thor love and thunder christian movie review

Thor: Love and Thunder

Reviewed by: Alexander Malsan CONTRIBUTOR

Norse mythology

Male objectification

MYSTICISM —Can mysticism lead to God? Answer

What is Monism and Pantheistic Monism? Who believes in Monism? Is it biblical? Answer

An open letter to disciples of Hinduism

Where did CANCER come from? Answer

ORIGIN OF BAD THINGS —A loving Creator made our world, so why are their so many bad things int it? Answer

Why does God allow innocent people to suffer? Answer

What about the issue of suffering? Doesn’t this prove that there is no God and that we are on our own? Answer

Does God feel our pain? Answer

What kind of world would you create? Answer

E ver since defeating Thanos and reversing the Snap that occurred five years ago, Thor ( Chris Hemsworth ) has had some battles with enemies with his new band of companions, The Guardians of the Galaxy. However, in general, he has had the luxury of taking it pretty easy. As such, Thor has had some difficulty, though, figuring out what exactly his role in the universe is now.

We’re going to sidestep away from Thor for a moment though and visit Dr. Jane Foster Natalie Portman ), you know, Thor’s former love interest from the first movie. We come upon Jane at a cancer treatment receiving chemotherapy for her stage four cancer. Jane is not ready to give up fighting though. An idea begins to form while reading through her Norse mythology books… Mjölnir! (Thor’s former weapon—the hammer). Mjölnir will be able to give her the powers of Thor and keep her young and healthy, and she knows just where to find it.

Fast forward a few days. New Asgard is under attack from a group of strange shadow creatures when suddenly Thor appears to save the citizens, but he’s not alone. Out of nowhere, Jane appears in a Thor-like outfit, Mjölnir in hand, calling herself, “Mighty Thor.” It’s an awkward reunion at first, but Thor learns to adapt. Amidst the chaos though a mysterious figure named Gorr the God-Butcher ( Christian Bale ), kidnaps the children of New Asgard.

It’s up to Thor, Mighty Thor, and King Valkyrie (the ruler of New Asgard) to track down the children and return them safely to New Asgard.

It’s funny, it’s been eleven years since the first Thor movie came out; only eleven. It received an Average morality rating on our site. If you look at the MPAA rating it stated “PG-13 for sequences of intense sci-fi action and violence.” The second Thor film, “Dark World” had the same rating, same description and added “sensual content.” The third film, Ragnarok, again, had the same rating and same description but went from sensual content to SUGGESTIVE content.

In this fourth installment, “… Love and Thunder” we now have “intense sequences of sci-fi violence and action, language, some suggestive material and partial nudity.” It’s as if, throughout the course of each film Marvel kept pushing the limits as to what they could and couldn’t have in a PG-13 rated film. It’s a shame, truthfully, because when a movie pushes the rating to its limit it makes some viewers, such as myself, very uncomfortable. As I stated to the theater manager yesterday, content that would have been rated R ten or fifteen years ago, some of which I saw in “Love and Thunder” (which I’ll discuss later), was in a PG-13 rated film like “Love and Thunder.”

Perhaps I could overlook some of the violence, the language and suggestive material (and that’s a HUGE perhaps). What I can’t overlook though is how far and how much blasphemous, and yes I say blasphemous, content made its way into “Love and Thunder.” It is almost on the same level as “ Eternals .” Of course, you expect a certain level of fantasy and mythology to go along with a Thor film. But “Love and Thunder” goes beyond what is acceptable, especially since this film is being marketed toward children and teens (I will get into this more in the Offensive Content section).

From a performance standpoint, Chris Hemsworth is still as charming and as funny as he’s ever been as Thor. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t chuckle from time to time. It was also nice to see Natalie Portman back in a supporting role. Tessa Thompson did an okay job, though her appearance was very minimal (though I must admit I let out a big “sigh” in the theater when I heard her name was KING Valkyrie and not Queen Valkyrie). Enough Hollywood, just enough). The most laughable performance, sadly, is Russell Crowe as Zeus, as though he was the comedic relief at times, his Greek accent was so terrible it detracted from the brief scene he was in.

Offensive Content

VIOLENCE: Please note not every violent moment is listed here, only the main issues you should be aware of. In one of the most appalling scenes (my mouth dropped), Gorr rips a creature’s head off in front of some young children and throws it at them. He also talks about ripping apart creatures. A corpse is seen hanging from a bridge. Someone is seen missing an arm. Shadow-like creatures attack people and then are butchered. More shadow-like creatures kidnap some children in a terrifying manner. A god is killed and beheaded (the beheading takes place off-screen). Characters are seen dying in brief flashbacks. There is a brief fight sequence on a planet. We witness some buildings crumble. Someone gets hit with a plasma bullet. A character is supposedly killed. A fight occurs between some gods and Thor’s crew (Thor, Jane and Valkyrie). Thor’s crew are strangled by some vines. Children are empowered by Thor to fight the shadow creatures. A character dies.

VULGARITY: S-words (11), A**-hole (1), Cr*p (1), Fr*ckin (1), P*ssed Off (1)

PROFANITY: G*d (1), Oh my G*d (1), D*mn (5), H*ll (4) — including “Go to H*ll”, H*ly Sh*t (1)

SEX: Zeus asks a crowd, “Where are we going to hold this year’s orgy?” King Valkyrie is openly bi-sexual in the film and kisses a woman’s hand. A character graphically mentions how his two dads made a baby (don’t ask). This same character is also openly Gay and we see him holding hands with another character. Thor and Jane share two kisses and are romantic at times (no intercourse occurs). Thor kisses several women. Men are shown shirtless.

NUDITY: There is a scene involving male rear nudity (this male is nude in the front, we only see partial nudity in the front though). When this occurs we see females looking at his rear and also swooning over his nudity and sighing when his clothes come back on.

ALCOHOL: Characters share a couple glasses of wine. Alcohol is brought on board a ship. Thor has beer.

PAGAN MESSAGING: The film discusses the concepts of multiple deities ruling earth and how the deities grow frustrated at the idea of how humans don’t look to them anymore. *MILD SPOILER* In the beginning sequence we learn that a character became a villain because he was worshiping a false god he believed would spare him and his child, but the god laughed at him and told him “There is no eternal reward. Just death.” *END MILD SPOILER* In fact this message is mentioned not just once, but a few times. A sequence takes place in Omnipotence City where the multiple deities rule. A sequence takes place at the Gate of Eternity (without giving too much away, it is NOTHING like the real Heaven. It’s almost like a purgatory-like state). There is a scene, post credits, where someone is welcomed into Valhalla (a place of eternal, blissful life in Norse mythology), and we see Valhalla. Also Valhalla is referenced a couple other times in the film.

As I mentioned before, one character becomes a villain at one point because a false deity that he worshiped tells him that there is nothing eternal for him when he dies, only more death.

This is an extremely false narrative, poisonous to anyone who listens to it! There is only death for those who die without believing in Jesus , accepting Jesus as their Lord and Savior and trusting Him with their whole heart. The first half of Romans 6:23 says,

“For the wages of sin is death,”

The last half says this…

“but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Jesus’ mercy , love and forgiveness is unending! There are absolutely no strings attached. With accepting Jesus into your heart comes eternal life . There is no fear of death , no fear of Hell .

“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son , that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life . For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.” — John 3:16-17

“For with the heart one believes and is justified , and with the mouth one confesses and is saved.” — Romans 10:10

“For by grace you have been saved through faith . And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God ” — Ephesians 2:8

“But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God” — John 1:12

Final Thoughts

“Oh how the mighty have fallen,” says Thor at one point in the movie. You took the words right out my mouth, Thor. Marvel (and Disney by association) has fallen hard.

In my opinion, and perhaps this is harsh, the words “wholesome entertainment” and Marvel no longer go hand in hand. When you compare films like “Captain America” and “Iron Man” from over a decade ago to the Marvel films that we have now, I can’t help but pray and hope that Disney and Marvel make a complete 180 degree turn around before it’s too late.

Christian audiences are strongly discouraged from attending “Thor: Love and Thunder.” The violence is heavy (sometimes appalling), the language is heavy as is the sexual content and nudity, and it is FAR more ungodly this time around than in previous films. It is definitely NOT for children.

• Violence: Heavy
• Profane language: Moderately Heavy
• Sex: Moderately Heavy
• Occult/Paganism: Heavy
• Woke: Most definitely
• Vulgar/Crude language: Moderate
• Nudity: Moderate
• Drugs/Alcohol: Mild

See list of Relevant Issues—questions-and-answers .

PLEASE share your observations and insights to be posted here.

Thor: Love and Thunder (Christian Movie Review)

Verdict: While hilarious at times, and exploring some interesting themes about faith and religion, the film’s endless barrage of gags becomes wearisome, and the once-fresh “rock n’ roll comedy” vibe is starting to feel tired and overdone.

About The Movie

Everybody’s favorite space Viking is back, traveling through the Bifrost and into theaters for the latest entry in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The god of thunder is no longer the mighty avenger he once was, and he must undergo much soul searching to rediscover his purpose. The same is not true of Thor: Love and Thunder as a film, which has a clear identity and vision. Whether that identity is a pleasant one is up for discussion.  

Viewers’ enjoyment of Thor: Love and Thunder will largely hinge on how they feel about director Taika Waititi’s storytelling sensibilities. For the most part, I liked the comical, irreverent vibe Waititi introduced in Thor: Ragnarok (2017). That quirky sense of humor has now been cranked to eleven. At times, it works. There are some legitimately hilarious moments, including one involving two giant, magical goats and an ongoing gag about Thor’s axe feeling jealous of his original hammer, Mjolnir. On the other hand, the unrelenting attempts at bizarre comedy becomes tiresome at times. Even more so than he did in Ragnarok, in this film Waititi goes for the joke every time. As a result, it often feels like a series of hit-or-miss SNL sketches rather than a unified film, with the story always in service of the gags rather than the jokes flowing organically out of the narrative.

Chris Hemsworth is as charismatic (and chiseled) as ever as Thor. But his character’s humor has now been stretched to the point of being cartoonish, which reduces the thunderous superhero to a bumbling buffoon and undercuts his more serious moments. And Hemsworth is not the only Thor taking to the skies this time. Much of the buzz surrounding the film has stemmed from the surprising return of Natalie Portman, who appears not only as Jane Foster but also as Mighty Thor. The mechanics of her return is a bit clumsy, but Portman adds an interesting dynamic and is responsible for most of the film’s heart.

The highlight of the movie is Christian Bale as the villainous Gorr the God Butcher. His character is treated with a horror tone (more chilling than anything in the recent horror-inspired Doctor Strange film), which provides a stark contrast to the movie’s otherwise bright, bubblegum aesthetic. He is used sparingly, but his motivations are among the most believable of any MCU villain (more on that below). 

Like the recent Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness , this latest Thor adventure offers little to elevate it beyond the lower tier of the MCU. It’s not a great movie, despite some enjoyable moments. There are flashes of creative brilliance, such as the superb cinematography and aesthetic of the Shadow Realm. But the vibe that felt fresh in 2017, with offbeat humor and action synced up with nostalgic rock music, is starting to become tired and overdone. The noisy barrage of gags left me worn out rather than energized.

For Consideration

Profanity: A fair number of mild profanities (mostly sh—).

Violence: Typical Marvel violence, almost entirely directed toward inhuman creatures. Shadowy monsters get dismembered in a variety of ways, with some creature gore.  

Sexuality: Thor is briefly shown naked from behind. There is a repeated gag about a gathering of gods planning an orgy. An inhuman character shares about how his species procreates through a mating ritual involving two males (“my two dads”), which is shown later in the movie (the actual mating ritual is not depicted, but the two male characters are). A character’s bisexuality is never overtly stated but is clearly demonstrated throughout. She is shown lusting after Thor, but she also recalls a former girlfriend and gives another female a flirtatious kiss on the hand.

Engage The Film

Problem of pain.

Despite being a relatively fluffy and lightweight film, the story presents several interesting concepts with which Christians can engage. At the core of the story is an exploration of the classic problem of pain (“If God is all loving and all powerful, then why is there so much evil and suffering in the world?”). Gorr is introduced as deeply religious. He prays to his god to save his daughter’s life, but she dies anyway. He becomes a broken man who has lost his faith in the benevolence of the divine, and he channels all his anger toward the gods.

Throughout the film, Gorr is frequently contrasted with Jane Foster. Both characters are grieving and struggling to accept the pain in their lives. While the pain drives Gorr away from the gods, Jane—a woman of science—is driven toward it. The film offers two vastly different perspectives on reality. One character sees pain as a curse from petty and vengeful gods, whereas the other finds love and meaning amid her pain. The problem of pain is obviously far too complex and nuanced for a superhero movie to explore in much depth, and Love and Thunder doesn’t give answers in a clear Christian sense. But the overall message is that pain and suffering are a part of being human. The same potential for love to hurt is also what makes it so satisfying and desirable. Christians can reflect on how their circumstances can shape their relationship to God, for better or worse.   

Thor is a god from Norse mythology, so there has always been a religious dimension to his films, but religion has never played as central of a part as it does in Love and Thunder . There are various ways to approach these religious elements, and Christian viewers will likely have varying attitudes toward it. At no point does the religion in the movie reflect a Christian worldview (nor should anyone expect it to). Instead, the film presents all the gods from classical Roman and Greek mythology, as well as some newly invented ones, as real. Overall, the gods are depicted with a tone of mockery. They are selfish and petty egomaniacs. In this sense, Love and Thunder might be perceived as anti-religion.    

At the same time, the unfavorable characterization of these gods is true to classical mythology. Zeus and the lesser gods were malicious and petty. In fact, the gathering of deities are essentially just superpowered individuals, rather than gods in a divine sense. Throughout the film, there remains a sense that a more mysterious divinity exists out there in the universe that is different from the other “gods.” Rather than anti-religion, the film may be interpreted as deriding false religion. The movie takes fictional characters from mythology and treats them as fictional characters without applying the same treatment to the biblical God (ex. Jesus does not appear in the meeting of these deities, although there is a reference a “God of Carpentry” which certainly leaves the door open as a possible reference to Him). Christians can reflect on the loving character of the one true God by contrasting him with the self-serving nature of the false gods.

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by John Connor

Um, there was the whole comment about the “Carpenter God” being present… I took that as a direct reference. As well as Gorr’s deity being similar to classical depictions of Christ and laughing about how there is no eternity for him… It definitely had anti-Christian themes.

by Stephen Hayes

Great review, I am posting a link from my own review of Thor, Love and Thunder. https://wordpress.com/view/narniaonsea.wordpress.com

• Trackback: Old Hampshire C S Lewis Society

This seems to have missed Enternity being a reference to Heaven which grants anything to the first one who finds it implying no one has ever been there. The entire movie mocks christianity and every religion.

