THOR: LOVE AND THUNDER

THOR: LOVE AND THUNDER reunites Thor with the love of his life, Jane Foster, who’s been strengthened by the power of Thor’s broken hammer, to rescue some kidnapped children and stop a bitter humanoid alien from murdering all the pagan gods of the universe. THOR: LOVE AND THUNDER sometimes mocks the unreliable pagan gods, is filled with funny, often goofy, humor and has a very emotional ending, but it has false pagan references to gods and Norse mythology, about 20 obscenities and three politically correct moments promoting homosexual perversion and same-sex marriage.

The movie opens with an alien humanoid man named Gorr wandering through a vicious desert wind carrying his daughter. He prays to his god to save his daughter, but she dies when they stop by a rock shielding them from the wind. Gorr stumbles and crawls onward, only to find a small, luxurious oasis nearby. He plunges himself into a stream of cool water and starts eating some fruit when he spies his god enjoying himself with the fairy creatures cavorting in the oasis. Gorr asks the golden god why he didn’t save his daughter, and the creature mocks him. Gorr sees a burnt corpse lying nearby next to a sword. He asks what happened, and the god says he has just killed a man who tried to kill him with the sword, which the god says is a magical sword called the Necrosword, which can kill any cosmic being, including a god. Enraged by Gorr’s callous mockery, Gorr grasps the Necrosword and kills the god. He vows to kill all the other gods of the universe out of revenge.

Meanwhile, Thor and the Guardians of the Galaxy are helping a race of blue aliens defend their two religious temples from an army of cat-like aliens. Quill and his shipmates are having a difficult time fighting the army while Thor relaxes. Everyone appeals to Thor to help out with the battle. So, he lazily takes up his giant battle-axe, Stormbreaker, and, in short order, he joins the army. To the blue aliens’ chagrin, however, he also accidently knocks down their two giant temples to their gods.

Back on Earth, Thor’s ex-girlfriend, Jane Foster, has been diagnosed with stage-four cancer, and the chemotherapy doesn’t seem to be working. She reads up on Thor’s mighty hammer, which was broken by Thor’s evil sister in THOR: RAGNAROK. The text she reads says the hammer gives the person wielding it great health. Jane visits the shrine of the broken hammer on New Asgard. When she comes near, the hammer starts to glow, and the pieces begin to reassemble.

Cut to Thor and Korg coming upon two incidents where Gorr, now called The God Butcher, has killed the god of a planet. In the second one, he comes upon a dying Sif, his childhood friend and the former romantic rival to Jane. Sif tells him that Gorr the God Butcher is going to attack New Asgard on Earth next.

At New Asgard, Gorr uses the Necrosword to conjure spidery monsters from the Shadowrealm to attack the village at night. The Viking folk on New Asgard, along with a few alien refugees from the Ragnarok battle, try fighting them off. They seem to be losing until Thor and Korg join the fight. During the battle, Thor spies another warrior who’s dressed like him and who’s wielding his old hammer, which has somehow glued itself back together. The warrior turns out to be Jane, who’s bonded with the hammer, which has transformed her body and apparently cured her cancer. It’s an awkward reunion for both Thor and Jane, but it’s clear there’s still some love between them. Thor recalls telling his hammer to take care of Jane and decides that must be why the hammer has now bonded with her. It’s also clear, though, that Thor still longs to wield his old hammer, which humorously starts making his magical battle-axe, Stormbreaker, act jealous.

Thor, Jane, Korg, and the townspeople seem to be winning the battle against Gorr’s creatures, but they soon discover that, while Gorr and his army retreated, they kidnapped all the children in the village and flew away. The next day, in a town meeting, Thor vows that he, Jane and Korg will go rescue the children. He promises the people they will return soon with the children. The leader of New Asgard, Valkyrie, decides to go with them.

One of the kidnapped children is Axl, the son of Heimdall, the all-seeing, all-hearing guard of the Bifrost Bridge on Asgard who died when Asgard was destroyed by the fire demon during Rangarok. With the powers inherited from his father, Axl manages to speak with Thor. Also, the contact enables Thor to visit the boy and the other kidnapped children. From this contact, Thor surmises that Gorr is taking the children to the Shadowrealm where the Necrosword and the shadow creatures that Gorr commands originate.

Thor decides they need an army of their own to overcome Gorr and his army of darkness and destroy the Necrosword. He also decides to seek help from all the gods of the universe, who have gathered in the Grand Pantheon in Omnipotence City with Zeus, King of the gods. The gods think they’re safe from Gorr, but Gorr plans to steal Stormbreaker and use its power to unlock the “Gates of Eternity,” which he thinks will enable him to slay all the gods at once from there.

Will Zeus give Thor the divine army he wants?

THOR: LOVE AND THUNDER is more like a full-fledged fantasy than the science fiction world that began the new movies featuring Thor. It’s filled with funny, often goofy, humor and has a very emotional, redemptive ending. Although sometimes it mocks the unreliable pagan gods, especially Zeus, the movie acknowledges the false pagan Norse mythology of Valhalla, the paradise where the Norse god Odin welcomes heroes who’ve fallen in battle. The movie also envisions a place called the Gates of Eternity, which seem to be a gateway to an afterlife and a place where people sometimes can make a dying wish come true. The depiction of Eternity in the movie looks a little bit like an abstract cosmic character called Eternity in the Marvel Comics, who’s the leader of a group of abstract entities called the Cosmic Powers. Surrounding the gates in the movie is an expanse of water, which may remind people of the “sea of glass” that precedes Paradise or Heaven in Tolkien’s Christian classic LORD OF THE RINGS and C.S. Lewis’ Christian classic THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA.

THOR: LOVE AND THUNDER also contains about 20 gratuitous obscenities, including many unnecessary “s” obscenities, which the movie’s characters think are funny to repeat. Finally, it has several politically correct moments in the movie where the filmmakers promote homosexual perversion and same-sex marriage. For example, apparently on Korg’s planet, all the talking rock aliens like him are male. At one point, Korg tells people his father “married” a “dude,” and that’s how he was born. In an epilogue, Korg says he eventually marries a “dude” named Daryl. Also, the female leader of New Asgard calls herself a king, and one scene in the movie refers to the many female lovers she’s had in her life.

This woke theology in THOR: LOVE AND THUNDER is obnoxious. Like the movie’s depiction of multiple pagan gods, it contradicts the Bible’s view of Reality and Morality and ignores the true God of the Universe and all of Creation. The filmmakers apply a comical tone to these things, including the idea of homosexuality, but that’s small comfort for any truly media-wise viewer.

The movie’s most redemptive part is the growing relationship between Thor and Jane, as well as Gorr’s love for his daughter, and the plot about rescuing the children from dark forces. All this leads to a satisfying, emotionally powerful and uplifting, but bittersweet, ending. However, the ending is too little, too late to turn LOVE AND THUNDER into an acceptable piece of entertainment.