As every Marvel Cinematic Universe fan knows, the theme behind the “Love and Thunder” movie was essentially to bring some comedy and mix it with the action, but it didn’t quite turn out that way.
Watching Thor go along with the Guardians of the Galaxy for so long, the expectation was that this film was going to be similar to the Guardians of the Galaxy plots — a lot of action mixed with a huge hint of comedy.
However, in the fourth installment of the Thor saga, it seemed to be a boatload of comedy and not enough serious action scenes to balance it out.
Fans can’t complain that Thor is supposed to be taken more seriously. As the director agreed with on Twitter, Thor was quite a goofball in the comics.
Fans can complain that they made a bit too much fun of the hero in this movie, though. One thing that should be considered is Marvel always has a perfect twist of comedy in its movies, but this one may have taken it too far.
Everyone knows the Guardians of the Galaxy movies have dirty jokes and dark humor occasionally, but in the “Love and Thunder” movie, every joke in it was too cheesy to actually make people laugh.
The whole plot surrounded a group of kids who were kidnapped by the antagonist — someone to get into later — but the scene at the end when all the kids gain the power of Thor to help defeat the enemy made everyone in the audience cringe in agony.
If you brought your eight-year-old child to the movie showing, they would be thrilled; but it was lacking for the older crowd. The scene was sort of adorable and helped involve kids more into the Marvel collection, but it was extremely cheesy.
One of the best parts of the movie, though, was the cast.
First, fans got to see the epic return of Jane Foster, played by Natalie Portman. Big plot twist, she comes back as an epic female Thor — with stage four cancer — who basically rocks the show alongside King Valkyrie, played by Tessa Thompson. The power duo these two women play on screen is one to knock your socks off.
Since the main plot is about Thor, played by Chris Hemsworth, searching for his inner peace, only to be interrupted by a big bad villain, the Thor movie of course needs to have a nice beginning battle scene with all the characters.
That’s when the audience meets the big bad guy that was introduced in the beginning scenes of the movie as Gorr the God Butcher, played by Christian Bale. Talk about racking up the power players in the acting industry.
But wait, it gets better.
We also get to see a little glimpse of Darcy Lewis, played by Kat Dennings, a character we haven’t seen since her guest star in “WandaVision”. Darcy, as always, provides some comic relief during the reveal of Jane’s stage four cancer — the fans missed you, Darcy.
Not to mention we also get a little Matt Damon appearance, which many fans enjoyed, as well as a Russell Crowe cameo.
Crowe played Zeus in the “Love and Thunder” movie, his appearance significant when Thor seeks out some help from the other Gods in the universe in order to defeat the God Butcher. When the Gods don’t come to his help, he simply steals the lightning bolt from Zeus and things get a little crazy.
In the end scene, we even get a glimpse of Zeus’ demigod son Hercules, played by Brett Goldstein, seeking to avenge his father — a demigod against a real God? Is that really a challenge?
Besides the abundance of awesome actors and actresses, the biggest part of the plot fans loved seeing was the closure from the abruptly ended relationship of Jane and Thor. We missed this handsome couple, but what does it mean for them now that Jane has cancer?
Well the two do share a few romantic moments on on-screen kisses, but Jane’s fate has not changed, even with Mjölnir in her power.
Jane does get to spend a bit of time getting to play a hero and going on crazy missions to protect the new Asgard — which if you don’t remember is located on Earth now. However, instead of continuing to get her treatment like Thor told her, Jane comes to save the day at the end, using Mjölnir’s power and destroying it in the process, to defeat Gorr with Thor.
Flash forward, we see Jane, Thor and Gorr all in this final quiet scene. Thor and Jane say their final goodbyes as Jane dies in Thor’s arms and turns to dust, just like his father, Odin had. All the viewers who loved the scientist and the thunder God together felt the heartbreak in their whole body, almost as badly as they felt the break-up of Stephen Strange and Christine Palmer. INSERT DOCTOR STRANGE LINK
What is with Marvel killing off all these relationships lately?
After this tear-shedding scene, Gorr seems to feel the same way as all of the Marvel fans. Thor and Jane destroyed Gorr’s Necrosword — which was the corruptor that made Gorr this evil being — and as a result, the God Butcher became less intent on his mission to kill all the Gods. Not to mention, after the sad scene with Thor and Jane showing the power of love, Gorr realizes that his daughter could have another life full of love if he brought her back instead of murdering all the Gods.
Therefore, Gorr dies with his final wish to bring his daughter back.
That’s when the movie ends with a final epic scene of Thor taking care of Gorr’s daughter as if she were his own. Only his methods were a little bit more violent and crazy than Gorr probably expected, as the audience sees the two start to go on action-packed adventures together.
Fans also received a mid-credits scene where Jane Foster enters Valhalla where the audience gets a peak of the well-loved Heimdall in the Gods’ afterlife.
Even though the heart-breaking scene between Jane and Thor left viewers weeping in the theaters and the cheesy jokes made Marvel fans cringe and cover their eyes, it really wasn’t an awful movie.
Most people might not rank it in their top ten MCU movies, everyone is still glad they got some closure from Jane and a little bit of presence from the Guardians of Galaxy members before their next big movie, which is expected to be released May 5, 2023.
Let’s just hope the catchphrase Mighty Thor — A.K.A Jane Foster — came up with on her deathbed is as good as Thor made it out to be, or the entire movie was pointless.
Jaedyn Young can be reached at jaedynyoung@sagebrush.unr.edu or on Twitter @jaedyn_young3.