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Thor: love and thunder, common sense media reviewers.

Rescue adventure focuses on love; violence, language.

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

Promotes teamwork, empathy, perseverance, choosing

Characters show courage and persevere, as well as

The Asgardians include some people of color (most

Children are in danger: kidnapped, kept hostage. I

Two references to orgies in the realm of the gods.

The words "s--t" and "s--ty" are said multiple tim

Visible brands include Converse, Fritos, Kettle Ch

Tourists in New Asgard are treated to mead at the

Parents need to know that Thor: Love and Thunder is the sequel to 2017's Thor: Ragnarok and the fourth Thor movie in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. This time around, Thor (Chris Hemsworth) bids goodbye to the Guardians of the Galaxy when a new threat appears in the universe: Gorr the God…

Positive Messages

Promotes teamwork, empathy, perseverance, choosing love over guarding your heart, and asking for help.

Positive Role Models

Characters show courage and persevere, as well as brainstorm how to defeat rivals. Thor is always brave, but in this installment he's also open to love and to collaboration with Mighty Thor and Valkyrie. He learns to listen instead of acting impulsively. Jane is brave, selfless, willing to sacrifice her safety and comfort to help Thor with their mission. Valkyrie is a brave king, a necessary partner to both Thors.

Diverse Representations

The Asgardians include some people of color (most notably Valkyrie and Axl, played by Tessa Thompson and Kieron L. Dyer). Additional ethnic/racial (and species) diversity within the background supporting cast. Strong women role models in Jane and Valkyrie, who are both intelligent leaders. Writer/director Taika Waititi, who also voices Korg, is Māori and Jewish. Valkyrie is bisexual and Korg casually mentions his two dads. Disabled characters include Jane, who has terminal cancer; refreshingly, her superpowers aren't a magical cure-all (which would make the character effectively non-disabled). And in a minor role, Sif loses an arm early in the film but is later shown recovered from the amputation and back to sword-fighting.

Did we miss something on diversity? Suggest an update.

Violence & Scariness

Children are in danger: kidnapped, kept hostage. In opening scene, a young girl dies from exposure and starvation. Many battles in which people are injured or severely hurt. Hand-to-hand combat, fighting with weapons. Characters are incapacitated or die. Spoiler alert: A major character dies from a long illness, another seems to break apart but survives.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

Two references to orgies in the realm of the gods. Scantily clad women surround Zeus. Two people kiss passionately, embrace, hold each other. Thor's clothes are magically removed; his bare back is visible, including his butt. Women who can see him from the front swoon, and two women joke that they "didn't hate" seeing that. Flashbacks to Jane and Thor's romantic relationship. Peter and Valkyrie allude to their lost loves. Flirting. Korg tells a story of how rock babies are made (when two rock dudes hold hands and a rock baby eventually comes out).

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

The words "s--t" and "s--ty" are said multiple times or in different combinations: "really s--tty," "holy s--t," etc. Other words include "hell," "stupid," "piss off," "oh my God."

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Products & Purchases

Visible brands include Converse, Fritos, Kettle Chips, Lays, Cheetos. Also a ton of off-screen Marvel merchandise tie-ins with toys, apparel, games, and more.

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

Tourists in New Asgard are treated to mead at the end of their tour. Valkyrie says a keg of alcohol is necessary for a trip.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that Thor: Love and Thunder is the sequel to 2017's Thor: Ragnarok and the fourth Thor movie in the Marvel Cinematic Universe . This time around, Thor ( Chris Hemsworth ) bids goodbye to the Guardians of the Galaxy when a new threat appears in the universe: Gorr the God Butcher ( Christian Bale ), whose mission is to kill every god. Expect plenty of comic book-style action violence, including weapon use and hand-to-hand combat, as well as two injuries/deaths that are likely to upset younger audiences. The story focuses more on love and romance than most other MCU films, with kissing and affection between a couple and discussions of true love and the "ones who got away." There's also a suggestive scene in the realm of the gods where a planned orgy is mentioned more than once and women literally swoon at seeing Thor stripped of his clothes (audiences see him naked from the rear). Language includes several uses of the word "s--t," plus "piss off," "hell," and "oh my God." Families can check in on the movie's messages about the importance of choosing love, asking for help, and persevering despite the odds. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

Where to Watch

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Community Reviews

• Parents say (69)
• Kids say (94)

Based on 69 parent reviews

What is going on with Marvel?

Don't waste your time. disappointing, what's the story.

THOR: LOVE AND THUNDER introduces a new villain for everyone's favorite Asgardian god ( Chris Hemsworth ): Gorr the God Butcher ( Christian Bale ), who wields the god-killing necro sword and is compelled to strike down every god in the universe. With the help of Valkyrie ( Tessa Thompson ), Korg ( Taika Waititi ), and former girlfriend Dr. Jane Foster ( Natalie Portman ) -- who's now able to wield the reconstructed hammer Mjolnir herself -- Thor sets out to defeat Gorr after the villain manages to kidnap all of the Asgardian children and hold them hostage in another realm. The heroes set off to ask the remaining gods, starting with Zeus ( Russell Crowe ), to help take down Gorr, but they're too busy feasting and frolicking to care. As Jane, who's keeping an important secret from Thor, and Thor grow closer once again, he begins to wonder whether his old pal Peter Quill is right -- that you need to feel loved, even if that love is painful, to have purpose.

Is It Any Good?

Director Taika Waititi can't quite re-create the alchemic chemistry of Ragnarok in this serviceable but less exciting sequel, partly because Jane and Thor's romance doesn't spark. Putting the romance between Thor and Jane at the center of the story is unfortunate, because as talented as Hemsworth and Portman are, they have a bland on-screen presence together (especially when compared to Tom Holland and Zendaya, or Elizabeth Olsen and Paul Bettany). Both Thor and Jane have far more interesting relationships with their closest friends -- in his case, Thompson's Valkyrie, and in her case, Kat Dennings' Dr. Darcy Miller. The banter and teasing they have in these platonic friendships far outshines the platitude-filled commentary about the power of love. So it's partly the actors (since this issue also existed in the earlier Thor films) and partly the screenplay, which tells more than it shows about love. Portman has always seemed an odd casting choice in this role, and though she finally has more to do in this movie, the fit still seems off. At least Korg and Valkyrie are there to add humor to the occasionally cringey early encounters between Thor and Jane.

On the bright side, this Thor, who's vulnerable and open to love, shows more depth than the young, arrogant, and reckless one who didn't think about consequences. He's no longer a selfish god. Speaking of gods, Crowe adopts a strange, pseudo-Italian accent to play a Greek god, and it just doesn't work, which makes Zeus more caricature than actual character. Still, it's fun to watch the former gladiator play an aging and all-powerful god. The land of the gods also leans heavily into Waititi's quirky humor, like when it features Bao, the god of dumplings, or references the not-so-kid-friendly orgy the deities have planned. Just as rock 'n' roll (Led Zeppelin in particular) played a big role in Ragnarok , the music in Love and Thunder is dominated by use of Guns N' Roses' greatest hits, including "Welcome to the Jungle," "Sweet Child O' Mine," "November Rain," and "Paradise City ," which are played during key sequences. And kids will appreciate the role that the Asgardian children eventually play in aiding their trio of leaders. They'll also get a kick out of the screaming, flying alien goats who become a running gag. Will this sequel make audiences laugh? Yes. But does it exceed or even meet the expectations set by Ragnarok ? No.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about the violence in Thor: Love and Thunder . How does it compare to that of other Marvel Cinematic Universe movies? What's the impact of media violence on kids?

What do you think about Thor and Jane's relationship? How do they rank among the MCU couples? Which of the Marvel love stories is your favorite, and why?

Do you want to see more Thor-centric movies, or do you prefer the Marvel movies with cross-over characters?

Talk about the soundtrack and how Guns N' Roses songs are used in the movie. What are some other memorable uses of classic rock songs in the MCU?

Movie Details

• In theaters : July 8, 2022
• On DVD or streaming : September 8, 2022
• Cast : Chris Hemsworth , Tessa Thompson , Natalie Portman , Taika Waititi , Christian Bale
• Director : Taika Waititi
• Inclusion Information : Indigenous directors, Polynesian/Pacific Islander directors, Female actors, Black actors, Latino actors, Indigenous actors, Polynesian/Pacific Islander actors, Indigenous writers, Polynesian/Pacific Islander writers
• Studio : Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures
• Genre : Action/Adventure
• Topics : Magic and Fantasy , Superheroes , Adventures , Friendship , Space and Aliens
• Character Strengths : Empathy , Perseverance , Teamwork
• Run time : 119 minutes
• MPAA rating : PG-13
• MPAA explanation : intense sequences of sci-fi violence and action, language, some suggestive material and partial nudity
• Last updated : February 17, 2023

Did we miss something on diversity?

Research shows a connection between kids' healthy self-esteem and positive portrayals in media. That's why we've added a new "Diverse Representations" section to our reviews that will be rolling out on an ongoing basis. You can help us help kids by suggesting a diversity update.

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Catholic Review

Inspiring the Archdiocese of Baltimore

MOVIE REVIEW: Thor: Love and Thunder

NEW YORK (CNS) — Tongue-in-cheek humor paces the vivid action in “Thor: Love and Thunder” (Disney), the third direct sequel to the Marvel Comics-based franchise’s 2011 original.

While it makes for an aesthetically satisfying extension of the saga, however, the film pushes the series’ previous boundaries in a number of ways, making it unsuitable for any but grown moviegoers.

Via the script he wrote with Jennifer Kaytin Robinson, returning director Taika Waititi, who helmed the previous outing, presents the Norse deity of the title (Chris Hemsworth) with a formidable new adversary, Gorr the God Butcher (Christian Bale). A disillusioned former believer in the divinities of paganism, Gorr has obtained a magical sword capable of slaying them and has launched a killing spree targeting them.

In response, Thor rallies Valkyrie (Tessa Thompson), the sovereign of New Asgard, and another of his sidekicks, Korg (voice of Waititi), an anthropomorphized pile of rocks, to stop the villain. But his crusade takes an unexpected detour when he’s reunited with his true love, Jane Foster (Natalie Portman), a human astrophysicist who now turns up as his female alter ego, wielding his trademark hammer.

Thor’s romance with Jane has been hampered by his fear of commitment in the past and continues to be hobbled by his amusingly excessive emotional neediness and endless desire for affirmation. Waititi and Robinson also garner laughs with material satirizing the series itself.

However, while some of the picture’s underlying values — exalting teamwork and the importance of enduring relationships — are straightforward enough, others range from the complex to the downright murky. What are viewers to make, for example, of early scenes showing the futility of Gorr’s faith, depicting humans as the playthings of the gods and denying the afterlife?

If all this applies only to the imaginary immortals of the ancient world, fair enough. But is the audience meant to apply Gorr’s bitter lesson to religion more broadly? The wrap-up eventually mitigates Gorr’s nihilism but not so decisively as to relieve moviegoers of the need to interpret his experience carefully.

The screenplay also includes some problematic elements of gender-bending and homosexuality. Thus Valkyrie, a lesbian, is referred to as the King, rather than the Queen of New Asgard.

Thor’s buff physique has long been both a drawing card and a subject of jokes for the franchise. Here, though, the comedy surrounding it veers briefly into bawdiness.

All told, this latest visit to the Marvel Cinematic Universe cannot be endorsed even for mature teens. That’s a shame because, so long as it sticks to its real job of diverting popcorn-munching movie patrons, “Thor: Love and Thunder” succeeds quite well.

The film contains frequent bloodless but sometimes intense battle violence, fleeting rear male nudity, some sexual humor, references to lesbianism, about a half-dozen mild oaths, several crude terms and at least one crass expression. The Catholic News Service classification is A-III — adults. The Motion Picture Association rating is PG-13 — parents strongly cautioned. Some material may be inappropriate for children under 13.

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‘Thor: Love and Thunder’ Review: A God’s Comic Twilight

The director Taika Waititi injects antic silliness, once again, into this Marvel franchise starring Chris Hemsworth, who swings a mighty hammer and flexes mightier muscles.

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By Manohla Dargis

Every so often in “Thor: Love and Thunder,” the 92nd Marvel movie to hit theaters this year (OK, the third), the studio machinery hits pause, and the picture opens a portal to another dimension: Its star, Chris Hemsworth, embraces wholesale self-parody, a pair of giant screaming goats gallop along a rainbow highway and Russell Crowe flounces around in a flirty skirt and Shirley Temple curls. As the movie briefly slips into a parallel realm of play and pleasure, you can feel the director Taika Waititi having a good time — and it’s infectious.

This is the fourth “Thor” movie in 11 years and the second that Waititi has directed, following “ Thor: Ragnarok ” (2017). That movie was all over the place, but it was funny (enough) and had a lightness that proved liberating for the series and Hemsworth. “Love and Thunder” is sillier than any of its predecessors, and thinner. A lot happens in overstuffed Marvel Studios fashion. But because the series has jettisoned many of its earlier components — its Shakespearean pretensions, meddlesome relatives and, crucially, Thor’s godly grandeur — the new movie more or less plays like a rescue mission with jokes, tears and smackdowns.

It starts with a pasty, near-unrecognizable Christian Bale, who, having been relieved of his DC Dark Knight duties, has signed up with Marvel as a villain with the spoiler name of Gorr the God Butcher. Waititi quickly sketches in Gorr’s background, giving it a tragic cast. Believing himself betrayed by the god he once worshiped, Gorr is committed to destroying other deities. It’s potentially rich storytelling terrain, particularly given Thor’s stature and Marvel’s role as a contemporary mythmaker. But while Bale takes the role by the throat, as is his habit, investing the character with frictional intensity, Gorr proves disappointingly dull.

For the most part, Gorr simply gives Thor another chance to play the hero, which Hemsworth does with a stellar deadpan and appreciable suppleness. He’s always been fun to watch in the role and not just because, as the slavering camerawork likes to remind you, he looks awfully fine with or without clothes. Hemsworth knows how to move, which is surprising given his muscled bulk, and is at ease with his beauty. He’s also learned how to deploy — and puncture — Thor’s inborn pomposity, although by the time the final credits rolled in “Ragnarok” that haughtiness had turned into shtick. Thor is still a god, but also he’s now a great big goof.

