Thor: Love and Thunder. (Taika Watiti, director.) I finally went to see a movie at a local AMC. The theater had aged badly during the Covid-19 pandemic (no surprise—no ticket sales implying no upkeep), but the seats were still comfy and the projector and sound system seemed to be as I remembered it. However, because this is what’s first in my list that I took home about my experience, you’ll understand why in hindsight I wished that I’d waited for a better movie.

The last really good movie I saw was PBS’s Around the World in Eighty Days (my review is this blog’s 3/4/2022 post), and that was on TV, not the big screen. When you consider how many movie reviews I’ve made over the years—this is the 86^th—you know my movie watching on that huge silver screen has diminished considerably.

When I was ready to make the leap, even though Covid is taking off again, I didn’t want to do it with Tom Cruise’s Top Gun sequel. I suppose the cinema moguls thought that repeating that first zero-plot extravaganza would bring in viewers. Not this viewer! First, I hate sequels. Second, I can’t stand the egotistical and narcissistic Scientologist, who like other actors in that secretive cabal, can’t act. So, as someone who grew up with Marvel Comics, I opted for Thor, hoping for another origins flick like Wonder Woman and The Black Panther.

Big mistake! While there are a few flashbacks to Thor’s origins, the movie was a terrible mishmash of Marvel mythology—Norse gods, Greek gods, demigods, the female king of Asgard (Tessa Thompson), ETs, and that comical and ribald guardians-of-the-galaxy crew (Chris Pratt et al.). The plot is trite and boring: An evil villain, Gorr the God Butcher (Christian Bale), wants to kill all the gods with his special sword. (He has a point—pardon the pun—at least in this movie with its many Marvel-ous distortions.) Thor (Chris Hemsworth) and friends want to stop Gorr. End of plot. If you don’t take any of this seriously—a kid using a teddy bear as a weapon put me over the edge—you might have some fun.

I knew this was a bomb when I observed that the best moments belong to Russell Crowe playing Zeus as an old gay guy, complete with faux-Greek accent (on second thought, he probably insulted all three groups, gays, Greeks, and the gods of Olympus). I suppose the ladies in the audience, from twelve to eighty-two or thereabouts in our audience, loved to see Thor in the buff when Zeus whips off all his clothes.

Maybe this movie could serve as a lesson for future screenwriters on how to turn a trivial and trite good-versus-evil plot into two torturous hours of pointless special effects? At a cost of $250 million to make, the movie has to gross $500 to be considered a success. I doubt that it will. But who knows?

At least it was something for us to do on a very hot day—campy fun at times and best when not trying to be serious, where the movie failed miserably. Oh, I forgot to mention that, besides the overwhelming special effects, the music was good when I could hear it over the battle grunts and dying screams of all the warring parties. Otherwise, this movie was an experience I prefer to forget as soon as I can possibly do so. Maybe the minions will help me erase the bad memories?

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Legacy of Evil. Due to today’s efficiency in self-publishing, my latest novel from Draft2Digital was published soon after Celtic Chronicles, Book Nine in the “Esther Brookstone Art Detective” series, but it’s more of a sequel to The Klimt Connection, Book Eight, where you first met the protagonist. Former Scotland Yard Inspector Steve Morgan receives his first murder case after a transfer to Bristol PD and a stressful secondment to MI5. An old man’s murder is soon followed by three related ones. Their investigations lead the DI and his team to probe the operations of a national crime syndicate as well as uncover a Russian oligarch’s plans to destabilize the UK. Eventually, both MI5 and NCA become involved. Available wherever quality ebooks are sold (just not on Amazon).

Around the world and to the stars! In libris libertas!

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