Knee-jerk review: "Thor: Love and Thunder"

1. It's a thoroughly entertaining - if also thoroughly forgettable - movie.
2. The villain takes a back seat to the action, which is surprising considering that A) he's played by Christian Bale in full scene-chewing mode and B) he's got a fairly sympathetic and complex motivation for the mayhem he unleashes.  But the film seems more interested in wacky shenanigans and audience-pleasing moments than in digging deep into truly serious angles.
3. At least until the very end, when things suddenly shift gears and get pretty heavy.
4. Also wasted: the Guardians of the Galaxy crew who show up in the first few minutes to connect back to the ending of Avengers: Endgame.  Only Chris Pratt has any lines here and he's totally going through the motions.
5. It's the sort of movie where women literally faint when they see Thor's full frontal nudity.  It's a funny bit, but completely unrealistic.  It's a gag you'd see in a Bugs Bunny cartoon.  Amusing, yes, but at this moment the filmmakers aren't even pretending to ground the characters in any sort of Earthling reality.
6. Likewise, there's some funny business with Thor's magical axe seeming to be jealous of Thor's fixation on his old hammer.  Cute, but what kind of crazy movie is this?
7. In other words, you'll probably like it if you just go with it.  Turn off the grown-up logic part of your brain.
8. Russell Crowe has a good time in his cameo as Zeus and he's doing some kind of European accent.  We were trying to remember if Zeus was a Greek god or a Roman god.  Is Crowe doing a Greek accent or a Roman accent?  It was hard to tell.  Maybe both?
9. We haven't seen all of the Thor movies, so we got pretty lost in the intricacies of the rules regarding the magical hammer and the magical axe and that intergalactic transport beam.
10. Did we mention the two giant goats that scream?
11. The business with Matt Damon, Sam Neill, and Luke Hemsworth as bad actors re-enacting the Thor saga for paying customers was cringey enough in Thor: Ragnarok.  But we get to see another go-round with them in Love and Thunder.  It's the sort of thing the filmmakers probably found hilarious, but doesn't quite translate on screen.
12. "Necrosword" is a pretty cool name.
13. In case you were wondering, yes, the big climax involves lots of laser lights and energy beams.
14. The ten-year-old Lil Fry asked a good question: "How come we never heard about the Eternity before?"  The Eternity, you see, is some kind of magic portal at the center of the universe that can not only grant a wish, but can be opened with Thor's sword.  Huh?  We didn't say this to her in reply, but we were definitely thinking "Maybe because the whole movie has a make-it-up-as-we-go vibe."
15. While we enjoyed the Guns N Roses music cues, we wonder what younger audiences make of it.  Marvel movies are surely aimed at teens and young adults, not Cheese Fry adults of a certain age.  "Welcome to the Jungle" and "Sweet Child O' Mine" were released in 1988.  At this point, those songs are 34 years old.  We're trying to imagine watching the Michael Keaton Batman movie in 1989 and hearing a 34-year-old music cue from 1955.  Wouldn't "Rock Around the Clock" seem totally out of place?
16. That said, we have to acknowledge that Thor: Ragnarok has made Lil Fry like Led Zeppelin's "The Immigrant Song."
17. Director Taika Waititi most definitely loves the wide shot of a hero leaping through the air to attack the bad guys in slow motion while lightning bolts fly all around.  It's a very memorable comic book style image.  He's used it several times in both Ragnarok and Love and Thunder. 
18. The script may be a little thin, but Waititi has style and energy.
19. Final thought: if you enjoyed the fantastic teaser trailer, you'll enjoy the movie.

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