Thor: Love and Thunder is a muddled, jumbled semi-entertaining mess

At what point do we say that the emperor has no clothes? While it’s too soon to say that they have no clothes, it’s time to say that their wardrobe has a malfunction, and could otherwise use an adjustment. The emperor in this case is the MCU and the latest canary into the movie cave mine is Thor: Love and Thunder. It’s important to point out that Thor: Ragnarok was amazing. It perfectly combined humor, memorable characters, and great action set pieces into an MCU film that resides in the top tier of that genre. Thor: Love and Thunder combines some of the similar elements that made that film so much fun, but jumbles them up into a movie that wants you to have as much fun as the actors are having.

As predictable as many of the MCU movies are, they are also fun, for better or worse. It’s a criticism that makes them a counter-programming target for the DC Universe but can also hamstring them when it comes to the movies that they make. If Ragnarok was a triumph because it tweaked the MCU formula, then Love and Thunder is a plodding mess because it doubles down on the silly, while making many of the action sequences tepid and uninspiring. It’s a superhero film that wants to be colorful, yet spends about 15 minutes in black and white. If action is the beef in the MCU then viewers will be echoing that catchphrase from the 1980s Wendy’s commercial.

When last we saw Thor, he was boarding a spaceship with the Guardians of the Galaxy. This idea has a lot of promise but is quickly jettisoned ten minutes into the film. The two are fighting battles alongside one another until Thor loses his mojo. It turns out that he just wants to find himself and is still thinking about Jane Foster.

Love and Thunder tries so hard to blend the storyline of Jane receiving the power of the Mjolnr, against the villainy of Gorr the God Butcher, with the Thor arc of him building a god army to stop Gorr that audiences aren’t sure who to root for.

The emergence of Jane Foster is not inspiring, but more than that, it slows down the film’s action. But, if she has the hammer, isn’t she Thor? You’re calling her Lady Thor, aren’t you? No, the script addresses the Lady Thor pejoratives that people threw about when that story hit the comic book a couple of years ago. That bit of dialogue is handled by Gorr and done only to placate the folks who are seeing the film for that reason.

When Goor is realized to be a major threat, it’s up to Thor and Jane Foster/Thor to travel to a previously unknown place where all of the Gods hang out. This is where Russell Crowe comes in and chews up the scenery as Zeus. It’s a clumsy scene that is done for giving Thor the chance to steal his lightning bolt which he’ll need in some manner to defeat Goor. The naked Thor scene is no big deal and has even been laughed about. However, a popular science fiction scene from another bad movie in 2013 had a woman in a bra and panties and was pilloried in the news and social media. I say they’re both pretty actors, the films had the same ratings and are no big deal.

Most surprising for me was how bad the soundtrack was. Did the MCU owe Axl Rose a favor or are they indebted to Geffen Records? Love and Thunder feature four Guns N Roses songs. For a film that wears the 80s on its sleeve, the choice of GnR to represent 25% of the soundtrack, within quick order of one another, and to have a character in the film nicknamed Axl, due to his father’s appreciation of that 80’s band is obvious, lazy and I expected more.

The soundtrack to Guardians of the Galaxy was great for a reason. They were songs that people knew but weren’t overplayed or cliché. The use of ABBA in Love and Thunder was clever, but Enya felt familiar and even though it made me laugh, was a cheap use of a song that was used better in Deadpool 2.

It’s a film that exists on the premise of a character from the MCU that’s brought back to life, only to have them go all Angie Dickinson in Dressed to Kill. The villain is a much-hyped death dealer whose reason to be will have viewers scratching their heads when he finally gets what he wants.

At said conclusion, I was half-heartedly looking for a translator to remind me how Gorr could create this portal, why it was important, and who this figure was coming through the other side. I love my weird superhero movies, but this is rudderless fun, with a side order of agenda that disappointed on a shockingly high level.

I say rudderless fun because MCU diehards will soak up Thor: Love and Thunder and defend the weak points of it. Some people will start to wonder if the emperor has no clothes and yearn for better scripts from the folks at Disney and MCU. Waititi and Hemsworth have said that alluded to the fact that there’s a four-hour version of the film. Much like ‘release the Snyder cut’, release that massive opus on DVD, just in case it needed an additional 120 minutes to percolate.

Thor: Love and Thunder is rated PG-13 for mild action, peril, perilous peril, pixeled-out Norse God nudity, and gay rocks who reproduce near a volcano.