To that end, Thor enters midfight on a battlefield washed in grayish red light, preening and posing and showboating alongside characters from Marvel’s “Guardians of the Galaxy.” With Guardians (Chris Pratt, the raccoon voiced by Bradley Cooper, etc.) on backup, Thor vanquishes the enemy with his customary hyperbole — he strikes the ground, reaches for the heavens, flips his hair — and a new hammer the size of a backhoe shovel. He also destroys a temple that looks right out of an airport gift shop. This synergistic foreplay isn’t pretty, and neither is the rest of the movie, but it announces Waititi’s sensibilities, his irreverence and taste for kitsch.

From the start, the “Thor” series has pushed and pulled at its title character, by turns enshrining and undercutting his supernatural identity, raising him up only to bring him crashing back down to Earth. The movies have, almost to a fault, emphasized Thor’s frailties: He has daddy issues, a sibling rivalry and romantic woes. Gods, they’re just like us! Thor’s love life humanized him for good and bad, though his romance with an astrophysicist — Natalie Portman’s Jane Foster — worked best as ballast for the he-man action. Jane wasn’t interesting, despite Portman’s febrile smiles, but, after sitting out the last movie, she’s back.

Why the encore? Well, mostly because Waititi, who wrote the script with Jennifer Kaytin Robinson, doesn’t seem to know what else he can do with Thor. By the end of “Ragnarok,” the character had been repeatedly cut down to size. He’d squabbled with his brother and wittiest foil (Tom Hiddleston as Loki). His long hair was chopped off and his kingdom annihilated, and gone too were the heavyweights who had helped fill the story’s holes with their magnetism and personality. Anthony Hopkins (Thor’s dad) exited, as did Cate Blanchett (sis). Thor fought, loved and lost, and then he packed on the pounds and went to hang with the Avengers .

“Love and Thunder” revs up the “Thor” franchise again with the usual quips and beats, programmatically timed blowouts, brand-extending details, a kidnapping and a welcome if underused Tessa Thompson. Her Valkyrie, alas, receives less screen time than Jane, who’s given a crisis as well as special powers, a blond blowout and muscles that inflate and deflate like party balloons. Jane’s new talents don’t do much for the story and read as a dutiful nod to women’s empowerment (thanks). Portman does what she can, yet she’s so tightly wound that she never syncs up with the loosey-goosey rhythms the way Thompson and Hemsworth do.

Waititi’s playfulness buoys “Love and Thunder,” but the insistence on Thor’s likability, his decency and dude-ness, has become a creative dead end. The movie has its attractions, notably Hemsworth, Thompson and Crowe, whose Zeus vamps through a sequence with a butt-naked Thor and fainting minions. It’s a delightful and cheerfully vulgar interlude, and critically, it reminds you of the sheer otherworldliness of these beings who — with their vanities, cruelties, deeds, mysteries and powers — turn reality into myth and stories into dreams. Like movie stars, gods aren’t like us, which of course is one reason we invented them.

Thor: Love and Thunder Rated PG-13 for superhero violence. Running time: 2 hours 5 minutes. In theaters.

Manohla Dargis has been the co-chief film critic of The Times since 2004. She started writing about movies professionally in 1987 while earning her M.A. in cinema studies at New York University, and her work has been anthologized in several books. More about Manohla Dargis

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“Thor: Love and Thunder” is more or less a victory lap for all that director Taika Waititi achieved with his previous Marvel film, the often hilarious, rousing, and plainly refreshing “ Thor: Ragnarok .” And while it has too many familiar flourishes and jokes, this entertaining sequel is still a force for good, with enough visual ambition and heart in front of and behind the camera to stand on its own. 

We meet our space Viking hero and thunderous Norse god Thor ( Chris Hemsworth ) on a path of healing. Going “from dad bod to god bod” (to quote Waititi’s voiceover recap, delivered by his still-charming rock-bodied softy character Korg), Thor has lost the gut he had in “ Avengers: Endgame ,” and the people of Asgard have settled into a port town called New Asgard after their home realm was trashed in “Thor: Ragnarok.” Their leader, the charismatic King Valkyrie ( Tessa Thompson ), has helped them acclimate to life on Earth, which includes being a tourist attraction. With the assistance from the Guardians of the Galaxy in a brief appearance, Thor gets back into worlds-saving shape, and in a Guns N' Roses-accompanied moment, in the beginning, he unleashes stylized, high-flying slaughter a la many scenes in “Thor: Ragnarok,” wielding his axe Stormbreaker. But he has no one to share the victory with, and for all of the hundreds of years Thor has lived, he has resigned to not finding true love.  

The film then re-introduces a more interesting hero in Jane Foster ( Natalie Portman ), Thor's past human love interest from the previous films during his more serious days. Now, she wields the restored pieces of Thor’s hammer Mjolnir, turning into the Mighty Thor with helmet and cape, but all with a price. Every time she uses the power, it takes away from her human capacity, which is all the more devastating given that we learn she has Stage Four cancer. “Thor: Love and Thunder” thoughtfully reinstates Jane into the action, while giving some more depth to her relationship with Thor. In both her human and her heroic state, Portman’s performance conveys why it's great to see Jane again. 

The adversary this time around is Gorr the God Butcher, a tortured character filled with vengeance who provides the shadows to the movie's immense moments of light. After the death of his daughter turns him into a non-believer, Gorr is chosen by a weapon called the Necrosword, and creates an army of shapeshifting black beasts to kill all gods, starting with the one who ignored his cries for help. Christian Bale is striking in the role, fluctuating between high and low voices, relishing the chance to brandish his sharp teeth. It’s the closest we’ll get to seeing him play Pennywise the Clown, with a dash of Voldemort, but tethered to the same humility Bale brings to his most human, humbled characters. He can be mighty fun to watch, even when “Thor: Love and Thunder” undersells his god butchering for the sake of a more sentimental message, and to make him share scenes with frightened children.  

Co-written by Waititi and Jennifer Kaytin Robinson , “Thor: Love and Thunder” just doesn’t truly flourish as it could. Part of its messiness kicks in with its big conflict when Gorr the God Butcher attacks New Asgard at night in a frantic impromptu fight scene that has Waititi's usually stable vision for Thor action losing control. The supposedly scary scene just happens, and it’s difficult to follow in the dark what’s going on, as shadow creatures wage battle on the Asgardians and kidnap their children. The sequence is so disjointed that a visual gag involving a collapsing burning building in the background—timed for when Thor meets cute again with Jane as a hammer-wielding, ass-kicking, Mighty Thor—just doesn’t work.  

In order to stop Gorr and save the stolen children, Jane, Thor, King Valkyrie, and Korg visit the god of lightning Zeus and the other Gods, who laze about in a golden forum and talk about the next orgy, unafraid of what Gorr is looking to do to them. Like a golden and white version of the Galactic Senate in “ Star Wars ,” with a grab-bag of goofy creatures (one has furry feet and a face, that's it; another is a Korg relative) it makes for one of the more eye-popping set pieces. But it’s also a moment in which the movie is building toward future “ Thor ” stories at the detriment of this one, including a shrugging cameo seen in the post-credits. It’s also a passage among many in which it's clear that Tessa Thompson’s character of King Valkyrie, though important with the goings-on of New Asgard, has oddly been pushed to the side despite her established importance and swagger in “Thor: Ragnarok.”  

“Thor: Love and Thunder” flirts with when a call-back story beat or joke is just playing the hits, the same way that there are a million Guns N' Roses nods and needle drops in this movie just because, and you’re expected to head-bang each time. All of its pop culture ad-libs, or punched-up superhero stuff about coming up with catchphrases—when those jokes feel safe instead of left-field, they fall particularly flat. “Thor: Love and Thunder” is a blockbuster comedy sequel at its core, and its weaker material reminds you of that even when it’s still good for a sporadic laugh or two.  

Lacking the overall freshness that defined the previous movie, “Thor: Love and Thunder” is better with its bolder, dramatic sequences that are like mini-movies about how love comes with the price of loss. Gorr is introduced in a harrowing piece of bubble gum Ingmar Bergman , cradling his dead child and renouncing his god before killing him, all before the Marvel Studios credit card kicks in with electric guitars. Later on, Waititi presents us the Jane and Thor romance—its coziness and later its isolation—like a spin-off of his own quirky indie “Eagle vs. Shark.” It's very funny in some moments, but with a brutal honesty always in frame, especially as the two then see if love is salvageable in the current dwindling timeline. Along with Jane’s striking cancer storyline, it's these heartfelt moments too that reveal the true motivators behind “Thor: Love and Thunder,” even if everything is later treated in too quaint, or too eagerly crowd-pleasing a fashion to hit as hard as they clearly meant to.  

The biggest takeaway from “Thor: Love and Thunder,” aside from how Waititi really should get that “Star Wars” trilogy he’s been teasing, involves his bold usage of color, visually and thematically. It’s not just the eye-popping hues, which here include soldiers for Zeus who spew golden blood or a bravura black-and-white fight sequence between Gorr and Thor on a tiny color-draining planet that uses select flashes of blue light with great effect. It’s that assured sense of tone that preaches how a movie can mix god-killing and kid-friendly crowd-pleasing moments with a gooey message about love. This sequel is not without its reservations, but Waititi continues to show just how unique these blockbusters can still be, provided their storytellers keep embracing some of their heaviest and funniest ideas.   

Available in theaters on July 8th.

Nick Allen is the former Senior Editor at RogerEbert.com and a member of the Chicago Film Critics Association.

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Film credits.

Thor: Love and Thunder (2022)

Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of sci-fi violence and action, language, some suggestive material and partial nudity.

119 minutes

Chris Hemsworth as Thor Odinson

Natalie Portman as Jane Foster / The Mighty Thor

Tessa Thompson as King Valkyrie

Christian Bale as Gorr the God Butcher

Taika Waititi as Korg

Jaimie Alexander as Sif

Russell Crowe as Zeus

Chris Pratt as Peter Quill / Star-Lord

Dave Bautista as Drax the Destroyer

Karen Gillan as Nebula

Pom Klementieff as Mantis

Bradley Cooper as Rocket (voice)

Vin Diesel as Groot (voice)

Sean Gunn as Kraglin / On-Set Rocket

• Taika Waititi
• Larry Lieber
• Jennifer Kaytin Robinson

Cinematographer

• Barry Idoine
• Peter S. Elliot
• Matthew Schmidt
• Jennifer Vecchiarello
• Michael Giacchino

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‘Thor: Love and Thunder’ Review: Chris Hemsworth and Natalie Portman Sequel Proves Taika Waititi’s ‘Ragnarok’ Was No Fluke

The director builds on the winning effrontery of "Thor: Ragnarok" to raise the stakes on a love story about Thor and his old flame, who is now Thor as well (it's complicated), saving the universe.

By Owen Gleiberman

Owen Gleiberman

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“ Thor: Love and Thunder ” has a pleasing, let’s-try-it-on-and-shoot-the-works effervescence. Like most Marvel movies, the fourth entry in the Thor saga would seem to have weighty matters on its mind, starting with Thor’s hammer, the smashed fragments of which have been reassembled — and, more to the point, claimed — by Jane Foster ( Natalie Portman ), Thor’s old flame. By possessing the mystique of that hammer, she has become the Mighty Thor. Not a superhero like Thor. She now is Thor — which, you’d imagine, might not sit so well with the God of Thunder himself. Absent of hammer, he wields an enchanted ax called Stormbreaker, but sorry, it’s just not the same thing.

Yet given that he hasn’t seen Jane since “Thor: The Dark World” (according to our hero, it has been eight years, seven months, and six days), and that he’d do anything to win her back, Thor is pretty good about playing the chivalrous supportive male and honoring the fact that she now possesses his hammer, and his brand. There’s some screwball sniping between the two of them, all of it charged and sexy and entertaining. And it’s not like they’re adversaries. They’ve joined up with the warrior teammates Thor met in “Thor: Ragnarok,” all to defeat Gorr the God Butcher (Christian Bale), a scarred super-killer who’s on a vengeful mission to destroy every god in the universe.

In other words, a standard day in the MCU.

Popular on Variety

But “Thor: Love and Thunder” is far from standard, and that’s a good thing. Like “Thor: Ragnarok,” the movie was directed and co-written by Taika Waititi , the New Zealand sleight-of-hand-prankster-who-is-also-a-serious-filmmaker, and it builds on the earlier film’s highly winning tone of skewed flippancy. But it also, like “Ragnarok,” possesses an offbeat humanity that justifies the japery. Waititi has the wit to see that if you aren’t mocking a Marvel movie as you’re making one, you might be taking it more seriously than the audience does.

There are many words to describe the quintessential 21st-century cinema experience known as the MCU movie. You could call it big and impersonal, corporate and bombastic, machine-tooled and clamorous, top-heavy-with-CGI and Fun In A Way That Lacks All Mystery. But amid those qualities, the most insidious may be the one that’s designed to distract you from the rest: the insouciant, sitcom-on-steroids jokiness that ricocheted through Joss Whedon’s original “Avengers” film and has greased the wheels of countless Marvel capers since. Even when it works (which, to be honest, is more than it doesn’t), the comedy is all part of the package, the quips arriving on cue with the same dead-end bull’s-eye timing as the CGI miracles.

That’s what made “Thor: Ragnarok” such a genuine Marvel wildflower. Waititi didn’t just take a Thor adventure, add comedy bits, and stir; he approached the Marvel paradigm as a grand statue he was going to scrawl graffiti on, using comedy — flaky, personal, unpredictable, with a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it dash of meta — to let the actors exist in their own space, and to loosen the laces on the Marvel formula. When Thor tossed his hammer at Hela (Cate Blanchett), his Maleficent-meets-Medusa evil sister, she stopped the weapon in its tracks, smashing it into several dozen pieces. It was as if Thor, without that big thick club of heavy metal, had lost his identity, and that’s how the movie played it — with Chris Hemsworth , shorn of Thor’s goldilocks as well, out there on his own, with nothing but his wits and his will to protect him. “Thor: Ragnarok” knocked the characters off their pedestals and had such a relaxed good time discovering them as scruffy, scrambling humanized beings that at moments it was as if Robert Altman had gained control of the Marvel machine with an assist from Wayne Campbell. The movie undercut the whole stentorian vibe of Marvel self-importance, and in doing so it actually brought you closer to the spirit of the comics, where these demigods were always improvising, just being themselves, making it up as they went along.

