Noble of him to take some responsibility, but the plot elements were too dark for the tone that was established in Ragnarok. You're walking a fine line trying to make "dying of cancer" and "revenge on the gods for my dead daughter" the subject of a goofy, weird adventure series.
I thought the tone for the serious parts were pretty well done. It's just that the tone flipped on a dime and the comedy was way too cartoonish. Even without the serious stuff, it would still be too much.
Unless he was so caught up in the wackiness that he became indirectable, he gets a pass in my opinion. If that's not the tone Waititi wanted, he would have been asked to be an actor and change the performance. Chris, you're good. Keep on keepin' on.
I agree with him that it was too "wacky". And it's not because I don't enjoy that type of movie, GOTG is my favorite Marvel movie. But in Love and Thunder it felt REALLY forced. Many of them were just poorly timed, cringe or unnecessary.
I don't think the wacky was the probable, nor was the juxtaposition of the incredible darkness of the plot against that wackiness. Any of those elements could work and well -- it's honestly Waititi's specialty (that's exactly what made Jojo Rabbit and Hunt for the Wilderpeople so great -- that they were attacking deeply, deeply dark themes under a safe and protective umbrella of silliness).
What made Love and Thunder fail is just that it wasn't made very well. The writing was kind of poor and it didn't tie into much of a greater story. You can never save a movie from bad writing and it just had vaguely bad writing. Always feels like the writing is the first cost these projects try and trim when it should be the only one they never do.
And worse, 2 of the great actors of my lifetime were totally squandered.
In my opinion, the audience was never convinced that Portman's character was actually suffering and addicted to the hammer, which made the sacrifice of what she was doing totally uncompelling. She's capable of playing that role, but instead they turned who should've been the hero into a total sidekick.
I was also entirely unconvinced that Bale's character was... wrong. They literally had to make the plot about him gathering a bunch of children to murder in order to convince us to dislike him. His backstory was so convincing that his revenge felt like a quest to root for. He performed the character well enough to make you sympathize with him, yet they just had him kick a puppy to make his heel turn. Weak.
Each of the movies has a few flaws, but there has been a feeding frenzy for critics who either hate comic book movies, or hate women and minorities. The hard part is separating the legitimate complaints about movie quality from the complaints about an imagined "woke" agenda.
Love and Thunder was exactly what it was supposed to be. I understand what Hemsworth is saying, and I can see how he feels that they veered too far into parody, but I hope that they don't lose that flavor of humor in future Thor movies. I also want to see Hercules (especially if Goldstein can do a better Greek accent than Crowe) pulled into Secret Wars.
Eternals was a bad script. The movie itself is bland, but not poorly made. I liked the characters more than most people, but in the tapestry of the MCU, it felt like an iron-on patch. It wanted to be important, but they have been invisible for the entire Infinity Saga. If they had retconned some of the early events to tie into the wider universe, it might have felt more connected. Having an Avenger show up to check out why a Celestial was emerging from the ground would have also been a nice touch.
Wakanda Forever was always going to be a farewell to Chadwick Boseman. For that, it was also what it needed to be. I thought Namor was a reasonable adaptation of the character, and I liked that they have set up T'Challa Jr. as a potential for the new Black Panther. Shuri won't have the gravitas to carry the mantle.
Quantumania might have been worse on the big screen, but I didn't mind the CG watching it at home. If there was an infinity stone for "likeable," you would need to squeeze it out of Paul Rudd like ooze, and it would come out of a surprising orifice. Stature was also well-cast, and I thought the humor was spot on. Kang was better in Loki, but the actor's personal decisions have made that moot for future movies. It was certainly the most flawed movie since The Dark World, but still a must-watch for MCU fans (unlike Eternals or Shang-Chi).
I'm really looking forward to Deadpool and Wolverine, and I hope it's a refreshing adrenaline injection right in the dick of the MCU.
The Thor "goofiness" started in Ragnarock, frankly I didn't like ragnarock very much my first watch through because of it.
The actor for shuri also turned into a complete antivax nut and apparently was a PITA to work with, so I wouldn't be surprised if marvel/Disney was trying to distance themselves a bit.
I really enjoyed Ragnarok, and thought it was a great way to lampshade the inherent silliness of an ancient Norse god banging around Earth. That's something the Dark World struggled with, taking itself too seriously. Plus it was as close to a Planet Hulk movie as we're likely to get, what with the complicated distribution rights of the Hulk property. It made Thor simultaneously more badass and more mortal. And Jeff Goldblum is always a treat.
I know about the Shuri actor, and I try not to let their personal politics influence how I feel about their work. Obviously, the situation with Jonathan Majors is extremely different, but I try to compartmentalize what the movie did with him, and recognize that he wasn't the reason Quantumania struggled. Shuri, on the other hand, was not good in Wakanda Forever. She never felt like more than an actress reciting lines. It didn't help that her story was predictable and her character 1-dimensional. There were simply too many better actresses standing next to her in each scene. Her mother the defiant queen projecting power, Okoye the dauntless warrior stripped of rank, Nakia the isolated widow who still has the skills, Riri taking over as the enthusiastic teen nerdy girl, each of them more badass, it all just crowded out Shuri as a character.
