Thor: Love and Thunder (2022)

Director: Taika Waititi

Cast: Chris Hemsowrth, Christian Bale, Tessa Thompson, Natalie Portman

Have I Seen it Before: Nope.

Did I Like It: The film is certainly less enjoyable than the sublime Thor: Ragnarok (2017). There are any number of reasons why. I think the fundamental listlessness of the Marvel Cinematic Universe post Avengers: Endgame (2019) (give or take a Spider-Man or three) is weighing down everything coming from Feige and Co.

That gives us a sense of the mentality that might have led to this, but doesn’t explain the anatomy of the disappointment. Whereas Ragnarok delightfully contorted itself into a cosmic Midnight Run (1988), this is content to be a benign and pedestrian romantic comedy.

Even that could have worked in a limited sort of way, so the real question becomes: why does (even two weeks after seeing the film) it leave a bad taste in my mouth?

It’s not the performances. Hemsworth is still pretty great, and manages to wring every laugh out of the proceedings any mortal man could. It also helps that for several moments he’s placed next to Chris Pratt for several scenes who has gotten blander and blander as time goes on, where Hemsworth continues to show an apt comic presence. While he and Portman don’t quite have the chemistry they possessed in the original Thor (2011), I’ve seen screen couples with far less chemistry, and many of those have had the Marvel vanity card in front of them. Christian Bale proves—not unlike Michael Keaton did in Beetlejuice (1988)—that all of the best Batmen could have credibly played the Joker if they absolutely needed to. Clooneys, Kilmers, and certainly Afflecks need not apply.

The thing that really irks me about the movie is the sharp left turns the story feels the need to take with the character. Some complain that Thor’s weight gain in the most recent Avengers films has been derided by some as a simplistic display of depression and trauma, but it was certainly an attempt to depict some kind of emotional arc for a movie superhero. If you didn’t like that choice, don’t worry. Hemsworth sheds the pounds—and, presumably, the emotions surrounding them—in the film’s opening minutes.

One might think that another left turn in the film’s closing minutes would set things right, but this isn’t missing your exit on the highway. It’s an attempt to hint—perhaps threaten—that Thor 5* will be a repackaged Three Men and a Little Lady (1990).

*Given why this film is called Love and Thunder, the title should have really been held for a next film, should it ever come.

Star Wars - Episode III: Revenge of the Sith (2005)

Director: George Lucas

Cast: Ewan McGregor, Natalie Portman, Hayden Christensen, Ian McDiarmid

Have I Seen it Before: I mean, we came this far. Why wouldn’t we “finish” things?

Did I Like It: You know, it’s an odd thing…

I want to say that anyone who believes this film isn’t the best entry in the prequel trilogy is being disingenuous, at best. I also want to say that anyone who thinks this movie is better than any entry in the original trilogy, is also being disingenuous. And finally, anyone who puts The Last Jedi (2017)* above any of the prequel trilogy are turning what used to be fun movies about space wizards with laser swords into a real chore. Thanks, guys.

Sigh.

Criticism of the Star Wars saga can be thoroughly exhausting, and yet I continue…

In my reviews of the other entries of the prequel trilogy, I lamented that the one element that might have recommended the films previously—the largely computer-generated special effects—tragically age the film beyond anything that Lucas might have originally hoped for. In this final Lucas-directed film, matters have improved slightly. It may not be entirely that there was a quantum leap forward in the effects, but there are more instances of digital characters interacting with one another, and fewer occasions where such creations awkwardly share a frame with an actual human.

That is not to say that the film is without its flaws, but this film’s deepest flaws are with its inherent design, not necessarily its execution. The tendency of prequels to depict scenes that previously lived in the collective imagination of backstory makes those resultant scenes a little less special. Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018) had a similar problem. In my mind, the particulars of how Han Solo won the Millennium Falcon from Lando Calrissian was one of the greatest cons that ever transpired in this galaxy or the other. As depicted in the film, it’s just a well-played game of Sabacc. So, too, the duel on Mustafar between Vader (Christensen) and Obi-Wan (McGregor) always seemed sadder, and maybe a bit more minimalist as I imagined it. It wasn’t the huge, frenetic action sequence that Lucas ended up producing. It’s a minor nitpick, I suppose. Lucas was hell-bent on making the prequels one way or another; this was bound to happen.

Then there’s the real problem with Lucas’ contributions to cinema in the first few years of our new millennium. An advocate—nay, zealot—for shooting and projecting digitally, Lucas opened the century by insisting that if theater wanted to exhibit any of the new Star Wars movies he had coming off the line, that theater had to exhibit digitally. Most theaters acquiesced at least a little bit, and then realized digital projection was far cheaper across the board, and now here we are. Good luck finding a movie exhibited in 35mm. I can count on one hand the amount of movies I’ve actually seen on film in the last ten years. 

