The God of Thunder is back. In his fourth solo MCU film, Chris Hemsworth stars as the former king of Asgard and self-proclaimed mightiest Avenger for his most absurd adventure yet. Thor: Love and Thunder, Marvel Studios’ 29th film, features dumpling gods, Russell Crowe, who commits to a funny, obscure Greek accent as he plays the almighty Zeus, and two goats that scream like humans. And they shout a lot.
Director Taika Waititi’s Thor: Ragnarok sequel has its unique brand of humor written all over it, and Love and Thunder stormed into theaters this past weekend with $302 million at the global box office, including an estimated $143 million domestically, according to Disney. That puts it behind Doctor Strange’s opening weekend in May’s Madness multiverse, but it’s still a strong showing that speaks to Marvel’s staying power.
Despite the film’s unsurprising box office success, however, Love and Thunder did not fare so well in its reviews from critics and fans. While Waititi’s Ragnarok helped turn the Thor franchise around, earning an overall critic rating of 93 percent on Rotten Tomatoes and an A on CinemaScore’s audience score, Love and Thunder currently sits at a 68 percent average on Rotten Tomatoes and received a B+ from viewers polled by CinemaScore. (For context, while a B+ is still good, it ranks as the MCU’s second-worst CinemaScore, tied with Multiverse of Madness and Thor, and behind only Eternals.)
However, Love and Thunder is a fun entry in the Marvel Studios film library, and the low scores may also speak to growing superhero fatigue as a result of the abundance of MCU content in recent years, as well as the aimless direction that Marvel Studios has generally from the climactic end of the Infinity Saga. (Consider the fact that Multiverse of Madness, Eternals, and Love and Thunder were all released in the last nine months. While they’re all imperfect in their own ways, they’re by no means the three worst Marvel movies to date in nearly 30 of them.) There’s a lot to discuss about the movie, given the wild reveal in the first post-credits scene, the fact that Thor is apparently already a father, and the death of Jane Foster. Here are my biggest takeaways.
Introducing: Hercules
Roy Kent really is everywhere, isn’t he?
Brett Goldstein of Ted Lasso fame has officially landed in the MCU portraying the mighty son of Zeus: Hercules. Goldstein’s surprise post-credits cameo in Love and Thunder is the latest in a string of shocking appearances by Stinger in Phase 4 as Marvel Studios continues to add new stars following the Infinity War. Goldstein’s Hercules follows Charlize Theron’s performance as Clea in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness and Harry Styles as Eros in The Eternals.
Hercules, whom Thor mentioned in passing earlier in the film, arrives in the final moments of the first scene after the credits of Love and Thunder. An angry Zeus, who has just survived having his lightning bolt thrown into his chest, laments how mortals no longer fear the gods as they once did, but instead worship superheroes. “Now they’re looking at the sky and they don’t want lightning from us,” complains Zeus (in Russell Crowe’s flawless accent). “They are not asking us for rain. They just want to see one of their so called superheroes. When did we become a joke? No. No, they will fear us again when Thor Odinson falls from the sky. Do you understand me, Hercules?
You probably already know Hercules, the famed hero from Greek and Roman mythology, as the one who went the distance in Disney’s animated classic, or indeed from any of the countless other depictions of him in popular culture, from Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson to Arnold Schwarzenegger and then. (Marvel uses the more popular Latin equivalent of the name, as opposed to the Greek spelling of “Heracles” or “Herakles,” despite the fact that the Romans adapted the Greek deity.) Marvel Comics kept the ancient Greek history of Hercules intact, but built the character up new story in the modern world of superheroes since Stan Lee and Jack Kirby reintroduced him in the mid-1960s. Hercules’ debut during the Silver Age of comics arrived in the pages of Journey Into Mystery, fittingly as a rival to Thor.
