Thor is one of my top five Marvel characters, which makes this frustrating for me. Of all the Avengers to be brought to life on the big screen during the Disney era of Marvel, Thor has yet to have a movie with a tone that suits his comic book persona. They are too silly or trying too hard to be a sci-fi movie and putting elves in spaceships. The first movie being the best of the previous 3. Though it was apologetic to the fact that Thor and his family members are gods. He was also depowered most of the film, going to show the writers did not understand how to write the character as he is. While Ragnarök, is highly entertaining, the comedic elements brough in felt like forced attempt to tap into what Guardians of the Galaxy does.
"Love and Thunder" adopts the Mighty Thor storyline from the comics where jane Foster takes up the hammer, in some ways, this movie makes more sense of it than the comics did. Since Thor is not deemed unworthy. He was already stripped of his powers in the first film, so to do this is would have gone to the well too many times, instead it is because Thor tells his hammer to always protect Jane which is why she is drawn to it. They did stick to her cancer from the comics. But this is the only place where the writing exceeds the grasp of the comics, as Gorr the God Butcher is brought to life rather terribly. It is more of problem regarding the writing than Bale's performance. Though Bale plays him more like Pennywise than a cosmic serial killer.
Hemsworth has always done a decent job, though aside from fat Thor, his depiction in the Avengers moves felt better than his solo films. He has bulked up and looks the most like the comic book Thor in this movie, though acts the least like him Even with his drunken escapades, the comic book Thor who is much less brutal than the deity Thor from Norse Mythology, is more stoic and not comic relief. Here thanks to director Taika Waititi, who should have stuck to comedies, the silliness tries way too hard and none of it made me laugh. Not that I like comedies in the first place. Visual there is plenty of eye candy when it comes to some of the scenery and Russell Crowe's Zeus works for him aside from the accent. But all the other actors just feel like they are there for a paycheck and just trying to act like they are having fun.
The story is a bit of a mess with too much recapping to fill in the gaps, but the biggest problem is the ending. That is a lot considering the action scenes are the worst of any Marvel movie... note movie as they are still better than the terrible ones in Ms Marvel. Ending have not been a strength of any Marvel movie. The same can be said of this movie. The last 15 minutes which should be the most climatic, was instead an excruciating snooze fest. Yes, the appearance of Hercules in the post credits scene might have been the movie's high light, the CGI used to make the five-foot ten actor playing him look as Hercules should was impressive and gives me hope for the character as long as they do not make him a joke, which would require Taki to exit the franchise , which after this bomb it is hard to expect Marvel to want him to stay , but they do not seem to learn from their mistakes and continue to double down on ruining the Marvel legacy
