Thor: Love and Thunder (3/5 Stars)

 

I don’t think anyone could have predicted that Thor would be the Marvel character to be the first to get a fourth movie. After all, Iron Man had gotten his third before anyone had even gotten their second and Thor’s second movie “The Dark World” is arguably the worst Marvel movie ever made. But Marvel took a fairly substantial and ultimately successful risk with the third movie “Ragnarok”, replacing the pseudo-Shakespearean seriousness of the first two installments with the rainbow goofiness of Taika Waititi, the new director of “Ragnarok” and here as well “Love and Thunder”. So dramatic was the reorientation of the Thor franchise, that the third movie left out entirely the largest subplot of the first two movies, Thor’s romantic relationship with the scientist Jane Foster, played by Natalie Portman. Say all you want about the acting chops of Natalie Portman (and there is much to say), but she isn’t all that funny. Given the new direction, ditching her was probably a wise move. But her story was still out there to wrap up. This “Love and Thunder” does while expanding dramatically the “Thor” universe of the “Marvel Universe”. 

There’s a lot of expanding going on all over the place in the Marvel Universe Phase 4. I watched the TV Series “Loki” and that introduced an infinite amount of timelines. I watched “Spider-Man: No Way Home” and “Dr. Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” and that introduced an infinite amount of universes. I didn’t watch “The Eternals” but it seemed from the trailer that Marvel had decided to start its own religion (diverse and abnormally good looking, just like the world’s present elite). Now “Love and Thunder” establishes that every polytheistic religion in history has real gods that all hang out together in Omnipotent City. There is, among others, Queztalcoatl the Aztec god, Bast the Egyptian god, some sort of Samurai god, and Bao the god of dumplings. They are ostensibly led by Zeus, played here by a fat Russel Crowe with a Greek accent. It is hard to tell where Marvel is eventually going with all of this, but I expect it will be a bit more difficult to tie together something with the weightiness of the previous Avengers movie. After all, what does it matter what occurs in an Avengers movie when it has been established that we are watching but one timeline in one universe with an infinite amount of other timelines and other universes where something else entirely different occurs. I expect Marvel was always going to have this problem no matter what if had gotten so successful that it eventually introduced all of its characters. It seems like an exceedingly wise decision looking back to start the journey with the simplest of heroes, Iron Man, whose superpower was mechanical in nature. It helps to ease the audience into it. 

It was once opined by some person whose name escapes me that the advent of comic book characters was like the resurrection of the old polytheism. (I only remember that this person went on to prepare a thesis about this topic and then became a professor who taught this class for his entire career). I think that is only fitting that a villain of the “Thor” universe be a character named Gorr, The God Butcher, who vaguely resembles Jesus. What do I mean by that? Well, for one he is played by a thin Christian Bale and is dressed in sandals and a robe. He looks vaguely like Jesus might if he were a character in a Marvel movie. Also like Jesus (at least as compared to the old polytheistic gods) he lacks a sense of humor and is a bit of zealot. But really, the biggest similarity is that he is going around killing all of the gods, much like the intolerant Christians (and also Muslims) of history. It is not a mistake that Marvel did not include Jesus (and especially not the Prophet Mohammed) in the crowd in Omnipotent City. There would have been protests in America and riots in the Middle East. 

In “Ragnarok” the villain played by Cate Blanchett was kind of by-the-numbers and the weakest part of the movie. Here, Gorr the Butcher is one of the strongest parts. In particular, Christian Bale’s performance is so strong and his arguments so on point there is a real danger that his seriousness might overpower the goofiness of Thor’s new groove. Here is an example of how Taika Waititi (and his co-writer Jennifer Kaitlin Robinson) deftly avoid that. In one scene the children of New Asgaard (appropriately now a tourist attraction in the Disney owned Marvel Universe, see The Northman) are kidnapped by Gorr the Butcher, spirited to the Shadow Realm and threatened with death. Thor explains to the children that they are in a tight spot, but as they are Vikings of Asgaard, they will gain eternal reward in Valhalla should they die in glorious battle. Classic Thor. 

Two more notes. First, in one scene Thor gets his clothes blown off. The movie clearly uses CGI on Thor’s naked body. Really? Is even Chris Hemsworth not good looking enough for a Marvel movie? Second, one of the throw-away scenes involves an allusion to gay romance. I don’t think Marvel should get diversity credit for that unless they keep it in the Chinese version.

Jojo Rabbit (4/5 Stars)

In 2006, I visited family friends in Uberach, Germany as a prelude to my study abroad in college. During my time there, I happened be introduced to this little old lady that lived in the village. After she had left the general area, for whatever reason, my hosts informed me that she had been in the Hitler Youth and after the war spent her entire life helping refugees escape from the Soviet Union. Her? Yes, that little old lady with the kind eyes had once been a Nazi. I saw “Jojo Rabbit” the new film by Taika Waititi and thought of her.

“Jojo Rabbit” is about a ten-year-old boy in the Hitler Youth. It is a club like the Boy Scouts. The boys are taken out to the woods by camp counselors where they dress in uniforms, learn survival crafts, and sleep in tents. Not like the Boy Scouts they also burn books, are taught how to handle guns and grenades and are counseled in basic cruelty. One day, Jojo is picked out of the crowd and instructed to strangle a rabbit. Poor Jojo can’t bring himself to do it and all the other boys make fun of him. Jojo runs off into the woods where his imaginary friend comforts him. His imaginary friend is Adolf Hitler or, more accurately, what a timid would-be Nazi boy would imagine Adolf Hitler to be like. Hitler here is played by the Writer/Director himself, Taika Waititi, and well, he is zealous but in a goofy way. He's funny.

