Thor Love and Thunder

Ugh! More 100+ degree days. I hope all of July and August won't be this bad.

Meanwhile, I saw the new Marvel movie since Taika Waititi directed it, and it also featured Jane Foster as a Thor, based on a comic storyline. Since Marvel already did the story of Thor Odinson being unworthy of Mjolnir in his first film, they didn't repeat it here. The hammer simply bonds to Foster because she is dying of cancer, and Thor Odinson once told the hammer to always protect her. I do like that Jane got to bond with both Darcy and King Valkyrie, and they had talks about her health and heroism. She also insisted on not being called "Lady Thor" but "Mighty Thor," just as Thor had often called himself previously. Meanwhile, Thor was especially clumsy and destructive during a lot of his battles because he had no direction or focus until he saw Jane being a hero.

I had skipped a lot of Thor films and Avengers films previously, but Taika's Korg character helpfully narrated much of the backstory, and the actor Asgardians staged a play summing up recent history as well. I didn't recognize Sam Neill playing Odin until after I looked up the cast later. So I watched it again to see him and the post credit scenes.

SPOILERS

I didn't really like the villain Gorr, and I thought Zeus's accent was ridiculous. The kidnapping story dragged a bit, almost as an excuse to just feature all the director's and actors' kids in the film. But then the children got Thor's powers, and that made the battle better. As for LGBT representation, Valkyrie was able to discuss her past love life, even if we didn't see her in an onscreen romance, while Korg also discussed his parents being both male Kronans, apparently a retcon of something he said in Ragnarok about his mom. So Marvel is finally trying to get some major, named characters to be queer. (America Chavez in the recent Multiverse movie also had lesbian moms, but it didn't mention America herself being gay.) Overall a funny, sometimes emotional, popcorn movie for the summer.