There’s a part of me that thinks the reel breaking during a screening of the special edition for The Empire Strikes Back (1980) in 1997 got back to Skywalker ranch, and that was the straw that broke the camel’s back, and now we can’t have nice things anymore.

Do you miss those cigarette holes at the end of each reel? Do you miss the quietly insistent fear that the movie unspooling in front of you might just completely tear itself apart at any moment? Miss seeing the art of cinema displayed on the canvas for which it was intended? I sure do.

We shouldn’t blame Lucas for some fun adventure movies with some rough patches. We should blame him for film not being film anymore.

*That review of Episode VIII is going to be doozy, fam…

Star Wars - Episode II: Attack of the Clones (2002)

Director: George Lucas

Cast: Ewan McGregor, Natalie Portman, Hayden Christensen, Christopher Lee

Have I Seen it Before: Oh, sure. But, strangely, I’m thinking I may have not caught it until it had already been out in theaters for a few weeks, which may be the only instance of that during the Skywalker saga. Speaks to the state of Star Wars immediately post-Phantom Menace.

Did I Like It: Here’s a better question: What is the point in saying one likes or dislikes a Star Wars movie anymore? I say this is the worst Star Wars film, I’m just inviting a migraine inducing lecture about how The Last Jedi (2017) is the worst film in the series, which is fundamentally and objectively not true. I say this is actually the best—or at the very least most narratively consistent—of the prequels, the contrarians.

But this is a review, so I might as well go for broke.

Here’s where I land: this is not the worst Star Wars movie. The Phantom Menace (1999) is far harder to watch. Obi-Wan Kenobi (McGregor) in a solo Jedi detective story? Who honestly has a problem with that?

Now, is the romance between Anakin (Christensen) and Padmé (Portman) filled with a palpable awkwardness? Sure, but aren’t most romances that are doomed to absolute failure. He’s a rageaholic and she’s a classic enabler. Embrace the tragedy; this was the story the prequels—along with the rise of the Empire playing out mostly in the background—were destined to tell.

Now did the story of the fall of Anakin Skywalker ever really need to be told? I’m reasonably sure that it didn’t, but this is a laser sword movie with spaceships (and Yoda [Frank Oz] actually putting his lightsaber skills to use!) if we keep sticking our collective heads up our asses, Lucasfilm is going to start making the long-fabled sequel trilogy, and we’re going to inexplicably complain about those movies, too. Even if they’re good. 

So, you can kind of tell where my review of The Last Jedi is going to go already, right?

Star Wars - Episode I: The Phantom Menace (1999)

Director: George Lucas

Cast: Liam Neeson, Ewan McGregor, Natalie Portman, Jake Lloyd

Have I Seen It Before?: I mean, c’mon. I was alive in May of 1999. How would’ve I managed to avoid it?

Did I like it?: When confronted with that question, all I can do is sigh.

As time has gone on, the prequels—and especially this film—have enjoyed a modicum of critical re-evaluation.

That kinder eye is, unfortunately, completely unearned. 

I could go through all of the things wrong with the movie. Every performance outside of Liam Neeson and Ewan McGregor is leaden to the point of legally being classified as a sedative by the FDA. One might want to write off the performers as unequal to the task, although it feels like punching down to continue to dump on Jake Lloyd, to say nothing of the fact that the rest of the cast have done extraordinary work outside of the saga.

Time has somehow been less kind to the film. Expectation may have eroded away, but there is a reality that Lucas didn’t bargain for that cannot be overcome. If Lucas had known how then state-of-the-art CGI would fair over time, he may have waited even longer before embarking on the production of the prequels. Each CGI creation is fairly impressive in and of itself but loses any credibility as part of a real movie when it has to interact with real actors. It’s why Andy and the rest of the humans in the Toy Story films weren’t played by real humans. It wouldn’t have worked.

I could also drag the plotline for being unfocused at best, and willfully uninteresting at worst. However, try tearing away the C-SPAN in space and the half-baked children’s story about a vacant-eyed boy meeting a racist’s idea of a salamander. The Kurosawa for the 21st century, Space Samurai epic is a pretty watchable movie. Too bad that only accounts for—at best a third of the film. Sometime in the last year, I saw a section of the film with all color removed, and played with the Japanese dub. Someone really should put the whole film through that process. I’d watch it. I suppose it really wouldn’t take that much work to do that, but who really wants to spend any more time thinking about Episode I than they really have to?