The last 40 minutes of “Thor: Ragnarok” were disappointing, with the top-heavy Marvel DNA kicking back in, but “Thor: Love and Thunder” sustains its freshness to the end. This one, if anything, has a more awkward first act, as our heroes interface with the Guardians of the Galaxy, who seem to have wandered in from their own metaverse and, frankly, should have stayed there. (I love the Guardians, but I don’t like it when movies pile on teams of superheroes.) But the movie powerfully introduces its villain, who starts off as an innocent victim in the middle of a drought, bald and robed like a Buddhist monk, his skin as chalky as the sand around him, desperate to save his young daughter from dying of thirst. When he learns that the gods who might have spared her view their subjects as mere playthings, he announces, “This is my vow: All gods will die.” Gorr, his eyes now yellow with rabid fury, gains possession of an ancient weapon known as the Necrosword, which has the ability to slay gods but corrupts and infects those who wield it.

Gorr has set a trap for Thor and his team, using the captured children of Asgard as bait. It’s a confounding situation, and so our heroes, in search of help, head for the Golden Temple, which hosts a powwow of gods presided over by none other than the mighty Zeus. That sounds like a solemn event, but Waititi stages it like a rowdy day at DeityCon, with Zeus played by Russell Crowe not as a noble leader but a decadent coward; Crowe, acting under a mop of bad curling-iron hair, speaks in a hilariously shabby accent that makes him sound like some chiseling merchant from a rug bazaar. This outrageous sequence, with its playful nudity, its “Wizard of Oz” smoke, and a lightning bolt that finds the perfect target, is the quintessential expression of Waititi’s Marvel-gone-“Flash Gordon” aesthetic.

In the end, however, it’s the mix of tones — the cheeky and the deadly, the flip and the romantic — that elevates “Thor: Love and Thunder” by keeping it not just brashly unpredictable but emotionally alive. In Kenneth Branagh’s “Thor,” Natalie Portman held her own as Thor’s earthly love interest, but here, pulling up on equal footing with him, Portman gives a performance of cut-glass wit and layered yearning. Jane might want Thor back, but she’s furious at how he let his attention drift away from her (though having a smirking megalomaniac half-brother with borderline personality disorder will do that to you). She’s also reveling in her power, even as she wages battle against a hidden malady it can’t save her from. (The hammer won’t help; using it drains her.)

In “Thor: Ragnarok,” Waititi won praise for his use of Led Zeppelin’s “Immigrant Song,” with its cawing battle cry that sounds like it hails from the Mesazoic Era. It’s hard to up the ante on Zep, but “Love and Thunder” comes close by spreading the greatest hits of Guns N’ Roses throughout the movie, from the combat-happy “Welcome to the Jungle” to the soulful spangle of “Paradise City.” Christian Bale, looking like a cadaverous goblin crossed with the clown from Bergman’s “Sawdust and Tinsel,” glowers with charismatic hellbent cunning, though I can’t say that he brings the character of Gorr any revelatory new flavor of malevolence. Tessa Thompson, as the mighty and still proudly dissolute King Valkyrie, and Waititi himself, voicing Korg the endearing rock-bodied simpleton gladiator, pick up where their winning performances in “Ragnarok” left off.

The climactic battle, with its shadow monsters, its children caught in the cross-hairs, and its all-for-one exuberance, has a tingly grandeur, and by the end I felt something unusual enough to feel at a Marvel movie that it seemed almost otherworldly: I was moved. Moved by how two Thors could come together to love each other and to save the universe. I like plenty of Marvel movies just fine, but they are what they are, and what they are is products. This one has enough wide-eyed boldness and shimmer to earn the designation of fairy tale.

Reviewed at AMC Lincoln Square, June 23, 2022. MPAA Rating: PG-13. Running time: 125 MIN.

• Production: A Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures release of a Marvel Studios production. Producer: Kevin Feige, Brad Winderbaum. Executive producers: Victoria Alonso, Brian Chapek, Louis D’Esposito, Todd Hallowell, Chris Hemsworth.
• Crew: Director: Taika Waititi. Screenplay: Taika Waititi, Jennifer Kaytin Robinson. Camera: Barry Baz Idoine. Editors: Peter S. Elliot, Tim Roche, Matthew Schmidt, Jennifer Vecchiarello. Music: Michael Giacchino, Nami Melumad.
• With: Chris Hemsworth, Natalie Portman, Christian Bale, Tessa Thompson, Taiki Waititi, Russell Crowe, Jaimie Alexander, Chris Pratt, Dave Bautista, Karen Gillan, Pom Klementieff, Sean Gunn, Vin Diesel, Bradley Cooper.

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Thor: Love and Thunder

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Watch Thor: Love and Thunder with a subscription on Disney+, rent on Fandango at Home, Prime Video, Apple TV, or buy on Fandango at Home, Prime Video, Apple TV.

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In some ways, Thor: Love and Thunder feels like Ragnarok redux -- but overall, it offers enough fast-paced fun to make this a worthy addition to the MCU.

Even though Thor: Love and Thunder 's constant silliness makes it hard to invest in the more serious sides of the story, there's still plenty here to enjoy.

Audience Reviews

Cast & crew.

Taika Waititi

Chris Hemsworth

Natalie Portman

Jane Foster

Christian Bale

Tessa Thompson

King Valkyrie

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Chris hemsworth and natalie portman in taika waititi’s ‘thor: love and thunder’: film review.

The space Viking is joined by former love Jane Foster to rescue the abducted children of New Asgard and stop the rampage of Christian Bale’s Gorr the God Butcher.

By David Rooney

David Rooney

Chief Film Critic

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Taika Waititi revitalized the MCU’s Thor Odinson strand in 2017 with Thor: Ragnarok by leaning into the irreverent comedy, mirroring the pop-cultural playfulness that had worked for the Guardians of the Galaxy films. Dipping less rewardingly from the same well in Thor: Love and Thunder , Waititi pushes the wisecracking to tiresome extremes, snuffing out any excitement, mythic grandeur or sense of danger that the God of Thunder’s latest round of rote challenges might hope to generate. Chris Hemsworth continues to give great musclebound himbo, but the stakes never acquire much urgency in a movie too busy being jokey and juvenile to tell a gripping story.

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The Marvel faithful will likely groove to the mischievous spirit that is Waititi’s trademark, and they might even get a kick out of the often ugly Frank Frazetta-inspired fantasy visuals, with many scenes looking like the kind of bad airbrush art you find on the bodywork of stoner dude-wagons. The soundtrack also fits that metal mode, with Guns N’ Roses hits stitched into Michael Giacchino’s blustery score. But is it too much to ask for something that doesn’t just feel like a strained rehash of the last installment?

Thor: Love and Thunder

Release date : Friday, July 8 Cast : Chris Hemsworth, Natalie Portman, Christian Bale, Tessa Thompson, Taika Waititi, Russell Crowe Director : Taika Waititi Screenwriters : Taika Waititi, Jennifer Kaytin Robinson, based on the Marvel Comics

Thor’s home New Asgard has been turned into an amusement park and cruise destination offering Viking boat rides, real Asgardian mead and reenactments of mythological lore — featuring famous faces in cute cameos. So we might as well be at Disneyland. The silly kid-film feel of this episode would be apparent even without the children of this monetized Norse playground watching through windows in wide-eyed delight as Thor and his allies battle shadow monsters conjured by villain du jour Gorr the God Butcher.

Looking lean and mean, with a zombie pallor and glowing demon eyes beneath his wispy white cowl, Christian Bale brings plenty of malevolent intensity to that role, along with haunted reminders of the man of faith he once was, robbed of his beloved daughter when the gods abandoned their parched planet to drought and famine. But his extensive backstory in the Marvel comics is so reduced here that Gorr becomes just another nut-job with a grudge — using the necrosword from which he derives his power to slay deities, as his name suggests. In a movie whose main aim is fun, Gorr is a gloomy drag who made me miss the shamelessly over-the-top witchery of Cate Blanchett’s Hela in Ragnarok .

Nor does Thor have a verbal sparring partner on the level of Mark Ruffalo’s Hulk/Bruce Banner. Instead, he’s reunited with former love Jane Foster, played by Natalie Portman , who already proved an uncomfortable fit for the Marvel vibe in the first Thor movies. Now she’s back, fighting stage 4 cancer but postponing the inevitable the Viking way, by wielding Mjollnir, the thunder god’s hammer.

She gets to be called The Mighty Thor and acquits herself well in battle, even if she struggles to come up with a worthy catchphrase. The hammer appears also to have a hairdressing function, transforming Jane’s dowdy brown mop into kicky blond curls. Portman is not quite a natural with the comedy, but mostly she just seems like a female replica of Hemsworth’s quippy character until an abrupt lurch into pathos when Thor declares that he can’t bear to lose her love again.

This is a film full of choppy shifts, both in the narrative and the visuals. The CG environments are so expansive, and so garishly colorful, that it almost looks animated, and the jumps to the green fields of Asgard or the sterile rooms of the hospital where Jane is being treated give the impression of being dropped into a different movie.

Thor and Jane — or Thor and Mighty Thor, if you want to get confusingly technical — must stop the galactic threat of Gorr before he lays waste to all the gods and reaches the Altar of Eternity, where his wish for omnipotence or everlasting life or something will be granted. Their mission is rendered more pressing by the fact that Gorr has abducted all the children of Asgard, who are being held prisoner in a huge spiked cage.

The good guys have help from King Valkyrie ( Tessa Thompson ), now the benevolent ruler of New Asgard but still a fearless warrior; and Thor’s rock buddy Korg (Waititi), whose goofy commentary is framed as children’s story time, adding to the overall junior-adventure feel. They commandeer a theme-park boat for their space travels, pulled by two giant screaming goats, which are funny for a minute.

They make a pit-stop at the Golden Temple of the Gods to request backup from the vainglorious Zeus ( Russell Crowe , doing a cheesy Greek accent right out of a comedy sketch). That proves a bust, though it does allow for cheeky acknowledgments of Thor’s apparently impressive endowment when Zeus strips him naked, and they score a handy additional weapon in Zeus’ golden lightning bolt.

Waititi, cinematographer Barry Idoine and the effects team change up the visual scheme by shifting to black and white once the Thor posse reaches Gorr’s realm of shadows, and the representation of Eternity as a sky of low clouds reflected in shallow water is simple but beautiful. For the most part, though, this is a messy movie that takes programmatic pauses for poignancy or comedy in between chaotically staged action set-pieces. The most energized of them involves the kidnapped children being granted the power of Thor for the day and facing off against Gorr’s shadow monsters. But even here, the focus switches back and forth too restlessly to savor their moment of glory.

More than most recent MCU movies, the screenplay by Waititi and Jennifer Kaytin Robinson shows a crisis of imagination, too often relying on easy laughs from cross-cultural references (Korg keeps getting Jane’s name wrong, calling her Jane Fonda or Jodie Foster) or kitschy pop (Enya, Abba) rather than doing anything interesting with the characters or building real gravity into their situation. Even the inclusion of queer characters — Valkyrie pines for the love of her lost warrior sister; Korg reveals that his species mates with other males to make baby rock monsters — seems more like pandering representation than anything vitally grounded in the storytelling.

Sure, fans will be delighted to see Chris Pratt and the Guardians of the Galaxy crew turn up in an early battle, plus there are some mildly moving interludes between Hemsworth and Portman as Jane’s health becomes more compromised with each swing of the hammer. And one of the obligatory end-credits sequences will tantalize followers of Ted Lasso . But right down to a sentimental ending that seems designed around “Sweet Child O’ Mine,” the movie feels weightless, flippant, instantly forgettable, sparking neither love nor thunder.

Full credits

Distribution: Disney Production company: Marvel Studios Cast: Chris Hemsworth, Natalie Portman, Christian Bale, Tessa Thompson, Taika Waititi, Russell Crowe, Chris Pratt, Dave Bautista, Karen Gillan, Pon Klementieff, Bradley Cooper, Vin Diesel Director: Taika Waititi Screenwriters: Taika Waititi, Jennifer Kaytin Robinson, based on the Marvel Comics Producers: Kevin Feige, Brad Winderbaum Executive producers: Louis D’Esposito, Victoria Alonso, Brain Chapek, Todd Hallowell, Chris Hemsworth Director of photography: Barry Idoine Production designer: Nigel Phelps Costume designer: Mayes C. Rubeo Music: Michael Giacchino, Nami Melumad Editors: Peter S. Elliot, Tim Roche, Matthew Schmidt, Jennifer Vecchiarello Visual effects supervisor: Jake Morrison Creature and prosthetic designer: Adam Johansen Casting: Sarah Halley Finn

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• DVD & Streaming

Thor: Love and Thunder

• Action/Adventure , Comedy , Drama , Sci-Fi/Fantasy

Content Caution

In Theaters

• July 8, 2022
• Chris Hemsworth as Thor; Natalie Portman as Jane Foster; Christian Bale as Gorr the God Butcher; Tessa Thompson as Valkyrie; Taika Waititi as Korg; Jaimie Alexander as Sif; Russell Crowe as Zeus

Home Release Date

• September 8, 2022
• Taika Waititi

Distributor

• Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures

Movie Review

For the God of Thunder, it’s been a dark and stormy time.

Over the last several years, Thor has grieved over the death of his father, his mother and his brother (three times). His sister broke his favorite hammer. Thanos proved to be a serious downer. He lost an eye. He lost his planet. He lost his abs.

And then there’s Jane Foster—sweet Jane Foster, the astrophysicist around whom Thor’s heart orbits. Thor lost her, too.

But finally, after a few years and presumably several trillion sit-ups, Thor’s feeling more like himself. He’s fit (as a thunder god should be). His hair has never looked better. And with his new pals, the Guardians of the Galaxy, Thor occasionally fights bad guys, too—rescuing helpless planets from the villainous armies that might plague them.

And if he sometimes destroys half the planet he’s trying to save? Well, let’s not cry over spilt infrastructure.

So when Thor learns that his old friend, Sif, is chasing down a mysterious evildoer who’s apparently killing gods, Thor’s in position—physically and mentally—to do a bit of chasing himself.

But this god-killer is a formidable foe. When Thor finds Sif, she’s nearly dead, having lost her arm a fight with him. Sif tells Thor that the villain wants to kill all gods—and he’s on his way to New Asgard, the Earth-bound town where the remnants of Asgard’s former population now live (and entertain tourists).

Thor’s already lost one Asgard: He’s not interested in losing another. He quickly zaps to Earth to defend the place, but he discovers that Asgard already has a Thor on watch: a hammer-wielding do-gooder who looks an awful lot like—

Yes, it’s a small universe. Through a complicated chain of events that we won’t get into now, Jane Foster is now Thor. Sort of.

