I got to see Thor: Love and Thunder over the weekend. It was good. I was never happy that they came up with “Lady Thor” in the comics. I will die on that hill that “Thor” is a person’s name and not a mantle. You can give someone else the costume, the hammer, the powers, but call them something else unless they are actually given the name Thor. I met a guy at Midtown Comics named Thor. It happens.
I also hate Guns n Roses so switching from a stellar soundtrack of Led Zeppelin and AC/DC to GnR was *vomit emoji* for me. You can’t do better than Immigrant Song or Thunderstruck for a Thor movie. Bonus points though for an Enya track!
I loved that they got Jane and Thor back together. I’m honestly not the biggest Natalie Portman fan but respect her career. She came off much more comfortable in this one than the first one. The love story was more satisfying than I expected going in. I don’t know why they had to make her blonde when Mjolnir’s powers would suit her up. Completely unnecessary.
I also did not love Thor’s new blue costume. With that huge red cape, it looks like Eurotrash-Superman.
The villain Gorr was also decent. His motivation is typical — male character needs to avenge dead female character. It’s much more sweet than most of the lazy “women in refrigerator” moments in fiction. Gorr had an interesting look and transition from modest religious zealot on a quest to find his gods expecting them to save his daughter. After he gets the necro-sword, he’s all white and all his powers are shadow based. It was like being a de-saturated landscape. Even when the heroes show up on Gorr’s base you barely get a glint of color when they move through the oddly placed plastic tarps that act as doors.
Also… there seemed to be an awful of lot of common ground with DC’s Lantern Corps in this Marvel movie. There’s a scene where Valkyrie, Korg, Jane, and Thor go undercover as “color gods” to Omniscient City. Each color is tied to an emotion. Gee, that sounds familiar. And Gorr himself is basically a Black Lantern but instead of a power ring he gets a badass necro-sword.
I did love the ending and the whole reason it’s called Love and Thunder. Well done, but Ragnarok is better.
4 stars
Founder and Editor-in-Chief of AmberUnmasked.com and Vodka O'Clock Podcast. Author of The Farrah Wethers Mysteries, comic book short stories, prose, and non-fiction. Cosplayer and figure model.