Chris Hemsworth is looking back at the backlash to Thor: Love and Thunder and admitting that fans may have been onto something. This may be a hopeful sign for Thor’s future outings in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
After Thor: Ragnarok found success by taking Thor out of his Shakespearean fantasy comfort zone and tossing him into a cosmic adventure infused with director Taika Waititi’s sense of humor, Marvel Studios seemingly gave Waititi total freedom for the sequel. Most, including Hemsworth, would agree that it was a mistake, as Waititi’s eclectic taste and sense of silliness overwhelmed Thor’s character, making the whole movie feel like a farce.
“It was kind of like a Monty Python sketch, and we took the piss probably a little much, then there was some backlash,” Hemsworth acknowledged during an appearance on the Smart Less podcast. “There was this real kind of, ‘Why is he a goofball and why is it like this?’”
Marvel’s overindulgence of Waititi’s sensibilities is likely one reason that Thor: Love and Thunder underperformed, both critically (though there are some exceptions) and financially, compared to its predecessor. Thor: Ragnarok has a “certified fresh” 93% on Rotten Tomatoes and grossed $853.9 million at the global box office. Thor: Love and Thunder earned only a 63% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and $760.9 million at the box office.
Marvel Lost the Balance With Thor: Love and Thunder
Thor: Ragnarok was a success for Marvel in large part because it livened up a film series that many fans felt had grown stodgy and a little boring, especially after its straight-faced, formulaic predecessor, Thor: The Dark World (although, again, there are people who feel differently). But Thor: Ragnarok walked a fine line, able to have fun with Thor without sapping all the gravitas from the story, allowing the God of Thunder to make jokes without himself becoming a joke.
Thor: Love and Thunder leaned too hard into the humor, making it difficult to take the hero’s latest solo adventure seriously or invest in the plot emotionally. The closest parallel is probably the shift between Marvel’s The Avengers and Avengers: Age of Ultron, in that the former punctuated its epic story with jokes and levity, while the latter relied on quips and bits to a detrimental effect, almost using humor as a crutch, betraying a lack of confidence in the story the film was meant to tell.
Marvel Can Course-Correct Thor’s Story in Avengers: Doomsday
Thor holding his hammer while in battle in Thor: The Dark WorldImage via Marvel
That Hemsworth feels comfortable acknowledging that Thor: Love and Thunder missed the mark is a good sign, especially since his description of what went wrong matches what fans have been saying about the movie. Marvel also seems to be listening, as evidenced by the Thor-centric teaser for Avengers: Doomsday.
The Avengers: Doomsday trailer sees Thor praying to Odin for the strength to fight one more enemy before returning home to his adopted daughter and giving her the kind of peaceful life he never had. That teaser, at less than 1-and-a-half minutes long, already brings more weight than many would say was present in all of Thor: Love and Thunder.
The key for Marvel will be to not over-correct in the other direction. Thor needs to be a hero fans can take seriously, but no one wants to see a God of Thunder who’s incapable of bantering with the rest of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes.
Thor: Love and Thunder is streaming now on Disney+. Avengers: Doomsday opens in theaters on December 18.
Release Date
July 8, 2022
Director
Taika Waititi
Writers
Taika Waititi, Jennifer Kaytin Robinson
Cast