But a reunion between Thor (the original) and the slightly shorter, prettier and more human facsimile will have to wait. The villain—Gorr the God Butcher—is in town, too. And as Thor and Thor battle tentacled and toothy shadow monsters, Gorr snatches Asgard’s children. He takes them far, far away, and he wants Thor (the original) to try and get them back.

It’s a trap, of course. But still, Thor must rescue the children. And in his quest to bring Asgard’s youngest back home, he’ll need help. Help from Valkyrie, the fearsome warrior now serving as New Asgard’s queen. Help from Korg, a stone gladiator who befriended Thor a few movies back; help from Jane Foster, who wields his old, magically repaired hammer, Mjolnir.

Oh, and a couple of giant, screaming goats. Can’t forget the goats.

Positive Elements

Thor: Love and Thunder is aptly named. Let’s concentrate on some of the love here. Despite his protestations, Thor still loves Jane Foster—and his love goes well beyond mere romantic affectations. He wants what’s best for her. His desire to love and protect her, in fact, was instrumental in their reunion and Mjolnir’s reappearance. (We learn that he magicked the hammer to protect Jane, no matter where or when; when Jane comes to New Asgard, Mjolnir does as it was bidden—transforming Jane in the process.) And when Thor learns that Jane’s dealing with an adversary even deadlier than Gorr—cancer—he tries to help her in any way he can. She likewise helps Thor when she can—even when she knows that it might spell her end. And, of course, they and others are trying to save the kids, too. Believe it or not, Gorr is not beyond a measure of redemption himself. He sets himself on his dark path because of love, after all—the love of his precious daughter. Nothing can be quite as horrific and vindictive as love gone wrong, but a kernel of real love remains in Gorr’s soul.

Spiritual Elements

So. In a superficial sense, Love and Thunder just might be the most spiritual superhero film ever. Its hero is a “god,” the villain is called the god butcher, and we see, literally, hundreds of lowercase deities. Most of them hang out in Omnipotence City—a nice little metropolis where the gods do very little but meet and party. Zeus (the Greek god of lightning, amongst other things) heads this divine-heavy metropolis (Thor admits the guy is something of a hero to him), and he shows off on his magically suspended dais in a god-infested assembly room. Earth-based gods are disproportionately represented: We see some representatives from Aztec and Mayan mythology, for instance. (Thor and his friends sneak in after swiping some robes from some emotion -based gods; the robes ae supposed to change color depending on the mood of the wearer.) While the film suggests that the gods are supposed to protect and safeguard their various worlds, most seem way more preoccupied with their own happiness and well-being to spend time thinking about their worshipers. (Which, when you read the myths of many of the gods represented, seems surprisingly accurate.) And while one of them grumbles about how little devotion and fear they’re striking in mortals these days, these gods certainly have no interest in dealing with Gorr. You can see why. In Gorr’s onscreen origin story, we see him on a barren, dusty world, praying desperately to his chosen deity as his daughter slowly dies of thirst. His prayers go unanswered. After he buries his daughter, Gorr suddenly discovers a lush oasis, where a golden-armored god chats with a trio of sentient flower-creatures. They’re celebrating the death of the holder of something called the Necrosword —a weapon that we’re told can kill any god. Gorr tells the golden god that all his devotees are dead now. The god says he’s not worried: More will come, and he mocks Gorr’s devotion. “Nothing awaits you after death, but death!” he says. The Necrosword makes its way into Gorr’s hands after this brutal disillusionment, and Gorr uses it to kill his god. We see the gigantic corpse of another god that Gorr felled (“one of the nicest gods you’d ever meet,” someone says), and we hear that he’s dispatched others. Gorr mocks believers for offering up prayers that he believes will go unanswered. “The gods will use you,” he says, “but they will not help you.” The children of Asgard, though, insist that Thor will save them—believing in the face of Gorr’s mockery. And it does seem as though Thor’ the only god here who can be bothered by the supplications of his followers. A couple of notes: Thor does say that Omnipotence City is a gathering place for “the most powerful created gods in the universe”—suggesting that these gods have their own creator. And Gorr, in an effort to speed up his god butchery, petitions an even greater power than the gods themselves—one who can grant, apparently, any wish. We hear several references to Valhalla (the Norse version of heaven), and [ Spoiler Warning ] even see the place in one post-credits scene. Various weapons seem to have at least a bit of sentience, and one curses its bearer.

Sexual Content

While in Omnipotence City, Thor’s stripped down to his birthday suit as he petitions Zeus. The movie audience sees Thor’s exposed backside, but the gods themselves get an eyeful of the front (which is, of course, strategically covered for us). The female contingent gathered ‘round Zeus (called the Zeusettes in the credits) collectively swoon at the sight, and other women and female gods ogle. Zeus also speaks repeatedly of a planned orgy in Omnipotence City. We see flashbacks to Jane and Thor’s relationship (where, it seems, they lived together). They kiss and snuggle and have a lot of relatively innocent fun together, but we don’t see anything remotely erotic or raunchy. They profess their love for each other, as well. (We also see how their relationship turned sour, as well, and they at least partially blame each other for its implosion.) We see quick flashbacks to some other women that Thor has wooed (featuring him kissing most of them). It was long rumored that Valkyrie (who’s bisexual in the comics) would be coming out for the first time onscreen in Love and Thunder , and indeed she does. She kisses a woman’s hand and briefly recalls the many women with whom she’s had relationships with. But that’s not the end of Love and Thunder’ s LGBT forays. Korg wistfully remembers how his two dads made him (clasping their hands over a pool of molten lava), and at the end of the movie, he apparently does the same with a “bloke named Duane.” (One thing to note, though: Korg’s race of rock aliens may not actually have any women to mate with.) As is common in superhero movies, we see both men and women in formfitting clothing. A Guardian of the Galaxy crew member announces that he’s gotten married while they’ve been visiting a planet. “You can’t get married on every single planet we land on!” Guardian leader Peter Quill tells him. Thor directs Jane’s attention to a pod of space dolphins. “They mate for life in packs of six,” he tells her.

Violent Content

This review is already surprisingly long, so I won’t belabor the action and violence we see here. You already know this is a superhero film, which means you can expect to see scads of battles (both individual skirmishes and war-like melees) featuring fists, weapons, lighting bolts and the like. But a few special things to make note of. Thor and others fight with several golden guards in Omnipotent City, slaughtering most with extreme prejudice. The blood they spill looks like liquid gold. But had it been red, this scene alone would’ve garnered Love and Thunder a hard-R rating. The shadow monsters under Gorr’s control might be quite scary for younger viewers. They, too, are gutted and torn asunder grotesquely. Gorr stabs someone in the jaw with a sword and rips the head of a creature. Someone is skewered through the chest with a lightning bolt, leading many to believe he’s dead. (He’s not.) We see a dead child. Thor talks about feasting once the children are rescued. “But not on the children,” he adds. “We don’t do that anymore. Those were dark times.” There’s apparently some sort of recognition in Omnipotence City for the deity that scores the highest number of human sacrifices. We see lots of property damage.

Crude or Profane Language

Nearly a dozen s-words join several other profanities, including “a–,” “d–n,” “h—,” “crap,” “p-ss” and two misuses of God’s name.

Drug and Alcohol Content

Valkryie and Korg hang out in a bar, sipping drinks. Zeus invites Thor to stay in Omnipotence City and just drink his cares away. “Anything goes in Omnipotence City,” he says.

Other Negative Elements

None, unless you count Thor’s boundless, clueless confidence.

The last superhero film that director Taika Waititi helmed was, of course, Thor: Ragnarok, a genre-busting fever dream that turned Jeff Goldblum into a supervillain, Chris Hemsworth into a first-class comedic actor and Matt Damon into Loki. Thor: Love and Thunder makes Ragnarok look like a PBS period drama. When Tessa Thompson (Valkyrie) asked director Taika Waititi how the script was shaping up several months before filming, he told her that it “feels like we asked a bunch of 10-year-olds what should be in a movie and just said yes to everything.” So, yes. Translated, Love and Thunder is silly, often funny and, in truth, quite entertaining. But let’s also stress that if you said yes to everything a 10-year-old wanted to do in, say, your house , you’d be lucky to have a house left. And 10-year-olds are not known for their entertainment discernment, either. Movies in the Marvel Cinematic Universe—at least in a post Avengers: Endgame world—seem to be getting progressively more problematic, both spiritually and sexually. Love and Thunder may be a better movie than Eternals and Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness … but content-wise, it’s a step or two worse. The film’s collection of bargain-bin gods offers opportunity for discussion—but I think for many Christian families, their presence makes this a tough sell from the get-go. Add in bare backsides, LGBT content, some really creepy monsters and a surprising level of profanity, and you’ve got yet more to wade through. Some parents will ignore these notes of caution. They’ve seen all the MCU movies, they reason. What’s one more? And, of course, that’s fine. You know better than Plugged In does about what’s right for your family. But it’s possible that, upon seeing it, it might not be just the film’s goats that feel like screaming.

Paul Asay has been part of the Plugged In staff since 2007, watching and reviewing roughly 15 quintillion movies and television shows. He’s written for a number of other publications, too, including Time, The Washington Post and Christianity Today. The author of several books, Paul loves to find spirituality in unexpected places, including popular entertainment, and he loves all things superhero. His vices include James Bond films, Mountain Dew and terrible B-grade movies. He’s married, has two children and a neurotic dog, runs marathons on occasion and hopes to someday own his own tuxedo. Feel free to follow him on Twitter @AsayPaul.

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Thor: Love And Thunder Review

Thor: Love And Thunder

Superhero movies are like guitar solos. They can be a bit noodly, and tend to go on a little too long — but when they’re done just right, they absolutely soar, imbued with the kind of joy and wild abandon that makes you feel alive. Thor: Love And Thunder — Taika Waititi ’s iridescent follow-up to the irreverent Ragnarok — is a giddy, gleaming guitar solo of a movie; a celebratory blast of colour, energy and emotion. It even has a guitar solo — opening with a shredding, squealing, Wyld Stallyns-style version of the Marvel Studios fanfare.

Last time around, Waititi’s mission was to make Thor really, properly cool — ditching the high-fantasy jargon and redundant sidekicks of the Norse God’s previous outings for a cosmic, campy space opera with lashings of self-deprecating humour and Jeff Goldblum as a gold-robed space-tyrant. Plenty of Ragnarok ’s raucous DNA remains in Love And Thunder , cranked to even greater heights: Waititi’s own rib-tickling rock-man Korg now steps up as narrator, the Technicolor palette is overhauled in even lighter pastel hues, and this time it’s Russell Crowe ’s turn to cut loose, his Zeus a preening prat of a Greek god.

Portman makes an excellent Marvel comeback, given more to play with here than in all her previous appearances.

But in many ways, it’s a different beast. Where Ragnarok sometimes teetered towards a tone of self-satisfaction, Taika Waititi is at his best when being truly vulnerable — offsetting the barrage of winking gags with explorations of loss, loneliness and inadequacy (see: Hunt For The Wilderpeople and Boy ). Love And Thunder does just that. It is, appropriately, a film about love in all its forms — about its transformative and regenerative powers, and how empty life can feel without it. The film capitalises on the events of Avengers: Endgame beautifully — less in the team-up between Thor and the Guardians (a blast to watch, but they part ways fairly early on), more in dealing with the grief, self-hatred and guilt that the God Of Thunder is wading through. That void, that emptiness, Waititi posits, is worse than the pain that love can bring.

Much of love’s sting comes from the reintroduction of Natalie Portman ’s Jane Foster. Taking inspiration from Jason Aaron’s comics run, Foster isn’t just back — she’s also wielding Mjolnir (whose new tricks make for a slew of ‘holy crap ’ action beats) in the guise of The Mighty Thor. Largely forgotten by the MCU post- Thor: The Dark World , Portman makes an excellent Marvel comeback, given more to play with here than in all her previous appearances. She, too, gets to be vulnerable, wrestling with life’s biggest challenges while playing a Thor with very little experience of, well, being Thor.

If anything gets a tad lost in the mix, it’s Gorr The God Butcher. Taken from a different Aaron comics run, the deathly deity-slayer isn’t quite as foreboding as he is on the page, and jostles for space among Thor and friends ( Tessa Thompson ’s Valkyrie, too, comes out shortchanged) — though Christian Bale ’s ghoulishly odd performance means he’s no Malekith-esque dud. Plus, Gorr’s connection to the Shadow Realm means he’s responsible for some of the film’s most striking visual moments — all colour draining from the frame in his presence, our heroes’ powers punctuating the gloom in neon bursts.

In so many ways, for mostly better and occasionally worse (a jaunt to Omnipotent City drags a touch), Thor: Love And Thunder is a deeply weird, deeply wonderful triumph. It’s a movie that dares to be seriously uncool, and somehow ends up all the cooler for it — sidesplittingly funny, surprisingly sentimental, and so tonally daring that it’s a miracle it doesn’t collapse. The Gorr-centric cold-open is as dark as the MCU gets, but this is also a Thor romcom with a loved-up ABBA montage, and a Viking longboat pulled through space by a pair of gigantic screaming goats (who nearly run away with the film). It’s a movie about midlife crisis that feels like you’re watching one in action, with its gourmet gods, glorious intergalactic biker-chicken battle, and Guns N’ Roses galore (the ‘November Rain’ solo is deployed perfectly ). And come the closing reel, when the true meaning of its title is unveiled, it leaves our hero in a place so sweet and surprising, you’ll be truly moved. It’s a Taika Waititi movie, then — we could watch his cinematic guitar solos all day.

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Thor: Love and Thunder review – A rare Marvel film that remembers its main audience are kids

A delightful sequel motor-powered by goofy self-awareness and childlike imagination, article bookmarked.

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Dir: Taika Waititi. Starring: Chris Hemsworth, Christian Bale, Tessa Thompson, Jaimie Alexander, Taika Waititi, Russell Crowe, Natalie Portman. 12A, 119 minutes.

I can’t remember the last time the A-list stars of a Marvel film have all seemed genuinely happy to be there. But in Thor: Love and Thunder , Natalie Portman , Christian Bale , and Russell Crowe beam like they’re kids dropped headfirst into a vat of Tango Ice Blast. Portman, whose Jane Foster here wields the power of Mighty Thor, flexes her biceps and lands dorky joke after dorky joke – two things so rarely granted to the actresses Hollywood demands are perpetually dainty and polite. Bale, as villain Gorr the God Butcher, gets to crawl around on all fours wailing and hissing, with amber-hued snake pupils and a profile that’s distinctly Skeletor-esque. Crowe, as Zeus, has a miniskirt and the wildest Greek accent you’ve ever heard in your life.

