Thor: Love and Thunder - 4K Digital Review

[Michael Scott]

Thor: Love and Thunder

Movie:
Video:
Audio:
Extras: :
Final Score:


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Movie
Thor: Love and Thunder marks a first for Marvel studios. They have officially given a super hero a FOURTH solo film, and this was one of the most hotly contested films of the MCU by lovers and haters of the franchise. Lovers were ecstatic that Taika Waititi was coming back as Thor Ragnarok was the most widely loved Thor film of all time, and this looked it was going to be a gonzo blast as well. We get Gorr the God Butcher (and of course the introduction of the symbiotes and Knull into the MCU thanks to the necrosword that Gorr weilds. Not to mention the trailer just looked absolutely nuts. However, there was a lot of trepidation as well, considering it was leaked early on that this was going to include “Lady Thor” with Jane Foster reprising her role as Jane Foster. A move with excited some, but made others worry that this was not only going to shove Thor himself to the back of his own movie, and also due to the fact that the Lady Thor series of comics was one of the worst received of it’s kind. Ends up, we were all kind of right, and all kind of wrong.

Thor (Chris Hemsworth) is getting back in shape after Endgame, and taking over once more as a rogue hero of the innocent. He’s gotten ripped, he and storm breaker are kicking butt and taking names, and along with the Guardians of the Galaxy is taking care of injustice all over the galaxy instead of just Earth and Asgard. Well, that all comes to a stop when he gets a message from Lady Sif (Jamie Alexander) warning of a god killer literally destroying all of the gods of the galaxy one by one. Heading off to where Sif was last heard from, we get to see the wreckage caused by someone known as Gorr the God Butcher (Christian Bale). Gorr wields a necrosord of immeasurable power that has the ability to slay the immortals, and is using it to systematically kill EVERY god in the galaxy on his path towards utilizing the Bifrost, which is the key towards opening up a mystical place at the center of the galaxy that can grant one their one desire.

Welp, that means Thor is going to have to head home and get some help, only to find that help has already come in the form of….well...Thor. Turns out that the broken fragments of Mjolnir called out to Jane Foster (Natalie Portman), who is suffering from terminal cancer. Pulled to her purity of heart (I guess), the hammer reforged itself and gives Jane the power of Thor, including hammer, armor, and godlike powers. Teaming up with his old flame, Thor and….Thor head out to beg the elder gods to join them in their fight to stop Gorr before he gets to fulfill his own wish and eliminates them ALL at once.

Thor: Love and Thunder is….interesting...to say the least. As a fan of Taika Waititi I was pleasantly surprised how well he kept a balance of action and humor with Thor: Ragnarok. I mean, I didn’t always think the direction was perfect, as I could have used just a little bit less of Waititi’s infamous slapstick humor, but it was a smash hit among fans and easily the best of the Thor films. However, Taika is drunk on his own supply here, and given FREE REIGN of the entire movie to do what he likes. This ends up literally slamming the movie into the ground as the director/writer/actor literally cranks up his trademark humor to 15 on a scale of 1-10, and just has a drunken party on set and filmed it. The humor is so ridiculous in the first 15 minutes that I was wondering if we were watching a special feature short instead of the actual film. It gets a bit better once Gorr comes into play full time and he has to deal with Jane, but the movie is soooooooooooo slapstick and out of control that it’s really hard to watch at times.

Hermsworth himself does great as a goofy Thor like he was the last couple of movies, but it’s a sad state of affairs for those of us who loved the original Thor movies and longed for a return to when he was semi serious character. Lady Sif is literally used for a throwaway scene that could have been serious and impactful, but Taika plays it for laughs with our main characters joking about losing a limb and that possibly be in Valhalla, and fart jokes in other places. Portman….well, Portman sleep walks her way through this one about as badly as she did in Thor 2, but we’re used to that. Christian Bale himself has to go to physical therapy after doing this films, as his shoulders must be in incredible pain at carrying the entire film on them. Bale quite handily handles the seriousness and deadliness of the God Butcher with relative ease, quite literally scene stealing every shot he’s in. He hams it up just enough to where you love watching him revel in darkness, but serious enough that you don’t find him a joke, like you do every other character in the film.

