In Thor
While Thor: Love and Thunder continues its domain on the box office around the world these days, there are those who vivisect Taika Waititi's film in search of details, easter eggs and curious information. One of the characters that certainly attracts the most attention in this new chapter of the Marvel Cinematic Universe is Zeus, the god of lightning played by Russell Crowe: derived not only from classical mythology but also from a long comic book tradition, the god doesn't turn out much collaborative with Thor and, indeed, from what we understand at the end of the film (attention: little spoiler coming soon!) will represent perhaps the next threat that the character of Chris Hemsworth will have to face. In the meantime, however, excessive acting, the unlikely Greek accent and a certain underlying evil make this Zeus an already cult figure. And to think that Crowe could have played a completely different character.As revealed by CBR, in fact, the Australian actor could have played none other than Satan. We know this through a concept art that was published on Instagram by Miles Teves, the artist to whom the Australian studio Odd Studio, which dealt with the prosthetic effects and the design of the supernatural creatures of this film, had commissioned to imagine Crowe. as the king of the Underworld. In the images, therefore, we see the actor transformed into the most classic of demons, burdened by the numerous sins of gluttony, with horns, a disturbing beard and goat's legs instead of legs. A rather gruesome sight to tell the truth, but in the end it was abandoned in favor of a golden and brighter representation.
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This is enough, however, to imagine that a first script of Thor: Love and Thunder saw Thor and his allies go not to the Omnipotence City where they meet the gods of Olympus, but in the presence of the fallen angel . In the end it was decided to abandon this option, perhaps also in order not to create confusion with the narrative continuity of the comics: in the Marvel books, in fact, a Satan, Hellstrom's sister, appears, but the king of the Underworld is instead called Mephisto, who among the 'more could be behind all the machinations that have involved in the last chapter Scarlet Witch and Doctor Strange. It is therefore likely that a satanic creature will sooner or later make its debut in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but it will not be Satan and it will certainly not be played by Russell Crowe.
What Worked And Didn’t In ‘Thor: Love And Thunder’
MarvelIt seems we can’t go more than a few weeks at a time without some sort of Marvel-related controversy breaking out, and currently, that is the status of Thor: Love and Thunder, a total miss or a total blast, depending on who you ask.
The film is currently one of the lowest scored MCU movies ever by critics, but audience scores move it higher into the middle of the pack. The movie has sparked debates about director Taika Waititi, and how the film compares to his better-received Thor project, Ragnarok, and if his “style” goes too far this time around.
I missed the film opening weekend, but I did catch a matinee on Monday. I have thoughts. Mainly, that I understand most sides here, but ultimately came away liking the film quite a bit. Certain things worked brilliantly, other things…less so. Let’s go through them. Spoilers follow.
Worked – Guardians Intro – I liked this sequence as it was both funny, but also took a rare look at the power disparity between certain heroes in the MCU, which is something the movies usually shy away from. Makes me wonder what a Taika Guardians movie would look like if James Gunn is done after the third. But I thought it was a good opener.
Thor Love and Thunder
MarvelDid Not Work – Screaming Goats – This is one of the repeated gags that I think went a bit over the top in its goofiness. It was funny maybe like, once, but we did not need screaming goat characters the whole movie.
Worked – Thor Hammer Envy – Loved the recurring joke of the jealous Stormbreaker creeping up on Thor. More generally, appreciated the parallels between the hammers and Thor pining after Jane herself after their reunion.
Did Not Work – Jane Foster’s Mighty Thor – Alright, this is a big one, given that it’s like, half the movie. While I have nothing against Natalie Portman’s performance in the movie, and I quite liked her “trying to figure out how to be a superhero” schtick, overall, the handling of Mighty Thor here was just…very strange. The entire idea of Jane becoming Thor to stave off cancer, but the hammer ultimately helping to kill her was just very bizarre, and it felt like there could have been an entirely different origin here that would have worked better. I was also frankly shocked at the decision to kill off Jane (even if she does go to Valhalla) when you could have easily imagined a world where she survives the finale and her and Thor raise Gorr’s daughter together. It just felt odd to go through the entire setup of her becoming Mighty Thor only to have things end like that.
Gorr
ThorWorked – Gorr the God Butcher – I really loved Christian Bale’s Gorr, which includes some deeply weird moments like him tearing the head off a shadow monster to entertain/terrorize his captive Asgardian children. I’ve always loved Gorr’s story in the comics, as his god-slaying rampage has a heartbreaking origin that makes him a more well-rounded villain than most. Marvel has not had a lot of great villains lately, but I thought they did a fantastic job with Gorr here.
Did Not Work – Valkyrie – It’s not that I’m hating on the film’s women characters, I’m hating what the film did with its women. Which is almost nothing in Valkyrie’s case! I love Tessa Thompson in this role but she quite literally did not have anything resembling a character arc at all in this movie. She is bored of being king so she goes adventuring with Jane and Thor, gets stabbed, and misses the final fight. She gets to be “Disney gay” by mentioning her ex-girlfriend and kissing the hand of an Olympus girl. That’s it. She needed much, much more here.
Worked – The grand finale - I loved everything about the ending of the movie, starting from the “empowering the children” sequence which is arguably one of my favorite concepts in MCU history. I also really liked the idea of getting Gorr to choose love and resurrect his daughter instead of killing all gods, and that Thor would adopt her afterward (albeit again, Jane’s death seemed unnecessary for this to work). Even cooler was the fact that I learned later that it was Chris Hemsworth’s actual daughter in the role. The rest of the film may have been somewhat uneven, but man, they really stuck the landing here.
Those are my thoughts, I welcome your own.
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