And Now for Something Relatively Different

Not completely different, but pretty different from what we've been doing. 

On Monday, Mrs. Graybeard and I went to see the latest Marvel movie, Thor: Love and Thunder on a Monday midday matinee.  As usual here in the Silicon Swamp, the movie house, while a 10-plex with shows in several theaters staggered throughout the day, wasn't in the least bit crowded.  

I've said many times that Thor: Ragnarok has been my favorite of the Marvel Cinematic Universe movies and just tons of lighthearted fun - for a topic as serious as the end of the world for Thor's planet, Asgard.  Love and Thunder challenges it on many levels and is the most fun of what the MCU folks call phase 4 movies.  There's a tough reality of rating movies if you try to be consistent; I've seen Love and Thunder exactly once while I've seen Ragnarok on TV often enough that I practically know much of the dialog.  Given the novelty of the experience with Love and Thunder compared to Ragnarok, I'll say Love and Thunder is every bit as good as Ragnarok.  

The reason is pretty simple.  The same three people who had the biggest impact on Ragnarok are the major contributors in this movie: Director/Writer/Actor Taika Waititi, along with stars Chris Hemsworth and Tessa Thompson.  

L-R, Chris Hemsworth, Tessa Thompson, Taika Waititi and Natalie Portman.  In the movie, Thor Odinson, King Valkyrie of New Asgard, Korg (the sentient pile of rocks) and Jane Foster.

Natalie Portman was in the first couple of Thor movies and is a well-known, A-list actress, but was missing from Ragnarok and the movies in Avengers story arcs.  As part of developing the backstory for the movie and character development, they explain how Thor and Jane "grew apart and broke up."

I honestly think that for those of you likely to see this movie what I have to say won't mean much, and if you wouldn't see it at any price because of contributing a penny to the companies involved, what I have to say will mean even less than that.  Like absolutely nothing.  I had heard some rumors of wokeness and other silliness but I honestly didn't see anything.  No in-your-face, obligatory, LGBQWERTY characters.  Just a lot of fun.  Taika introduces visual elements that are apparently intended just to be silly.  There's lots of that.  The MCU is so big that big name actors, like Russell Crowe, play bit parts or even play bit parts but keep their name out of the credits, like Matt Damon.  

It's two hours of pure entertainment and good story-telling.  Despite the arguably dark story it's telling.  As others have said, - if you have superheroes you need to have bad guys with superpowers to challenge them.  In this one, it's actor Christian Bale as Gorr the God Killer, set out to kill all the ancient gods; not just Thor and the Asgard gods but Zeus and all the rest.  Along the way, there's lots of superhero and good vs. evil stuff with flashy CGI.  There's a very dark story line buried not far below the surface that I won't touch.