Images via Marvel Comics
Billed as a boxing match, the two heavyweights face each other for the first time in Journey Into Mystery Annual no. 1 when Thor visits Olympus. They are alike in many ways, not only in their royal lineage, but also because the heavily armed, grumpy egomaniacs are always eager to display their fighting prowess when opportunities arise. Their battle in this case breaks out over the important question of who can cross a bridge before the other:
I wasn’t kidding! Of course, by the end of their sparring, the two complement each other’s strength between punches like the brothers that they are. Zeus scores their match a draw and the pair become fast enemies. The Incredible Hercules has been tested for his famed strength in battles against the Hulk and others in the many years since, but the Greek god hero has also joined the ranks of the Avengers and another super team called the Champions.
Assuming Goldstein’s cameo isn’t Waititi’s elaborate finale in Love and Thunder , when Hercules next appears in the MCU will be to answer his father’s call to battle against Thor in a potential Thor 5 or, perhaps more likely, in a crossover event before it. Before long, however, Hercules will almost certainly find himself among the ranks of the next Avengers-like team to form in the next Doomsday crossover event in Phase 5. And given that some of his teammates—like Cersei, The Black Knight and White Vision—have already arrived in the last Phase 4 movies or TV shows, that day could be coming soon.
Was Gore right?
Without getting too into the weeds, there is a storyline in the comics called Original Sin (2014) in which Nick Fury, who has assumed the omniscient powers of the Watcher (as seen in the animated anthology What If…?), whispers a phrase of Thor, which shakes him to the point where the god no longer believes he is worthy. Thor loses the ability to take Mjolnir, paving the way for Jane Foster to become the Mighty Thor. As later revealed in Unworthy Thor, the phrase Fury whispered to Thor was “Gore was right”.
When writer Jason Aaron and artist Esad Ribic began their Thor: God of Thunder in 2012, they began their series with a storyline that introduced Gorr the God Butcher. In a story that spans 11 issues, Thor investigates a growing mystery surrounding the disappearance of gods across the universe, which he traces back to Gor. Everyone in Gor’s family, from his mother to his children, believed in the gods despite the continuous suffering of their people. After all die in vain and Gor meets a god in the flesh, he vows to kill the rest of their divine kind. The God Butcher is a great villain, and not just because he has great character design and a badass weapon called the Necrosword. Gorr works so well because he does have a point of view about the gods and their vanity, and – most interestingly of all – Thor knows it too.
Love and Thunder borrows many story elements from God of Thunder, but also simplifies them, thus minimizing the severity of the threat facing the gods in Gorr. Here, the God Butcher storyline is scaled back to leave more room for the rekindled romance between Thor and Jane to develop. While the comics favor the tension between Gorr and Thor, that dynamic is largely sacrificed in the film, which uses Gorr as a more standard villain in what is probably best defined as a superhero space rom-com. Thor witnesses the failure of the gods when he visits Omnipotence City and receives no help from Zeus and his followers, but he never questions his own worthiness or the existence of the gods in the same way that he does in Aaron’s God of Thunder and Rybich. Love and Thunder ostensibly upholds the stakes of the comics — namely the potential end of all the gods — and yet, because of the over-the-top humor that defines the film, it never feels like the universe is actually in danger.
Bale is still great as Gore; he’s a fearsome villain who channels a chaotic, Joker-like energy at times, while also possessing a likable side that makes his motivations for killing gods understandable. But his screen time is limited, his backstory is barely fleshed out, and he’s pretty much the only character who actually takes anything seriously. Consequently, Gore’s presence often feels at odds with the irreverent tone of the rest of the film.
The Ragnarok sequel is still a lot of fun and a vast improvement over the earlier films in the Thor series, but Love and Thunder falls short of its predecessor in part due to Gorr’s treatment. Hela put an end to Asgard in Ragnarok, while New Asgard and the universe as a whole return to business as usual at the end of Love and Thunder. With a different approach, or in a different brand of superhero movie, Gore might have been an all-time villain with an actor like Bale behind him, but here his story ends as something of a wasted opportunity.
The Death of Jane Foster
Natalie Portman’s Jane Foster made a spectacular comeback in Love and Thunder after spending Ragnarok, but by the end of the new film, she’s already gone again. Foster fades into a beautiful haze of golden space dust after the climactic battle against Gor, just like Odin in Ragnarok,…
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