Thor embarks on a journey unlike anything he’s ever faced — a quest for inner peace. However, his retirement gets interrupted by Gorr the God Butcher, a galactic killer who seeks the extinction of the gods. To combat the threat, Thor enlists the help of King Valkyrie, Korg and ex-girlfriend Jane Foster, who — to his surprise — inexplicably wields his magical hammer. Together, they set out on a harrowing cosmic adventure to uncover the mystery of the God Butcher’s vengeance.
Thor is back and funnier than ever. Thor: Love and Thunder is the latest film in the Thor franchise and is rooting itself as a comedy. There are jokes and situational gags throughout the movie to keep you smiling from beginning to end. In fact, there is little in the movie that’s not drenched in humor. Even Gorr’s character has a few scenes where he gets in on the comedy and interjects some humor into his story. He’s still focused on killing all Gods in existence but this Gorr is an adaptation and isn’t a direct translation from the comics. Thor: Love and Thunder’s Gorr is a bit more talkative than the Gorr in the comics and he’s not nearly as ruthless.
I don’t like that the movie is drenched in comedy. I don’t like how the first 15 mins of the movie are basically a montage of comedy. I don’t like the perceived sentience of Thor’s Axe Stormbreaker and its jealousy over Thor’s affection for Mjolnir. I do like Thor’s jovial attitude toward the situation with his weapons but I would like to see him acknowledge how weird it is.
The Guardians of the Galaxy’s pairing with Thor seems like a wasted opportunity. There are some appreciable details about some of the relationships between the characters but that’s about it. The characters are quickly written out of the story with a clean palette for James Gunn to pick up their story without any of that Asgardian baggage. It doesn’t seem like the filmmakers knew what to do with the fact that Thor was last seen with these characters. This is a shame since fans have been waiting years to see these characters interact.
Gorr didn’t get the time to fill in the backstory that he deserved. Thor Love and Thunder’s cold opening to Gorr cradling his dying daughter is meant to be more emotional than it is. Gorr’s story in the comics is that his race went through generations of hardship on their barren planet. Gorr’s mother dies protecting him, Gorr loses his wife and son, and finally, Gorr loses his last child all while maintaining a reverence for his planet’s Gods. He becomes disgusted when he finds two gods that were locked in battle dying. He realized that the Gods could hear his prayers and his pain throughout the years but chose not to help. What we see in the movie is an abridged version of that story and because it happens too quickly I don’t have that attachment to these characters to care about their deaths. I mean they’re lucky they didn’t get Thanos snapped or crushed by Chitauri. There are so many threats occurring in the MCU that I need some more effort to get immersed or invested in these characters.
Gorr’s comic book origins have a very different story for Gorr. He kidnaps and tortures adult Gods, including Thor, for hundreds of years at a time horribly earning his nickname The God Butcher. Gorr in the movie is very different and doesn’t seem to have the same history as a slaver of Thor. His ultimate goal was also toned down. Gorr was still trying to kill all the Gods with an evil plot but this plan was less gruesome. at once by reaching eternity but this is very different than what Jason Aaron wrote. In the comics, Gorr was motivated to create a God bomb. He abducted and tortured gods of various roles and titles, including the god of bombs, to do his bidding and help him in his plan to kill all the gods. This Gorr is essentially inspired by Pennywise from IT right down to kidnapping kids to further his goals.
This movie failed to give Gorr an interesting story. The movie did a fine job introducing Jane Foster as The Mighty Thor. Thor: Love and Thunder even checked a few boxes with moving characters into different situations than when it started. Thor: Love and Thunder absolutely fail Gorr’s introduction, presence, and development. He was busy murdering gods and decided to focus his efforts on reaching Eternity and making a wish to kill all Gods. In order to do this, the movie writes him into a situation where he’s kidnapping kids and attempting to get Thor’s ax Stormbreaker which has the ability to summon a Bifrost to Eternity. Why?
Why didn’t we get better use of Gorr? Taika Waititi has studied Jason Aaron’s original story so I believe he’s got an understanding of the original interpretation of Gorr. Jason Aaron wrote Gorr in a way that he tortured and enslaved weaker Gods to create a weapon to kill all Gods at once. He even enslaved Shadrak the god of bombs to create this GodBomb. Yes, that is definitely some difficult subject matter to adapt into a film but settling on kidnapping kids isn’t nearly as sadistic as we needed.
Natalie Portman almost saves the entire movie. Portman’s Jane Foster is incredibly refreshing and makes this movie seem so much more interesting. Jane’s story of wielding Mjolnir to becoming the Mighty Thor is fantastic. I hate that it’s an abridged story that needed to fit the pacing of a 2 hr movie. I wish this story had time to breathe and be told over time like a Disney+ show. I am okay with the adaptation since they stayed true to the character. I am not okay with this overall film and I feel this is a huge step in the wrong direction for the franchise.