These three are in actor heaven, gambolling around a soundstage as if it were their own personal playground. That probably has a lot to do with who’s behind the camera here – one Taika Waititi , who, since 2017’s Thor: Ragnarok , has become the shining exemplar of how to navigate the mainstream without losing your soul in the process. He’s one of the only people who could ever convince Bale to return to the superhero genre post-Batman, and Portman to forgive the franchise that burned her so badly with her lacklustre roles in Thor (2011) and Thor: The Dark World (2013).

Waititi may be a leading candidate for the title of “Hollywood’s busiest man”, but it’s impressive how little his output’s been watered down by its near-terrifying volume. A Waititi production is still distinctly a Waititi production – a patchwork quilt of primary colours, as outsider figures and disappointing fathers joke their way through trauma. Love and Thunder , a sequel born entirely out of the effusive reception for Ragnarok , is arguably the closest he’s ever come to autopilot – and yet it’s still such a delight, motor-powered by goofy self-awareness and childlike imagination. It’s also the rare bit of Marvel output that actually remembers the main audience for these films should be kids and not adults with YouTube channels.

It’s certainly not as thematically tight as Ragnarok , which snuck in a fairly sharp critique of colonialist narratives. And both of Waititi’s Marvel films struggle with the same issue – that he’s been lumped with so much franchise baggage that it takes about 20 minutes to clean up the mess before the fun can actually begin. The Guardians of the Galaxy appear here, but in a contractually obligated kind of way. And the film has absolutely no idea what to do with Thor’s clumsily handled weight gain subplot in Avengers: Endgame .

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But once Waititi, and his co-writer Jennifer Kaytin Robinson, push all of that out of the way, you can almost feel the stick-shift change in Love and Thunder . Its plot sees Thor ( Chris Hemsworth ) venture out of his self-imposed, emotional cocoon in order to rescue the children of New Asgard. They’ve been kidnapped by Gorr, a grieving father who’s dead set on vengeance against the gods who rewarded his faith with contempt. A standard mission, maybe, that’s complicated by the sudden appearance of Thor’s ex-girlfriend Jane Foster, now wielding his ex-hammer, Mjolnir.

How did she get her hands on a weapon like that? I won’t spoil the answer (though comic fans might already have an inkling), but Portman’s finally been handed an MCU storyline that’s worthy of her talent – a simple but potent take on waking yourself up out of a state of self-denial. Love and Thunder has less of the usual Waititi stuff we’ve grown to expect, namely themes of insecure masculinity and marginalisation broached with a lightness of touch. But it radiates with that titular love. It’s a true family affair, with the real-life children of Waititi, Hemsworth, and Portman all making cameo appearances. Meanwhile, Tessa Thompson’s Valkyrie gets an extended role as the King of New Asgard, her deadpan nonchalance covering for the lingering grief of losing the woman she loved in battle (her bisexuality was only hinted at in Ragnarok , but it’s confirmed here). The way the actor so coolly delivers the words “ding dong”, in a cut-glass British accent, made me immediately wonder when – oh, when – we’ll finally get a Valkyrie solo film.

Waititi continues to paint in bold and colourful strokes. Zeus’s home, a planet inhabited by a truly global population of mythical figures, is so busy with detail that it might take a hundred watches just to absorb everything that’s been placed on screen. And there’s a real touch of adventure to some of the technology deployed here – the use of massive LED backdrops (first popularised on the set of Disney+’s The Mandalorian ) in place of traditional green screen gives everything a little more object permanence, while a black-and-white sequence shot with shattered light effects is one of the most inventive and straightforwardly good-looking Marvel action scenes we’ve seen in an aeon.

Of course, Ragnarok ’s distinctive humour is carried over, and there’s a blissfully dumb running joke about a pair of giant, heavy metal-screaming goats. But, really, it’s the heart that matters here. Love and Thunder ’s characters are all running towards the same conclusion: that, no matter how long or short our time on Earth (or any planet) may be, we’re all inevitably living for the benefit of others. We love. Then we love again. It’s nice for Marvel, always caught up in its own chaos, to remind us of something so simple.

‘Thor: Love and Thunder’ is in UK cinemas from Thursday 7 July

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THOR: LOVE AND THUNDER

"marred by woke theology and gratuitous obscenities".

What You Need To Know:

Miscellaneous Immorality: Villain kidnaps a group of children and holds them prisoner to entrap the hero, and the hero is sometimes vain.

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THOR: LOVE AND THUNDER reunites Thor with the love of his life, Jane Foster, who’s been strengthened by the power of Thor’s broken hammer, to rescue some kidnapped children and stop a bitter humanoid alien from murdering all the pagan gods of the universe. THOR: LOVE AND THUNDER sometimes mocks the unreliable pagan gods, is filled with funny, often goofy, humor and has a very emotional ending, but it has false pagan references to gods and Norse mythology, about 20 obscenities and three politically correct moments promoting homosexual perversion and same-sex marriage.

The movie opens with an alien humanoid man named Gorr wandering through a vicious desert wind carrying his daughter. He prays to his god to save his daughter, but she dies when they stop by a rock shielding them from the wind. Gorr stumbles and crawls onward, only to find a small, luxurious oasis nearby. He plunges himself into a stream of cool water and starts eating some fruit when he spies his god enjoying himself with the fairy creatures cavorting in the oasis. Gorr asks the golden god why he didn’t save his daughter, and the creature mocks him. Gorr sees a burnt corpse lying nearby next to a sword. He asks what happened, and the god says he has just killed a man who tried to kill him with the sword, which the god says is a magical sword called the Necrosword, which can kill any cosmic being, including a god. Enraged by Gorr’s callous mockery, Gorr grasps the Necrosword and kills the god. He vows to kill all the other gods of the universe out of revenge.

Meanwhile, Thor and the Guardians of the Galaxy are helping a race of blue aliens defend their two religious temples from an army of cat-like aliens. Quill and his shipmates are having a difficult time fighting the army while Thor relaxes. Everyone appeals to Thor to help out with the battle. So, he lazily takes up his giant battle-axe, Stormbreaker, and, in short order, he joins the army. To the blue aliens’ chagrin, however, he also accidently knocks down their two giant temples to their gods.

Back on Earth, Thor’s ex-girlfriend, Jane Foster, has been diagnosed with stage-four cancer, and the chemotherapy doesn’t seem to be working. She reads up on Thor’s mighty hammer, which was broken by Thor’s evil sister in THOR: RAGNAROK. The text she reads says the hammer gives the person wielding it great health. Jane visits the shrine of the broken hammer on New Asgard. When she comes near, the hammer starts to glow, and the pieces begin to reassemble.

Cut to Thor and Korg coming upon two incidents where Gorr, now called The God Butcher, has killed the god of a planet. In the second one, he comes upon a dying Sif, his childhood friend and the former romantic rival to Jane. Sif tells him that Gorr the God Butcher is going to attack New Asgard on Earth next.

At New Asgard, Gorr uses the Necrosword to conjure spidery monsters from the Shadowrealm to attack the village at night. The Viking folk on New Asgard, along with a few alien refugees from the Ragnarok battle, try fighting them off. They seem to be losing until Thor and Korg join the fight. During the battle, Thor spies another warrior who’s dressed like him and who’s wielding his old hammer, which has somehow glued itself back together. The warrior turns out to be Jane, who’s bonded with the hammer, which has transformed her body and apparently cured her cancer. It’s an awkward reunion for both Thor and Jane, but it’s clear there’s still some love between them. Thor recalls telling his hammer to take care of Jane and decides that must be why the hammer has now bonded with her. It’s also clear, though, that Thor still longs to wield his old hammer, which humorously starts making his magical battle-axe, Stormbreaker, act jealous.

Thor, Jane, Korg, and the townspeople seem to be winning the battle against Gorr’s creatures, but they soon discover that, while Gorr and his army retreated, they kidnapped all the children in the village and flew away. The next day, in a town meeting, Thor vows that he, Jane and Korg will go rescue the children. He promises the people they will return soon with the children. The leader of New Asgard, Valkyrie, decides to go with them.

One of the kidnapped children is Axl, the son of Heimdall, the all-seeing, all-hearing guard of the Bifrost Bridge on Asgard who died when Asgard was destroyed by the fire demon during Rangarok. With the powers inherited from his father, Axl manages to speak with Thor. Also, the contact enables Thor to visit the boy and the other kidnapped children. From this contact, Thor surmises that Gorr is taking the children to the Shadowrealm where the Necrosword and the shadow creatures that Gorr commands originate.

Thor decides they need an army of their own to overcome Gorr and his army of darkness and destroy the Necrosword. He also decides to seek help from all the gods of the universe, who have gathered in the Grand Pantheon in Omnipotence City with Zeus, King of the gods. The gods think they’re safe from Gorr, but Gorr plans to steal Stormbreaker and use its power to unlock the “Gates of Eternity,” which he thinks will enable him to slay all the gods at once from there.

Will Zeus give Thor the divine army he wants?

THOR: LOVE AND THUNDER is more like a full-fledged fantasy than the science fiction world that began the new movies featuring Thor. It’s filled with funny, often goofy, humor and has a very emotional, redemptive ending. Although sometimes it mocks the unreliable pagan gods, especially Zeus, the movie acknowledges the false pagan Norse mythology of Valhalla, the paradise where the Norse god Odin welcomes heroes who’ve fallen in battle. The movie also envisions a place called the Gates of Eternity, which seem to be a gateway to an afterlife and a place where people sometimes can make a dying wish come true. The depiction of Eternity in the movie looks a little bit like an abstract cosmic character called Eternity in the Marvel Comics, who’s the leader of a group of abstract entities called the Cosmic Powers. Surrounding the gates in the movie is an expanse of water, which may remind people of the “sea of glass” that precedes Paradise or Heaven in Tolkien’s Christian classic LORD OF THE RINGS and C.S. Lewis’ Christian classic THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA.

THOR: LOVE AND THUNDER also contains about 20 gratuitous obscenities, including many unnecessary “s” obscenities, which the movie’s characters think are funny to repeat. Finally, it has several politically correct moments in the movie where the filmmakers promote homosexual perversion and same-sex marriage. For example, apparently on Korg’s planet, all the talking rock aliens like him are male. At one point, Korg tells people his father “married” a “dude,” and that’s how he was born. In an epilogue, Korg says he eventually marries a “dude” named Daryl. Also, the female leader of New Asgard calls herself a king, and one scene in the movie refers to the many female lovers she’s had in her life.

This woke theology in THOR: LOVE AND THUNDER is obnoxious. Like the movie’s depiction of multiple pagan gods, it contradicts the Bible’s view of Reality and Morality and ignores the true God of the Universe and all of Creation. The filmmakers apply a comical tone to these things, including the idea of homosexuality, but that’s small comfort for any truly media-wise viewer.

The movie’s most redemptive part is the growing relationship between Thor and Jane, as well as Gorr’s love for his daughter, and the plot about rescuing the children from dark forces. All this leads to a satisfying, emotionally powerful and uplifting, but bittersweet, ending. However, the ending is too little, too late to turn LOVE AND THUNDER into an acceptable piece of entertainment.

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Thor: Love and Thunder review – sentimental multimillion-dollar romp

Chris Hemsworth’s Thor suffers an existential crisis in director Taika Waititi’s self-satisfied follow-up to Thor-Ragnarok

I t’s quite an achievement for a film-maker to put their own personal stamp on a multimillion-dollar studio production movie quite as empathically as Taika Waititi has done, first with Thor: Ragnarok and now with Thor: Love and Thunder . Zack Snyder manages it; the films of James Gunn bear the recognisable fingerprints of their director. But Waititi is in a different league. There are moments in Love and Thunder when the film feels like a $185m megaphone, dedicated solely to amplifying the voice of Taika Waititi. Response to the film will be neatly divided along the line between those who are convinced that he can do no wrong and those who find his brand of chipper mateyness and disingenuous sentimentality increasingly irksome. I find myself veering towards the latter camp.

We join Thor (Chris Hemsworth) in the midst of an existential crisis, having never fully moved on from his relationship with Jane Foster (Natalie Portman). The hammer-wielding Asgardian with the disconcertingly Oxbridge accent is moonlighting with the Guardians of the Galaxy. There’s a moment, after Thor has defeated a bunch of alien hell-owls on flying bikes, but destroyed a crystal temple, the cherished institution he was meant to be protecting, when he is congratulating himself, in his rousing toff voice, on a job well done. And you wonder if a moment of satirical political commentary has snuck into the screenplay. For the most part, however, this romp, which pits Thor against Christian Bale’s cadaverous God-slayer, is superficial stuff – a film that brings a greeting-card triteness to its themes of love and sacrifice; that harvests internet memes (screaming goats) in the service of easy laughs.

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Thor: Love and Thunder Parent Guide

For all its surreal humor and well-designed action, this movie lacks the lighthearted fun of its predecessor..

Theaters: Gorr the God Butcher is trying to exterminate the Asgardians. To stop him, Thor works with the Valkyrie and his ex-girlfriend.

Release date July 8, 2022

Run Time: 133 minutes

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The guide to our grades, parent movie review by keith hawkes.

Since killing Thanos and saving the universe as we know it, Thor (Chris Hemsworth) has been flying around space with the Guardians of the Galaxy, solving smaller scale problems and meditating on his life. But when he and the Guardians come across evidence of a man called Gorr, the God Butcher (Christian Bale), who is possessed of the Necrosword (which is capable dispatching deities), Thor sends the Guardians to look out for the other gods and heads home to Asgard to protect what remains of his people. There, while fighting Gorr and his shadow-creatures, Thor is saved by an unlikely ally: The Mighty Thor!

This surprising new hero turns out to be Thor’s ex-girlfriend, Dr. Jane Foster (Natalie Portman), for whom the shards of Mjolnir have reforged themselves and endowed her with godlike powers. She needs those powers more than most – Jane has been diagnosed with stage four cancer, and she’s hoping that the power of the hammer can cure her. Even the combined powers of Thor, Jane, and Valkyrie (Tessa Thompson) aren’t enough to stop Gorr, and he absconds into deep space, stealing the children of Asgard on his way out. The three heroes will need even more help if they want to save both the children and the gods of the universe…and they’ll have to move fast.

