So, the latest addition to the MCU has just dropped and with it comes many conflicted feelings once again. The film is plastered from start to finish with Taika-isms, it’s stuffed full of great comedy and absurd moments and while that’s great it sadly lessens the heart and emotion that this film is desperately trying to convey to its audience. The product is then a weird mismatch of tones that never fully comes together.
The comedy is certainly the strongest aspect of the film, well hinging on the fact that you enjoy Taika’s brand of humour. There are countless gags that had me howling in the cinema, his humour just really gets me, and I had a smile on my face the entire film. Don’t ask me how the film managed to make me laugh every single time a goat was on screen, but I couldn’t help it. Might genuinely be one of my favourite gags in an MCU film.
Yet with the saturation of jokes the film often feels at odds with itself when it tries to become more serious. Jane Foster’s storyline is a super sad one, but you never fully feel the weight of her story as every time the film tries to explore a darker story it’s surrounded by so much humour that nothing ever feels as emotional as it should. It never breathes and takes time in these scenes, it’s more concerned with moving onto the next funny scene and getting back to the humour.
This is a problem with the movie in general, the runtime is far too short to fully explore the story they’re trying to tell. We never really get a sense of what’s going on in Jane Foster’s head, bar a few scenes which are some of the best for her character. The same problem plagues Gorr, The God Butcher. There’s simply not enough that the film gives him for him to be a substantial villain, and what’s more upsetting is that he really had the opportunity to be one of the MCU’s best. We don’t really get a sense of his threat as we never really see it, we’re just told that he’s a powerful villain.
What saves both of these problems however is the incredible performances both Portman and Bale give in this film. Every scene in which Gorr in on screen he’s terrifying, he’s able to cut through the comedic tone to give this film a sense of threat and danger. It’s heart-breaking that we didn’t get more scenes of him being as menacing as we know he is. Portman is also able to elevate the comedy she’s given to have some semblance of emotion behind it, like she’s being comedic as a coping mechanism, it’s just sad we didn’t explore her character more.
Chris Hemsworth delivers another great performance as comedic Thor, however it is saddening that the film spends so much time with him, a character who doesn’t really have an arc, the best arc he had was explored in Infinity War and Endgame, when there’s two characters who have arcs but aren’t given enough screen time to flesh them out. He’s a compelling comedic lead but it’s just a shame when there’s more interesting characters surrounding him, yet he is still given the most to work with. Also, I love Tessa Thompson and Valkyrie, but she was absolutely wasted in this film, she had no story.
Weirdly I think they also wasted an opportunity to give Thor an arc. The ending feels very forced with Thor suddenly getting a child, yet the film presents many opportunities for Thor to show how much he wants to be a parent in the numerous times he has to communicate with the children in the film. He doesn’t really express his desire to have a child or to show how much he enjoyed being a parental figure to children which seems like a wasted opportunity. Again, I think this just comes down to the film barrelling through its plot that nothing is fully explored. There are numerous high-level concepts too that just aren’t explored at all.
There are issues with the story but on a technical level this was a step up for the MCU. There are drop dead gorgeous scenes, the cinematography was beautiful, and the colour palette was glorious. The use of music in this film too was great, it might not be as brilliant as Ragnarok, but having your film basically scored to Guns & Roses it’s hard not to like.
Don’t get it wrong though I think this film is a blast, it’s a fun comedy, I genuinely thought the comedy was an improvement over Ragnarok, but this had the potential to be so much more. At the end of the day the film felt hollow, there’s no lasting impact and with the story they had to work with that’s disappointing. Melissa McCarthy as Hela though had me screaming.
★★1/2
