For all intents and purposes, Chris Hemsworth's Thor is the last Phase One leading MCU hero standing with "Love and Thunder" marking his fourth solo film. Following the success of "Ragnarok", it was obvious that director Taika Waititi would return for any follow-up. So does lightning quite literally strike twice here? Well, there's a bit of give and take.
Obviously the tone from "Ragnarok" carries over, but even some of the story beats in "Love and Thunder" are similar to its predecessor. To name just a few, we have Thor briefly working with other heroes who have their own series, a silly side villain (though to Russell Crowe's credit, his depiction of Zeus is more accurate than the Hercules Disney animated film), and a main antagonist with a death motif.
In many regards though, there are many aspects where "Love and Thunder" shines better. For starters, there's the music which continues Waititi's use of classic rock for his Thor films. While "Ragnarok" used Led Zepplin's "Immigrant Song" for two pivotal scenes, we now have quite a selection of Guns N' Roses songs to give more variety and more of an "umph" to certain scenes.
More importantly though, I feel there's more emotion to the plot this time around in two particular ways. The first is the relationship between Thor and Jane Foster, with Natalie Portman returning to reprise her role and now wielding Mjolnir herself. While we haven't seen Jane since "The Dark World" and we can only guess about how Portman's relationship with Marvel soured afterwards, I really enjoyed having her back with this film. Waititi does a great job at recapping their relationship, goes into more detail about her and Thor drifted apart, and makes the viewer fall in love and root for them all over again. I will say that of all the Guns N' Roses songs used for the film, I feel it was a missed opportunity not to include "Patience" in regard to the two.
Then you have Christian Bale as Gorr the God Butcher, our main villain. Sometimes I forget how much Bale puts into his roles, and Gorr is no different. Bale delivers what is probably the scariest MCU villain to date, both in his look and a performance that can be mesmerizing to take in. With the Necrosword, Gorr is cursed with both his body and mind seemingly being ravaged as he works toward his goal of killing all gods. But there's definitely more of a sympathetic aspect to him compared to Hela, where you understand what's motivating him and still feel for him even as the film reaches its climax.
In terms of the action, I don't think there's one bad fight piece in this entire film with some of the most brilliant choreography and cinematography we've seen yet in the MCU. When it comes to the comedy though, it doesn't always land quite as well as it did with "Ragnarok". It can get a little grating at times with the most annoying aspect to me being the damn screaming goats and I wish that meme would just die off already.
Everyone who's returned from previous films does a great job here but I really have to hand it to Chris Hemsworth. Whenever we see Thor in a Marvel film, it's always different as we see the character progress. "Love and Thunder" shows him still emotionally dealing with events from past films and now that he's passed rulership of New Asgard to Valkyrie, he's looking for purpose. This film is essentially Thor's midlife crisis and Hemsworth does a good job at showing that as his character appears more unsure of himself than we've ever seen him before. With how the film ends and Hemsworth seemingly still on board for more, it'll be interesting to see how Thor will be when we see him again.
While I do seem to be giving more praise than criticism comparing "Love and Thunder" to "Ragnarok" as I hinted at at the beginning, I honestly think "Ragnarok" is still the better of the two. "Love and Thunder" does improve on a lot of what "Ragnaork" did, but it does still feel like a copy in some ways. And to me, "Ragnarok" still serves as a grand conclusion to Thor's original trilogy while "Love and Thunder" makes it clear there's still story to tell. Whichever film you prefer, it's clear that Taika Waititi is the best fit for this corner of the MCU.
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