The movie’s darker tone is something that parents will want to keep in mind. Although violent content is broadly comparable to other Marvel films, it’s quite a scary film for younger viewers. Gorr’s favorite party trick involves spreading shadows and conjuring horrifying monsters out of them, which would have given me nightmares for approximately a decade when I was a little kid. For teens, however, this is going to be a fun, if occasionally somber, romp around the galaxy with the blond, heavily muscled God of Thunder – and the (sometimes) blonde, well-toned other God of Thunder.

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Thor: Love and Thunder Rating & Content Info

Why is Thor: Love and Thunder rated PG-13? Thor: Love and Thunder is rated PG-13 by the MPAA for intense sequences of sci-fi violence and action, language, some suggestive material and partial nudity

Violence: There are frequent scenes of combat, some involving kicking and punching’ others melee weapons, futuristic laser guns, and magical weapons. An individual is seen with a missing arm. A child dies of an unspecified illness. A man stabs a god’s neck. A scene includes a jet of golden blood. Creatures are dismembered. A scene shows the aftereffects of gods being lynched. A monster’s head is ripped off and thrown at children. A superhero is shown with an eye missing. Children are kidnapped at night by monsters and are held by a villain who threatens to decapitate them. A character has terminal cancer and this causes scenes of emotional upset. There are jump scares. The frightening scenes are leavened with comedy. Sexual Content: Couples are occasionally seen kissing. A man is briefly seen nude from behind. Rock creatures are seen engaged in mating, which seems to consist of holding hands over some lava for a month. Comments are made about a man’s genitals, which are visible to the other characters but not on screen. There is a comic reference to orgies. Slang terms are used for sexual intercourse. Profanity: There are ten uses of scatological profanity, and infrequent uses of mild curses and terms of deity. Alcohol / Drug Use: Adult characters are seen drinking.

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Thor: Love and Thunder Parents' Guide

Thor’s films typically have themes surrounding worthiness and honor. How are those themes addressed in this film? How does Thor handle the realization that he is not the only person qualified to be the God of Thunder? How does that effect his other relationships?

Loved this movie? Try these books…

Adult fans of this less mystical approach to mythical deities will enjoy Neil Gaiman’s American Gods and its offshoot, Anansi Boys. Gaiman specifically focused on Norse legends in Norse Mythology¸ which is a retelling of classical Norse stories.

Related home video titles:

Fans of the God of Thunder will obviously want to watch Thor , Thor: The Dark World , and Thor: Ragnarok , as well as Avengers films like The Avengers , Avengers: Age of Ultron , Captain America: Civil Wa r, Avengers: Infinity War , and Avengers: Endgame . Marvel’s other recent offerings include Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings , Eternals , Spider-Man: No Way Home , and Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.

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‘thor: love and thunder’ review: christian bale has shot at oscar glory.

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The Marvel Cinematic Universe’s best shot at Oscar glory has arrived in the form of Christian Bale’s ferocious Gorr the God Butcher in “Thor: Love and Thunder.” 

He’s as fantastic a Marvel villain as you’ll ever see. More threatening than Thanos and richer than Hela from “ Thor: Ragnarok .” He has the complex motivations of Erik Killmonger of “Black Panther,” but with the mesmeric physical transformation we’ve come to expect from Bale.

The Brit is a glutton for punishment.

THOR: LOVE AND THUNDER

Running time: 125 minutes. Rated PG-13 (intense sequences of sci-fi violence and action, language, some suggestive material and partial nudity.) In theaters July 8.

Able to shed and gain weight with the seeming ease of Alexa delivering the weather report, he’s Hollywood’s most addictive freak. In his latest role, the actor is stick-thin (no Batman biceps here) and looks like he might have fleas. And unlike so many of his A-list buds who casually pop into comic book movies to pay for their kitchen renovation, he can sensitively act against a green screen. He’s sensational.

Bale is part of an altogether thrilling action movie, written and directed by Taika Waititi, that enlivens the spotty Phase 4 of the MCU. It’s like “ Eternals ” never happened. If only…

The New Zealand filmmaker also once again takes on the role of rock alien Korg, who quickly recaps Thor’s history with his typical dry, pop-culture-savvy sense of humor. The “previously on” segment is set to “Only Time” by Enya.   

These days, we learn, Thor (Chris Hemsworth) sits zen-like under a tree awaiting save-the-universe missions. Then he learns of Gorr, a vengeful fella, killing gods in response to his young daughter’s death in the desert. 

If Gorr can reach a device called Eternity, he can vanquish every ethereal being in one fell swoop. Including Thor. Only the God of Thunder himself can stop him.

Well, Thor and the returning Dr. Jane Foster ( Natalie Portman, who everyone forgets was in the MCU ). Back on earth, Jane is ill and the pair, who broke up, are reunited in an unexpected, badass way. 

Tessa Thompson’s party-hardy Valkyrie has been lording over New Asgard — an amusing blend of gods and school-board meetings — here on our planet. And she’s roped into the conflict when Gorr kidnaps all the city’s children. 

Waititi, who did an equally terrific job with “Ragnarok” and should direct every Marvel movie, never gets lost in plot or vocabulary. Instead, he draws us in with stratospheric stakes for every single character and a genuine sense of peril. “ Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness ” was touted as a rare Marvel horror movie. “Love and Thunder,” as funny as it is, is much, much scarier. 

For example, towards the end of the film, Waititi employs mostly black-and-white and Bale’s Gorr starts to resemble an anguished Nosferatu. 

Fret not — Thor’s not all horror. This subseries, along with the supremely enjoyable “Spider-Man” movies, has been among the funniest of the MCU since Waititi took over. 

We meet new gods such as Russell Crowe’s Zeus, who’s straight outta “Monty Python.” And there’s a fearsome, hilarious rivalry between Thor’s Hammer and Stormbreaker — two inanimate objects.

And, as much praise as Bale deserves, Hemsworth’s Thor still manages to take a regal, impenetrable figure and make him, for lack of a better word, human. We worry as much about the God of Thunder saving all the universe’s gods as we do about him getting dumped via a note left in the kitchen.

“Love and Thunder” is an urgent reminder that in order for the MCU to keep going, in an entertaining, soulful way, creativity and innovation is required. You can’t just say “multiverse” 1,000 times and call it a movie. 

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Thor: Love and Thunder review: Marvel’s latest is no Ragnarok

Every moment Christian Bale is on the screen in Thor: Love and Thunder is manna in the Marvel desert, a gift from the gods of villainous comic book scenery-chewing. The man who was Christopher Nolan’s Batman has been cast this time as a vengefully vampiric heavy: Gorr, the so-called God Butcher, a disillusioned disciple hell-bent on destroying the deities who ignored his prayers and abandoned his dying family. Bale looks fearsome in the role, with his hairless graveyard emaciation and blackened dagger smile. But he’s also acting his method ass off under all that makeup — bringing a blend of sour fury and curdled heartache to what could have been just another stock addition to the Avengers rogues’ gallery.

The truth is that Gorr, as presented by Bale’s deliciously committed horror-show performance, might have wandered in from an entirely different movie. Only during his welcome but incongruous scenes does Love and Thunder  ever threaten to accumulate any gravity. This fourth Thor movie is the second to be written and directed by Taika Waititi, but don’t expect more of the inspired buddy comedy of his Thor: Ragnarok . Having apparently used up all of his best gags in the last installment, the Kiwi funnyman has this time emerged with a sketchy cartoon diversion that often feels like a wan spoof of its own franchise. It’s the rare Marvel movie that barely holds together.

When last we saw the God of Thunder (Chris Hemsworth, coasting more than usual on our assumed affection for his herculean himbo), he was carrying some extra depression weight and preparing to embark on a new adventure with that ragtag band of cuddly outlaws, the Guardians of the Galaxy. Love and Thunder spends its inelegant opening act racing through that premise at full speed: Chris Pratt and company log a couple of near-wordless scenes (their group cameo has the skimpiness of a failed contract negotiation), while Thor sheds the extra pounds via a training montage over too quickly to hit the intended retro-cheese sweet spot. Papering over these early scenes is a blatantly expository voice-over from Waititi, reprising the role of kindhearted rock monster and newly minted backstory reiterator Korg.

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The script, which Waititi co-wrote with Jennifer Kaytin Robinson, draws heavily from Jason Aaron’s acclaimed, multiyear run on the Thor comic — a striking collection of big-canvas, big-picture stories that spanned eons and star systems. Love and Thunder awkwardly mashes two key arcs of his tenure together. On the one hand, this is the story of Thor heading out to rescue a gaggle of kidnapped Asgardian children from Bale’s fallen believer, who’s sent plenty of lesser gods on a one-way, premature trip to Valhalla. On the other, it’s the hastily set-up tale of how the scientist Jane Foster (Natalie Portman) gets her hands on her old squeeze’s magic hammer and assumes the mantle of Thor.

There’s romantic/comic potential in the reunion of these literally star-crossed lovers. Hemsworth and Portman had good chemistry in the original Thor , much of it courtesy of the way the latter spiked her scientific curiosity with a dollop of desire for her awesomely abbed love interest. Yet Love and Thunder curiously fails to fully reignite that flame, or even get much sitcom cringe out of Thor being forced to essentially collaborate with his super ex-girlfriend. The promise of a Marvel spin on the comedy of remarriage is largely unfulfilled — though as missed opportunities go, that’s got nothing on the way Waititi denies us even a single scene of Jane discovering and reveling in her freshly acquired godlike abilities. (The film elides that fun in favor of a “surprise” reveal, already ruined by the trailers, of her in full regalia.)

Love and Thunder is scattershot as comedy, never finding its groove. The usual MCU quippage gives way to a sub-Mel Brooksian lampoon of Clash of the Titans fare, with Russell Crowe scoring some faint chuckles as a vain, ineffectual Zeus. Waititi plays the notoriously uneven effects and gaudy production design of this cinematic universe for deliberate laughs; mileage will vary on whether he lands them. His stabs at satire, like the revelation that the New Asgard settlement has become a tourist destination, lack purpose or precision. When the recently crowned King Valkyrie (Tessa Thompson, given not nearly enough to do after her more spirited debut in Ragnarok ) appears in an Old Spice commercial , it’s difficult to tell if that’s a wink at Marvel’s move into cross-promotion or just product placement disguised as humor.

One is reminded that Waititi made the unfortunate Holocaust crowd-pleaser Jojo Rabbit  between these tentpoles. Love and Thunder ultimately betrays itself as an expression of the same egregiously sentimental worldview — this is another only fitfully funny joke machine that extols, in its syrupy backstretch, the transformative power of love. (Thor’s whole journey, you see, is learning to open his heart again.) At least the movie will offend only aesthetic sensibilities. While Ragnarok pillaged Zeppelin’s songbook for righteous (if obvious) needle drops, the new Thor strains for throwback Sunset Strip kitsch with no less than four Guns N’ Roses hits on the soundtrack .

If Love and Thunder never quite collapses into complete jokey irrelevance, it’s because Bale is around to pull it back from the abyss, and into occasional detours of genuine menace. He gets a great introduction, suffering in the arid wilderness like a Christ figure before finding his dark purpose — an opening scene that promises a much grimmer, heavier opus than the one that follows. Later, Gorr sets a trap for the heroes in an interstellar dead zone, and Waititi literally leeches the color out of the frame for a set piece that evokes, vaguely but strikingly, the doomy monochromatic beauty of an Akira Kurosawa battle . The sequence is practically a metaphor for the productive dampening effect of Bale’s turn: whenever he shows up, he sucks the Day-Glo silliness right out of the movie, bringing it to dramatic life.

Thor: Love and Thunder opens in theaters everywhere Friday, July 8 . For more reviews and writing by A.A. Dowd, visit his  Authory page .

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"Tumultuous" might be the best word to describe the lead up to Devin Haney vs. Ryan Garcia. Garcia has taken his unhinged persona to the next level, and instead of debating CompuBox statistics and knockout percentages, everyone is talking about the whirlwind of a fight week. Garcia (24-1, 20 KOs) barked like a dog at his press conference. Haney (31-0, 15 KOs) slapped Garcia on top of the Empire State Building. The crazy fight week build up culminated with Garcia missing weight by over three pounds, meaning he is no longer eligible to win Haney's WBC World Super Lightweight belt.

But the show must go on, and the two will meet in the squared circle on tonight, April 20. Devin Haney vs Ryan Garcia is about to start, at 8:00 p.m. ET, and will stream on DAZN PPV. There are four fights on the card before that, so the main bout is estimated to start around 11:00 p.m. ET. Keep reading for everything you need to know to watch boxing online this weekend. Watch Haney vs Garcia live stream on DAZN PPV

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Screen Rant

Dark knight rises sequel: why nolan never made a 4th batman movie.

Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy is among the best trilogies and superhero movies ever, but why didn't he make a fourth Batman movie?

• Nolan's Batman trilogy set a new tone for the superhero genre, with darker and grittier depictions of beloved characters.
• Bale and Nolan's pact to make only three Batman films stayed true, despite Warner Bros. pushing for a fourth installment.
• The DC Universe's multiverse plans could possibly bring back Bale's Batman in a future project, exploring new territory.

Christopher Nolan's Batman-focused trilogy ended with The Dark Knight Rises in 2012, but a fourth DC film in the hit franchise never went into development. As one of the most popular comic book superheroes of all time, Batman has been adapted into various media forms for decades. Batman's live-action movie history has seen hits like Tim Burton's Batman Returns and failures like Joel Schumacher's Batman & Robin . With Christopher Nolan at the helm of Batman Begins in 2005, Bruce Wayne and the world of Gotham City were reinvented in darker and grittier tones, a departure from the colorful and whimsical films of the past.

Batman Begins detailed the origins of Christian Bale's Batman. Its 2008 sequel , The Dark Knight , became one of the most successful superhero movies ever, thanks in part to the late Heath Ledger's performance as the Joker. The Dark Knight Rises pitted Batman against Tom Hardy's Bane in one final battle. The success of Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy is often attributed to the realistic depictions of its characters, laying the groundwork for projects such as Matt Reeves' The Batman and Todd Phillips' Joker years later - but even so, Nolan never wanted to produce a fourth film .

Christian Bale On Why Nolan Never Made 4th Dark Knight Rises Movie

Speaking to Toronto Sun in 2019, Bale shared that both he and Nolan had a "one film at a time" mentality when developing the Dark Knight franchise, and also revealed that Nolan often mentioned that, should they be "fortunate [enough] to be able to make three," they would stop . Concluding the franchise with The Dark Knight Rises meant they stayed true to this vision, even though Warner Bros. had approached them both about making a fourth installment. Bale did, however, suggest that he'd been open to appearing as the Caped Crusader again, mentioning how "[he] was informed [his] services would no longer be required" after Nolan stepped away.

