A bit of levity is welcome in a superhero film; otherwise, the thrashing, bashing and smashing would become tedious.
But too much levity is just as bad, and this film crosses that line. And then some.
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| When the malevolent Gorr floods New Asgard with all manner of icky, shadowy monsters, even Thor (Chris Hemsworth) quickly feels overwhelmed. |
In Waititi’s hands, Chris Hemsworth’s Thor is little more than a strutting buffoon.
Granted, a touch of Shakespearean egotism is appropriate; we are dealing with a near-omnipotent Norse God. Conceit comes with the territory. Director Kenneth Branagh — perfect for the assignment — better understood the balance, when he helmed the first film, back in 2011.
Waititi immediately shows his hand, during a prologue that finds Thor still allied with the Guardians of the Galaxy (with whom he departed Earth, following the events in 2019’s Avengers: Endgame, for those not up to date). The Guardians are trying to protect blue-skinned Indigarrians from an invading force determined to take over the planet; Thor sits out the battle until things turn dire, at which point he and his lightning-spitting battle axe make short work of the entire enemy army.
Much to the annoyance of the exhausted Guardians, who’ve clearly had enough of this swaggering narcissist. As we also will, very quickly.
That’s bad enough; far worse is the collateral destruction of the Indigarrians’ holiest of holies, which Waititi and co-scripter Jennifer Kaytin Robinson discard as a cheap laugh.
That’s unforgiveable … and a dire indication of things to come.
The “big bad” this time is Gorr the God Butcher (Christian Bale, almost unrecognized beneath make-up), a once-pious individual who renounced worship after the death of his entire species. Rage and despair allowed Gorr to be infected by the malevolent spirit of a god-killing sword, and he has since been systematically eliminating gods, universe by universe.
Next stop: New Asgard, on Earth.
Ah, yes … New Asgard. The actual Asgard, Thor’s celestial realm — along with most of his fellow warriors — was destroyed during Thor: Ragnarok. The remaining Asgardians have made a home in New Asgard, which has blossomed into an excruciatingly cutesy Norse theme park.
Look closely, and you’ll spot Matt Damon, Sam Neill, Melissa McCarthy and Hemsworth’s brother Luke, as a quartet of so-wooden-they-warp stage actors.
Such slapstick nonsense is amplified further by Thor’s loyal sidekick, a rock-like humanoid named Korg, who resembles a distant cousin of the Fantastic Four’s Ben Grimm. Korg is voiced by Waititi … who (no surprise) gives himself far too many arch one-liners and bad jokes. I half-expected the Michael Giacchino/Nami Melumad score to pause for rim shots.
OK, yes; a reasonably acceptable plot is buried beneath all this twaddle. Thor has lost family, friends, his Asgardian home, and even Mjolnir, his mighty hammer (also a casualty in Ragnarok). He’s entitled to an identity crisis, and a search for meaning.
He’s also entitled to some good news, which surfaces in the welcome return of ex-girlfriend Jane Foster (Natalie Portman), under quite unusual circumstances (which are telegraphed by this film’s theater poster). In a refreshing change from just about everyone else, Portman plays her character straight, persuasively handling the nuances of conflicting emotions.
Tessa Thompson is similarly sympathetic as Valkyrie, the last of Asgard’s elite force of female warriors. Like Thor, she despairs over all that has been lost; Thompson makes her credibly plucky, and yet somewhat broken. Valkyrie needs the blood-rush of battle and a worthy opponent.
Bale’s sinister Gorr certainly fits that bill. He has set up camp in a shadow-realm that flenses all color from its universe; cinematographer Barry Baz Idoine’s shift to monochrome, when Thor eventually takes the battle to the enemy, is a genuinely eerie sequence.
Along the way, though, we suffer through a truly daft visit to the Grand Pantheon in Omnipotence City, where the mighty Zeus (Russell Crowe) fills his days with excess, basking in the easy admiration of lesser gods. Thor hopes to enlist allies in the upcoming battle against Gorr; suffice it to say, the encounter slides sideways, amid comic overkill.
(I must admit, though, that one quick sight gag — when Zeus strips Thor of his clothing — is genuinely funny.)
Give Crowe credit: He gamely chews through pompous declamations that are even dumber than the lines Waititi and Robinson give Thor.
We should remember, way back in the day, that when Universal Pictures felt that the fright factor had been milked from its stable of monsters — Frankenstein, Dracula, the Wolf Man — they became comedy fodder for the likes of Abbott and Costello … which completely destroyed their original raison d’être.
A few more misfires like this, and the Marvel Cinematic Universe may discover that it’s almost impossible to recover, once credibility has been lost.
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