Thor: Love and Thunder

One of Marvel’s most anticipated projects, Thor: Love and Thunder premiered wide this week and I have many many thoughts and they all come back to this; Taika Waititi is a genius who should be in charge of all future Thor projects from now on, and any other project he wants. This review will have many of the spoilers so if you want to avoid that I strongly advise you to stop reading and come back later.

As promised the Guardians did make a brief appearance with Thor before he headed back to Asgard. Now here is the best part of Thor’s character in this movie, it shows actual growth. My biggest problem with the depiction of Thor in the MCU thus far is that he had very little depth and absolutely no real character growth. And even when we thought we were seeing growth (depressed Thor) it was turned into a joke. Taika fixed all of this. The emotional journey Thor goes on in this film both with Jane and himself after the events of Endgame is incredible.

Speaking of Jane…Jane as Thor was so amazing. Not only did they stick to her origin in the comics but Natalie Portman was perfection. She truly embodied the persona of Thor and her and Valkyrie's friendship was built so quickly and so well. If I needed a reminder that I am in fact bisexual, this movie certainly slapped me in the face with it.

“First of all it's Mighty Thor…if you can’t say Mighty Thor I will take Dr. Jane Foster.” I literally wanted to cry, when Jane entered the shadow realm on Valkyrie’s pegasus I was hopping up and down in my chair. Jane turned the hype in this movie up to 11.

Valkyrie, the lovely Tessa Thompson was confirmed gay and proved herself to be a badass king. Taika promised a super gay movie and he certainly delivered. Now I saw on the internet “how can it be gay without a homosexual relationship” questions and to those people I say….did you watch the movie? Every scene, the color pallet, the interactions, the music choices were so super gay. Every member of the LGBTQ community felt it and that is the kind of representation we want always and forever.

The story was well written and very clear. The motive, objective, villain and obstacles were all very well laid out. My personal favorite part of the writing in this movie was the impeccable balance between the internal and external conflict in both Thor and Jane. The pacing was wonderful. The movie did not feel like it was 2 hours long. And the visuals were absolutely stunning.

This is your last warning for major spoilers….

When Jane died at the end I cried like a baby, I knew it was coming but I’ve never felt so gut punched by a Marvel film. Taika really gave me baby Jane just to take her away. That said the second end credit scene left the door open for her to come back, it was delightfully ambiguous. The first end credit scene also set up Thor’s next major conflict. Taika really wrapped everything up in a pretty red bow for us and it was amazing.

Overall the film was a 100/10. I will be seeing it at least 3 more times in the theater and an endless amount of times when it comes to Disney+. Taika is a genius and is quickly climbing to the top of my favorite directors list. I really believe this film belongs in the top 10 Marvel films of all time.