Apparently, Taika Waititi adapted this screenplay from a novel. It is hard to believe that the novel is anything like the movie in terms of tone. I expect the novel had a boy in the Hitler Youth and that was about where the similarities end. There is just too much here that seems from the same mind as "Flight of the Conchords" and "Thor: Ragnorak". For whatever reason, Waititi thought it would be appropriate for a native of New Zealand like himself to make this movie. Good for him. We need more filmmakers with balls like that in this day and age. I especially approve of his application of white-face to play Hitler.

 “Jojo Rabbit” is as much of a comedy that a movie with this subject matter could be and still be plausibly respectful. The movie has bright colors, gorgeous weather, and colorful characters. Chewing up the scenery in supporting roles are Sam Rockwell, Rebel Wilson and Stephen Merchant, three inspired casting choices for comic Nazis. Scarlett Johannsson plays Jojo’s mother, Rosie. Thomasin McKenzie plays the jew who is hiding in the walls of the house. Jojo’s discovery of the jew, the first one he has ever actually met, kicks off the movie’s second half.

A storytelling technique that Waititi deftly employs is to limit the information about the war. The audience basically know as much as Jojo and it is only gradually revealed that the Nazis are losing and have been losing from the start of the movie. (One of the reasons that the kids are being taught how to handle weapons has to do with Hitler’s late war plan of using children in the fighting.) The movie takes place between the lines. We understand Jojo is not evil because he is ten-years-old and barely knows what is happening around him. But what about his mother? What does she believe? Has she allowed Jojo to take part in the Hitler Youth to protect him, to protect herself, or what? What about the other Nazis? They seem to know at some point that the war is unwinnable. Their choices in the face of that situation are never boring. Because Jojo’s understanding is somewhat limited, our understanding is limited to, and in that way “Jojo Rabbit” may be very good movie to see twice.

I am amazed again at the acting chops of a child actor. Jojo is played by Roman Griff Davis. This is that kid's first major role in anything (although he does come from a family in the movie business). He couldn’t be any cuter. Almost by default is is heart-rending/warming to see a kid like that go through the Huck Finn transformation in which a good heart ultimately triumphs over the evil indoctrination. This development necessarily pits Jojo against his imaginary friend Adolf. The climatic scene is unfortunately too short, I felt, and my one disappointment.

 Taika Waititi has cemented himself in my mind as one of the more interesting storytellers around. I expect I expect I will try to see all of his work going forward and look up everything I missed in the past.

Thor: Ragnarok (4/5 Stars)

For those that felt Thor would be more entertaining if his tragic flaw was stupidity as opposed to pride (see my review of “Thor”) and did not bother seeing the second movie because it looked more stilted and oppressive than the first, the third movie in the “Thor” saga is exactly the course-correction the character and story sorely needed.

One half of the story is business-as-usual. There is a political crisis in Asgaard. Odin has finally died (or has he?) and his long-lost daughter, Hella, played by none other than Cate Blanchett, has come back from the throne. As she is Odin’s eldest issue and apparently was his right-hand person in establishing Odin’s empire, she has a pretty good argument for being Queen. Thor, played by Chris Hemsworth, and his brother Loki, Tom Hiddleston, aren’t going for it though and try to start a fight. She defeats them handily and even crushes Thor’s mighty hammer.

Thor lost his hammer in the first movie, but whereas in that movie the event inspired soul-searching and just a little bit of crying, in this movie Thor’s loss of his hammer merely serves to knock a few power notches off the characters ability points so the fights he undertakes afterwards are fairer and funnier. Thor finds himself on a garbage dump planet ruled by the Grandmaster, Jeff Goldblum, who specializes in providing gladiatorial contests. The whole scene feels like the color scheme and outgoing nature of “Guardians of the Galaxy” has been injected into the Thor universe (or that Thor has taken a vacation in the “Guardians of the Galaxy” universe for a spell.) This works much better than one would perhaps think. Thor has never been especially funny, but becomes quite useful for initiating and returning jokes in this movie. It helps that Chris Hemsworth is an underrated comic actor and is particularly good at being a dumb blonde hunk (see the recent “Ghostbusters” reboot).

Surrounding Thor in the trash world are other routinely funny characters. Jeff Goldblum, an inspired piece of casting if there ever was, is essentially playing a meme-version of himself. Given that he is technically the bad guy, his weirdly punctual way of stilted speaking deprives any sense of foreboding in the story. He enters Thor in a non-consensual gladiatorial contest. There Thor meets a rock giant named Korg whose accent and style of speaking is reminiscent of the “The Flight of the Conchords.” That is no mistake. He is voiced by a director of that series, Taika Watiti, who also is the director of this movie. Thor also meets the reigning champion, none other than the Incredible Hulk, who has eschewed his Dr. Jekkyl-Bruce Banner persona for a running two years because this garbage planet actually likes the other guy. Thor without his hammer is a bit like Superman consistently surrounded by Kryptonite. It brings him down to earth where Hemsworth comic abilities allow the rest of us to laugh at him. It also helps that they shaved off his pretentious long hair.

The battle scenes in Thor: Ragnarok are spectacular and not so cringe-inducing as most other blockbuster movies. I’ve complained ad infinitum about nameless and countless humans being destroyed in great movie spectacles of violence without anyone in the story particularly caring. This is less of a concern when the characters are gods and cannot actually die or get all that much hurt. The gladiatorial contest between Thor and The Hulk is especially pleasurable.

Given that one-half of the movie is consistently funny and fun to be around, the other half seems to lull in parts. This has got to be the first time that I have written that Cate Blanchett does not inhabit the most interesting part of a movie. Here it is true, but it is mainly because the Thor-Hulk story-line is so entertaining. I got a great kick out of it and look forward to the next Thor movie.

p.s. If Thor is the God of Thunder and he can summon thunderbolts, why would he not be immune to tasers that use electric shocks.