All in all, It’s not a train wreck, but Thor: Love and Thunder is a massive step down from Thor: Ragnarok, possibly even supplanting Thor 2 for the worst one of the series. The movie has it’s fun moments, especially near the end with Thor and Mighty Thor teaming up to take down Gorr, the movie’s constant overuse of humor (seriously, the goats were funny the first two times, and then they became annoying) and the phoned in performances seriously dampen the enjoyment factor. From what I’ve able to glean from interviews, characters talking on set, and word of mouth is that Taika was given free reign and basically just had a party on set while filming. It’s one of those scenarios where the actors were having a blast because they were working with a comedic madman who was letting them ad lib and just have a jolly old times, but forgot that you need more than just humor to make a good super hero film.




Rating:

Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of sci-fi violence and action, language, some suggestive material and partial nudity.




Video:

As usual I don’t give an actual written score for the film’s video encode as I’m watching from a streaming moviesanywhere digital copy and that is highly dependent on bandwidth available to the end user. That being said, I had my jaw hanging on the floor just watching the stream. This has to be one of the most impressively saturated display of HDR highlights that I have ever seen. It was so bright, so rich, so deeply saturated that for those without tone mapping or the like on your displays very well may want to crank down the brightness a bit. The armor on Thor and ...Thor… is incredible, and the black levels are so inky black that I couldn’t even detect mild banding on my 85 inch display. This is simply one sickeningly beautiful looking encode, and this coming from a stream.








Audio:

The Atmos track available on the stream is much like most of Marvel’s MCU tracks of late. A very good track with a few issues. The dialog is always well placed up front and perfectly balanced with the rest of the mix. The surrounds are used quite heavily and some of the overhead usage was quite impressive (Zeus’s temple, or the end battle with Gorr for example), and overall it’s a very solid mix. But of course we have the typical Atmous elements that bleed in with a track that needs a good push to the volume knob before leveling out, and of course the feeling that the bass just doesn’t hit that hard. I mean, it’s there and got plenty of oomph. But that massive low end power is just rather tamped down. Again, pretty typical of modern day MCU films.







Extras:

• Audio Commentary with Director/Writer Taika Waititi
• Gag Reel
• Another Classic Taika Adventure
• Hammer-Worthy; Thor and The Mighty Thor
• Deleted Scenes
• Shaping a Villain

Final Score: ​

This was a weird watching experience for me, especially on the second go around. In the theaters I was sort of just stunned with the out of control comedy that we see before us today, and by the time I got this digital copy from Disney I was hoping I might warm up to it after my initial shock. Turns out I wasn’t. It’s still a jumbled mess of a film that has some very fun moments, and some INCREDIBLE HDR on display. The movie is probably the worst of the Thor films, but is still entertaining enough for those of you who just want to relax and have a laugh. If the digital 4K stream is anything to go by, this is going to be an incredible 4K disc as well. Rental is my recommendation.


Technical Specifications:

Starring: Chris Hemsworth, Christian Bale, Natalie Portman, Tessa Thompson, Russell Crowe, Taika Waittiti, Jamie Alexander
Directed by: Taika Waititi
Written by: Taika Waititi
Aspect Ratio: 2.39:1
Audio: English: Dolby Atmos, English DD+
Subtitles:
Studio: Disney/Buena Vista
Rated: PG-13
Runtime: 119 Minutes
Digital Release Date: September 6th, 2022 (4K/Blu-ray/DVD available September 27th)

Recommendation: Rental

 

[tripplej]

Thanks for the review. It seems the most recent movies from Marvel are not as good as their previous set.. Hopefully they will be able to turn them around.

 

[mechman]

I agree with your assessment on the streamed video of this Michael! It was top notch!