Serving Up Two Thors for the Price of One
It didn’t look like we were going to be getting a fourth Thor movie. Like Chris Evans and Robert Downey Jr., Chris Hemsworth’s original contract was up after Endgame. He talked about maybe coming back but originally decided he wanted family time more. Thankfully, he decided to stick around for at least one more movie. After the last movie and then seeing that the Guardians of the Galaxy were going to be in the movie, I really wasn’t sure what to expect or how good the movie would be. I wasn’t a fan of how he was pretty much disrespected in Thor: Ragnarok. This movie is still a little goofier than I would have liked, but it was still a good movie.
When it was shown that the Guardians of the Galaxy were going to be in the movie, I was afraid it was going to be throughout the whole thing which would have been too much. Thankfully, it was just at the beginning. Other than for a way to get Thor the space goats that play strategic comic relief throughout the movie, there was no real reasons for them to be there. Anything that they set up could have been set up by any random character. In fact, having them included seemed to help set up the oafishness of the character that wasn’t so extreme in the first couple movies or the Avengers movies.
The city of new Asgard as a sort of tourist trap was an odd choice too. As I mentioned, there was a little more comedy than I would have liked in the movie but at least it didn’t have as negative affect on the movie as things did in the third movie. The fact that there were so many people around did make it make more sense in how Jane could get access to Mjolnir without others knowing about it. The look of Jane’s Thor was very well done and the reveal of the character and the reveal of her identity to Thor were good as well. (It’s not like the identity was any secret to the audience. Thor was the only one not in the know it seemed.) I liked the fact that the hammer wasn’t totally reconstructed but was held together somehow and could scatter to do damage in a wider area. The dynamic between the two Thors, Valkyrie, and Korg worked well, especially how the “girl bonding” at Thor’s expense played out at times.
The build up around Gorr the God Butcher was done well leading to a lot of god name dropping throughout the movie. (I was glad to see Sif appear even briefly since they had already killed off the Warriors Three in an earlier movie.) And then there was Omnipotence City where all the gods from every pantheon hang out. This includes the adorable Bao, God of Dumplings. And we follow this up with Zeus played by Russel Crowe who is a big show off. He seems to be the leader or chair or whatever of the gathering. I have no idea how he was elected to this versus all the other gods there, but that’s besides the point. This is when we get to the highlight of the movie when Thor goes to Zeus to ask for his thunderbolt to fight Gorr. As usual, Thor gets in trouble, gets tied to the platform and Zeus flicks away his disguise to see who he really is. What he reveaks is a naked Chris Hemsworth. In earlier movies, we looked forward to Chris being shirtless, but this takes things to a whole new level as we get to see his butt this time. It’s a very nice butt too. All the images and trailers show it censored (like the image shown here) but you actually get to see it in the movie. In the end, Zeus is the one who gets his ass beat and the Asgardians take off with the thunderbolt to fight Gorr.
As much as the excessive humor got to me a bit, I had to laugh at the interaction between Thor and Stormbreaker. Thor acts a little butthurt about how Jane can wield Mjolnir even after it was shattered. Stormbreaker is visibly jealous of this and is animated perfectly to reflect this as much as a big axe can. Stormbreaker almost becomes another character in the movie as much as a weapon.
One other thing I wanted to point out was that they did good by the LGBTQ community in here where they reference Valkyrie’s relationship with a woman. There’s also a very odd explanation of how Korg’s race reproduced by holding hands over lava. It looks in the movie as if it’s two males of his race doing this. I found online that his race is actually genderless though so that makes the whole concept of relationships there even more interesting. I’m not sure if they omitted this information to allow the appearance of it being two males or what. Tthe concept was something that didn’t really even need to be added so I guess that was something extra they gave us.
As much as I’d like to see a movie a little more serious like the first Thor movie, this was still a good movie and quite enjoyable. It was definitely an improvement over Thor: Ragnarok. Make sure to stay for both post-credit scenes. The one with Jane is nice closure for the character, but it’s when we get back to Zeus that the real excitement happens. I was hoping we’d get to see Hercules who was both an ally and rival of Thor early on in the comics. They didn’t let me down. We only get a quick look at the character as he stands up from a crouch but the costume looked pretty good from what I caught. Who knows if we’ll have to wait for Thor 5 to see him again, but I hope they do him justice wherever they use him. (I’m still waiting to hear where we’ll see the Black Knight too.) We’ll just have to wait and see where Marvel goes from here.