Imagine Shuri wasn't in the movie. What's different? Okoye finds Riri, Nakia finds Atlantis, and one of those three could have fought Namor. It would have been a different movie, but not by much.
I liked Eternals and Wakanda Forever. I thought Quantumania was horrible with a couple okay scenes.
Thor L&T on the other hand had a lot of really well made scenes. It's honestly a much better movie than Quantumania. But I dislike it more because I can see a truly phenomenal movie held back by forced humor.
Having said that, I'm really glad that some people liked it. There are other projects that I'm bummed about not getting as much praise as I think they deserve. And I'm certain that others feel the same way about this. So I'm glad that this was perfect for some.
I was honestly onboard right up to the point that Thor cracked jokes immediately after learning that his people's children had been kidnapped. That should have been the moment we pivoted back to Thor the hero. For Thor to be that unserious in that moment just felt really out of character, even for wacky/funny Thor, which is a character I love personally.
I think Ragnarok struck a much better balance between funny Thor and hero Thor.
There is a time and place to play a wacky self-parody for laughs (for example, on an obscure Internet technology forum), but an adaptation of one of the darkest storyline in Marvel comics involving Gorr the God Butcher sure isn't it.
Gorr was an effective character because 1. he was extremely successful in accomplishing his goal and 2. he was right (partially, at least) about the nature of gods being selfish and indifferent which caused the self doubts in Thor, and the key point of the storyline was that in accomplishing his goal, Gorr became a hypocrite who embodies the very traits he used as reasons for his god-butchering. Neither of these ideas were effectively adapted for this movie, so what's the point of using Gorr the God Butcher.
The actors' individual performance really isn't the issue, because even the best performance from the best actors can't save a flawed script, critics will just call it a wasted performance.
Counterpoint: That's actually quite a banal narrative archetype, but the colour and character was engaging and the GNR mileau was something different. I don't think it was any more comedy-riddled than before and if people don't like that they can remember that they did the first three times.
The director's job is to give the actor direction, so even if Hemsworth's assumptions that his antics hurt the movie are true, it was the director's job to recognize that and, you know, direct the actor.
The problems with L&T have nothing to do with Hemsworth's choices. He was hilarious and one of the high points of the film. The two biggest issues were with the writing/direction:
We didn't see the villain earn their nickname
We didn't see the villain learn about the Maguffin
These two issues could have been handled with a 1 minute rampage where he slays a few gods, and the last one chides him with "you know this will all be undone, right? One of us will just go to such-and-such-place, wish to undo your work, and it'll never have happened."
Yeah, I agree that the villain needed more development. I enjoyed the movie overall because I've become ok with filling in blanks like that, but the villain's arc was very disjointed, including the part about needing to be told... well, if you've seen it, you know what he needed to be told, so I'll leave it at that to avoid spoiling.
And I agree that Hemsworth did great in the movie. And even if he was goofing around too much during filming, that would still be more on the director, editor, and producer for deciding what went into the final cut.
But yeah, the worst part IMO was having one guy go from dying in a desert to finding a magic sword and suddenly he's one of the most powerful beings in existence. Did he have skills from before he was stuck in the desert? Did the sword give him knowledge? Does it steal powers/experiences from the gods it slays?
There's other problems with it, mostly in the same vein.
Thor's lines about how they don't eat children anymore, and later when he scolds Love for ruining a brand-new skillet are possibly the two best lines in the movie
That comic story works because Thor Odinson isn't really in it, at all. The entire premise is a perspective shift - how it feels to be a frail human burdened with godhood.
I almost understand how (if not why) the studios didn't approve risking a huge budget film by putting all the weight on many-award-winning actress, Natalie Portman.
But adapting comic books is about taking risks. Thor: Love and Thunder needed to be entirely centered on Natalie Portman, and Chris should have been free to act goofy while Natalie delivered the heartbreaking cancer stuff.
But the script was too chicken to make that leap of faith, and the movie is worse for it.
They didnt want to be called woke, but they did anyway. For some people, even thought of a woman getting into some man's space is woke, let alone her being as strong if not stronger than him.
I've been a huge Taiki Waititi fan since his work with Flight of the Conchords and Boy. But this movie... One of the few movies I've turned off halfway through. The decision to bring back Natalie Portmans character was... just so stupid. They didn't have chemistry in the first movie, why force a second?
I think there's more mixed bag since Endgane. Shang-Chi, Spider-Man NWH, Doctor Strange MoM, and GOTG vol. 3 were all great imo. While Black Widow, Thor 4, and Ant-Man 3 were horrible. And the rest have been somewhere in between.