Since Christian Bale's last appearance as Batman in The Dark Knight Rises , two actors have assumed the role: Ben Affleck in the DCEU, and Robert Pattinson in Matt Reeves' The Batman . These iterations of Batman were free to explore new territory as Nolan wrapped up his trilogy very neatly with the ending of The Dark Knight Rises , leaving the former vigilante retired and in a relationship with Selina Kyle, a.k.a. Catwoman. However, the door was left open for further films potentially exploring the heroism of Joseph Gordon-Levitt's Blake, who was teased as Batman's sidekick Robin in the film's closing moments.

Christian Bale Would Come Back To Play Batman If Nolan Was Directing

Speaking to Screen Rant during 2022's press junket for Thor: Love & Thunder , in which Christian Bale portrayed the villainous Gorr the God Butcher, the actor revealed that, although he hadn't been recently approached about reprising the role of Batman, he would in fact return if Nolan was in the director's chair. Bale mentioned that the pair had a pact to complete three films and then "walk away," but, "if Nolan ever said to himself, 'you know what, I've got another story to tell,' and if he wished to tell that story with me, I'd be in." Even so, the time may have passed for a continuation of Nolan's Dark Knight franchise.

How DC's Multiverse Could Replace A Fourth Nolan Batman Movie

Although Nolan and Bale may never reunite, the new plans for the expanding DC Universe could provide the answer to Bale's Bruce Wayne returning. Following James Gunn and Peter Safran's takeover of DC Studios in late 2022, the former revealed that projects such as Reeves' The Batman franchise (which now includes a sequel, The Batman - Part II, and several planned spinoff series') and Phillips' Joker franchise ( Joker: Folie à Deux is scheduled for release in 2024) would live in the franchise "Elseworlds" projects.

With a new Batman set to debut in DC's The Brave and the Bold , it's possible that several Batmen could meet each other in DC's future . Something akin to this does occur in 2023's The Flash , as Barry Allen finds himself face-to-face with three versions of the Caped Crusader, encountering the iterations played by Michael Keaton, George Clooney, and Ben Affleck.

The Marvel Cinematic Universe also already pulled off something similar in its Phase 4 project, Spider-Man: No Way Home , which saw Tobey Maguire, Andrew Garfield, and Tom Holland portray the three live-action versions of Spider-Man in the same film. This means that, while a sequel to The Dark Knight Rises may never happen, Christian Bale could potentially return as Batman , particularly as he doesn't seem at all opposed to the idea.

Batman Begins

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Christopher Nolan's take on Batman's origin story sees Christian Bale take up the mantle of the Caped Crusader. Batman Begins follows young Bruce Wayne who, reeling from the murder of his wealthy parents, decides to become a vigilante in order to save Gotham City. This pits him against the mysterious League of Shadows, an organization intent on destroying Gotham with the help of the villainous Scarecrow and his powerful fear toxin.  

The Dark Knight

Christian Bale once again embodies the man behind the mask in The Dark Knight, reuniting Bale with Batman Begins director Christopher Nolan. With the help of Lieutenant Jim Gordon and District Attorney Harvey Dent, Batman has been making headway against local crime—until a rising criminal mastermind known as The Joker unleashes a fresh reign of chaos across Gotham City. To stop this devious new menace—Batman's most personal and vicious enemy yet—he will have to use every high-tech weapon in his arsenal and confront his beliefs if he hopes to stand a chance against the Clown Prince of Crime.

The Dark Knight Rises

The Dark Knight Rises is the final chapter in the Christopher Nolan Batman trilogy, with Christian Bale donning the cape and cowl once more to save Gotham City from certain destruction. Eight years after the events of The Dark Knight, Batman has left the public eye after taking the fall for the crimes committed by a twisted Harvey Dent. However, he is called back into action when a mysterious villain named Bane arrives to bring disorder to Gotham, forcing him to confront deeper, darker recesses of his past to be able to face a challenge he may not be ready for.

The 10 Worst Marvel Superheroes, Ranked

It's rankin' time.

Image via Sony Pictures

It's easy to define what makes a superhero movie great , and defining what makes a superhero as a character great is relatively straightforward, too. Great characters aren't necessarily the most powerful (though that can play a part), but the most interesting, well-written, well-acted, and layered, as well. A character being effectively used as comedic relief when needed is good, as are more tragic heroes, and if someone like Thor can do a bit of both, then even better.

In contrast, a bad heroic character isn’t necessarily a hero who does some questionable things (someone like Peter Quill is flawed, sure, but in interesting ways that drive conflict), and nor is it a character whose powers are simply a bit lame. Both could be factors, but the worst heroes from Marvel movies tend to just feel underwritten, inconsistent, or, simply put, just boring . The following includes those from the MCU and those outside it, all being some of the weakest heroic characters found in any Marvel film or TV adaptation so far.

First appeared: 'Eternals' (2021)

Sersi is taking one for the team here, representing the most boring of all superhero teams yet: the group known as the Eternals, all of whom have appeared in just one film to date: 2021’s Eternals . It would be difficult to list everyone here, and it wouldn’t be fair to clutter a ranking with too many Eternals… but if Sersi is the main character of the film, and gets the most screen time, then why not pick her as a stand-in.

Neither Eternals as a film nor the Eternals as characters worked, with the film trying to do too much all at once, and far too many new main characters being introduced for any of them to connect . People are unlikely to remember names like Sersis, Ajak, Sprite, Druig, and Phastos, and demand for a sequel to Eternals seems non-existent. Still, never say never (though you could say it’s unlikely).

Watch on Disney+

9 Johnny Blaze/Ghost Rider

First appeared: 'ghost rider' (2007).

It’s possible to find some people defending the Ghost Rider movies , so calling the titular hero one of the very worst in Marvel history might be a little bit of a hot take. At the very least, 2007’s Ghost Rider and 2012’s Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance did grace the world with Nicolas Cage playing a Marvel superhero, and he does bring his typically strange and unpredictable acting style to the role.

The films themselves are also quite wild (especially the second), but they’re an acquired taste, and the character at the center of both doesn’t have quite the impact you’d expect. After all, the hero is a stuntman named Johnny Blaze who makes a deal with the demon known as Mephisto, and then finds himself with powerful supernatural abilities . It’s probably more a case of the movies not quite doing the character justice, because there’s undeniable potential there.

Ghost Rider

Rent on Apple TV

8 Danny Rand/Iron Fist

First appeared: 'iron fist' (2017-2018).

Not many people like the Iron Fist series, and there are some supporting characters within it who rank among the worst of any Marvel TV show . The hero at the series’ center isn’t exactly the best, either: Danny Rand, a wealthy young man who’s given mystical powers and becomes proficient in martial arts, using such abilities to become a superhero known as Iron Fist.

The show was never particularly well-regarded, and despite the best efforts of the second season righting the wrongs of the first , Iron Fist never managed to fully redeem itself or become something with a genuine fanbase behind it. Some of that has to come down to the hero not being a great one (again, on-screen), and someone who looks less exciting in the wake of other heroes with mystical/magical powers that viewers did generally like, including Doctor Strange and Shang-Chi .

Marvel's Iron Fist

7 matt murdock/daredevil (2003 version), first appeared: 'daredevil' (2003).

Standing as one of three less-than-great movies that poor Ben Affleck appeared in during 2003 (at least he’s bounced back in more recent years ), Daredevil is not looked back upon fondly by any means. For a while, the titular character was something of a punchline, and though a more recent take on the character in the world of television has redeemed him, this 2003 movie does still exist.

Daredevil in 2003’s Daredevil just isn’t it, and was a misfire when it came to representing the character of Matt Murdock/Daredevil on the big screen. The blame can’t be entirely put on Affleck, but it’s arguable he was at least a little miscast, and the film he appeared in just generally not confident enough to bring new fans to the titular hero. For Daredevil, the 2010s and onward were generally a better time …

6 Elektra Natchios

Another casualty of 2003’s Daredevil was the character of Elektra, who got her own not-quite-amazing movie in 2005, and was better-received some years later thanks to the Daredevil TV series . She’s an essential part of Daredevil’s overall story, being a sometimes-ally and sometimes-adversary to the blind lawyer/masked vigilante, and herself having physical abilities that make her a force to be reckoned with.

Very few responded well to Elektra (2005), though, meaning the film did the character little to no justice, mainly owing to the way it was written and put together more so than because of Jennifer Garner’s performance. Like with Daredevil, at least time has been a little kinder to Elektra and the character herself is no longer treated as a complete joke. But for this version of the character, as she appears in Daredevil and Elektra … it’s not great .

Watch on Max

5 Jane Foster/Mighty Thor

First appeared as the mighty thor: 'thor: love and thunder' (2022).

The Thor series is a rather baffling one to look back on. The first film, in 2011, was odd but at least a little memorable, thanks to director Kenneth Branagh giving it the slightest of Shakespearean spins. 2013’s Thor: The Dark World is perhaps the most forgettable of all MCU movies, 2017’s Thor: Ragnarök was a surprise hit and breath of fresh air, and then 2022’s Thor: Love and Thunder brought things crashing down again, attempting to ape what worked in Ragnarök and failing.

Jane Foster unfortunately appeared in all the Thor movies except Ragnarök , and became a hero in Love and Thunder when she gained powers to become the Mighty Thor. It was a somewhat desperate attempt to give the character more to do , and it all fell flat , with not even Natalie Portman being able to make the kind of lousy screenplay work (hell, not even the Guardians of the Galaxy were fun in this movie). The entire character arc of Jane Foster as the Mighty Thor was a barely noticeable blip within the MCU, and, nearly two years later, an ultimately forgettable one.

Thor: Love and Thunder

4 hannibal king, first appeared: 'blade: trinity' (2004).

Blade: Trinity was bad enough to dull enthusiasm in Blade as a character for a good while, even doing its best to undo most of what made the titular character - a vampire hunter with vampiric abilities - cool. Still, Blade had two relatively solid movies with the 1998 original and 2002’s Blade II , and, in turn, a character who only appeared in Blade: Trinity - Hannibal King - fares a great deal worse.

Being a contributing factor to making Blade: Trinity one of the worst movies of 2004 , Hannibal King is a supremely annoying sidekick for the titular character; someone who feels like he’s often hijacking the movie, making it less cool and not succeeding in being funny. Ryan Reynolds has at least found more success within the superhero genre by playing Deadpool , making Hannibal King feel more like a regrettable footnote , in hindsight.

Blade: Trinity

3 cassandra webb/madame web:, first appeared: 'madame web' (2024).

Infamously tied to the Spider-Man series without much by way of what makes those movies memorable , Madame Web emerged as an instant contender for the worst movie of 2024 upon its February release. It seemed few were willing to take it seriously, and then when it was actually released, any cautious optimism about the whole thing dried up, and it stands as a textbook example of how not to do a superhero origin story .

The titular character is a paramedic known as Cassie Webb, with the film exploring how she becomes Madame Web while protecting three young women who are destined to one day become Spider-Women themselves. Dakota Johnson’s very capable in the right role, but this doesn’t really feel like the right kind of role for anyone, being the kind of thing that a film equivalent of a paramedic would probably declare dead on arrival .

Watch on Apple TV

2 Howard the Duck

First appeared: 'howard the duck' (1986).

The central character of Howard the Duck lives in infamy , and is one who many might not have realized was a Marvel character until he showed up as a cameo in 2014’s Guardians of the Galaxy . The character was always one that was treated comedically, what with being a large duck who can talk and do various other things one wouldn’t expect a normal duck to do.

Yet the character continues to have a certain amount of notoriety when it comes to the big screen, due to the 1986 movie that carries his name being considered among the worst superhero movies ever made . It would take a very particular film to get the character right outside the context of a comic book, and until that happens, he deserves to be considered one of the worst Marvel heroes within the realm of cinema/TV.

Howard the Duck

1 dr. michael morbius, first appeared: 'morbius' (2022).

There’s no competition, really, because the worst and most joked-about character in Marvel history - at least as far as movies/TV shows go - would have to be Dr. Michael Morbius from 2022’s Morbius . The Venom films may have their fans, but Morbius has few who aren’t appreciative of the movie in a deeply ironic way, and so it’s arguably Morbius that started the trend of disliked live-action Sony Spider-Verse movies, which continued with Madame Web .

Morbius is about a man becoming a being with vampire powers after he attempts to cure himself of a rare blood disease, and is similar in quality to Madame Web . Morbius received a thrashing from critics and from those online who made copious memes out of the film’s very existence, with that mockery - alongside a poorly-received movie - making Morbius worthy of having the title of worst Marvel hero in film/TV history.

NEXT: The Best Monsters in the MonsterVerse, Ranked

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‘Thor: Love and Thunder’ did not pass Malaysian censorship because it “touched on LGBT”, minister says

Fans had questioned if a same-sex kissing scene involving the character Valkyrie was the reason behind the decision not to release the movie

Marvel ‘s latest film Thor: Love and Thunder did not pass Malaysia’s censorship guidelines, leading to the superhero blockbuster not being released in the country.

• READ MORE: ‘Thor: Love and Thunder’ review: Marvel’s most metal movie yet

Malaysian Deputy Communications and Multimedia Minister Zahidi Zainul Abidin told the parliament’s upper house yesterday (August 10) that “(The movie) touched on LGBT but we see right now there are many films with LGBT elements that slip past the censorship,” CNA reports. He followed up his remarks by noting that many films on TV which have passed the censorship process are “full of LGBT elements”.

“So if there are those that slipped past censorship, we ask the community to help us,” he said, noting that it would not be easy to take action against online content.

On July 28, it was announced that Thor: Love and Thunder would indeed not be released in Malaysia following the news earlier that month that Marvel‘s latest feature film would be delayed “indefinitely” . Prior to that, it was scheduled for a delayed release on July 21.

Malaysians on social media reacted negatively to the initial announcement, questioning if a same-sex kissing scene involving the character Valkyrie caused the delay, a reasoning that has now been proven right by the minister’s comments.

Disney Malaysia has yet to make any comment on the decision not to release the film in the country, and it is unclear if the movie will be released on Disney+. Disney’s animated movie Lightyear   was also not screened in Malaysia , and although no official statement has released either, it is speculated that the movie was banned for the inclusion of a short same-sex kiss scene.

NME  gave  Thor: Love and Thunder  a four-star rating , with writer James Mottram praising the film’s attention to detail, as Thor confronts issues of “parenthood, relationships, responsibility, and mortality” in what amounts to a coming of age tale for the Asgardian.

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