There is one thing you can’t take away from this film. For better or worse, it is a George Lucas film. Completely unmoored from the restrictions of budget, the need to collaborate, or the question of success, he was allowed to make a film uniquely his own. Not since Welles was given carte blanche over RKO has someone singularly willed a major motion picture into existence. Take that, those that question the auteur theory!

Thor: The Dark World (2013)

Director: Alan Taylor

Cast: Chris Hemsworth, Natalie Portman, Tom Hiddleston, Christopher Eccleston

Have I Seen it Before: Tragically, it has been the most recent film I’ve seen at the drive-in. It is also the MCU movie I have probably re-watched the least.

Did I Like It: And there’s probably a reason that I haven’t watched it all that much.

I’ve always known this movie was at or near the bottom of many and my own personal rankings of the Marvel movies. I think it hits me in the opening few seconds. It’s not a moment like Superman IV: The Quest For Peace (1987) where something is truly, deeply wrong with the film and there is no chance of improvement. It is more banal than that. Odin (Anthony Hopkins) opens with a sweeping narration about what the Dark Elves are and why Malekith (Eccleston) has a beef with the Asgardians. Now, if you must open your big visual blockbuster with a VO—and I’m not entirely convinced this one does—you could do a lot worse than Hopkins. But, man, do I already want a nap after all that. The film is packed with this warmed-over fantasy banality that the film can never quite come together fully for me.

It is not completely without it’s charms. The pleasing qualities of the first Thor (2011) and what would become the bonkers fun of its successor Thor: Ragnarok (2017) are here, they’re just in highly rationed amounts. The tragically underused Heimdall (Idris Elba) gets a goodly action sequence or two to call his own, whereas he is appears content to just glower and watch for the rest of the series. The score—by MCU score secret weapon Brian Tyler—is actually one of the best of the whole series. Chris Evans’ cameo is quite a bit of fun.

It isn’t a bad movie, really and truly it is a testament to the MCU that they haven’t made an objectively (your mileage may vary) bad film. Nearly every other much shorter film series has a stinker. It’s just so pointedly obvious that everyone involved here—except for perhaps journeyman filmmaker Alan Taylor—is capable of so much more.

Now, that all having been said, if this review makes you put this film in the “non-essential” category, I don’t know if I would go that far, either. Missing The Dark World will make a large portion of the middle hour of Avengers: Endgame (and some truly enchanting expositioning from the freely wacky Thor) largely incomprehensible, and would rob that far more amvbitious film of some decent emotional beats. If that isn’t a recommendation (if a slightly damning one), then I don’t know what is.

Thor (2011)

Director: Kenneth Branagh

Cast: Chris Hemsworth, Natalie Portman, Tom Hiddleston, Anthony Hopkins

Have I Seen it Before: Less frequently than I had originally thought. Aside from Iron Man (2008) I really have not re-watched much of the Phase One MCU films.

Did I Like It: I think I liked it at the time of the premiere, but in light of far more entertaining uses of the character, I’m not sure it has aged as well as some of the other Phase One-ers.

This film is at odds with itself, or at least my reaction to it is at odds with itself. 

On one hand, it is a highly staged cgi-drowned tale of Kings and their realms. This is probably what caused the powers behind Marvel studios to think of Kenneth Branagh as the director, and what may have drawn the Shakespeare adapter-in-chief to the project. This is a fine, but quickly boring aesthetic on which to base a film. One need look to the more focused—and infinitely more forgettable—sequel, Thor: The Dark World (2013) for how far such stodgy staging will get you.

The other half of the film is even more baffling. Groaning under budget constraints at a time where a shared Marvel universe wasn’t necessarily a guaranteed way to print money, the rest of the film plays out in a nearly abandoned New Mexican town, with a few scant explosions, and one CGI robot thing. A far cry from the epic films we expect from the studio now. This is all to say that half of this film looks cheap. TV cheap. Like Agents of SHIELD during seasons when everyone stopped watching cheap. It’s such an odd relic of an era for these films that seems like it took place a million years ago.

But, the MCU—and more importantly Thor, Odinson continued—and there are charms in the film that allowed the experiment to continue. What it lacks in the traditional whiz-bang blockbuster magic, it more than makes up for in engaging performances. Chris Hemsworth threatened the world with his movie star charms in J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek (2009), and while the goofy comedian behind the manhunk doesn’t come into full bloom until Thor: Ragnarok (2017), we see pieces of the once and future Ghostbuster Secretary Kevin here. Similarly, Natalie Portman sheds the Padme Amidala of it all and—while it’s not exactly heavy lifting in the film—convincingly engages in a screen romance.

i suppose it says something about the Marvel movies that they are supremely watchable in their initial release, but seem quaint as the movies only improve. Imagine a world where Avengers: Endgame (2019) feels quaint. I’m already exhausted.