises to the task just as Jane sinks… Is this really the place to attempt to portray terminal illness, chemotherapy, courage and all that goes with it? It’s all just a little bit too weird. And when it tries to be funny, you suspect that the film really isn’t as funny as it likes to think it is. A huge amount of effort for nothing much in particular. But at least it looks good. The camerawork on the closing battle is stunning.

But unless it’s tipping down with rain outside, enjoying the sunshine in real life might just be the better bet. This is far from awful; it romps along reasonably, but it’s confirmation for us doubters: superheroes really don’t make super films.