Thor Love & Thunder was Damn Good

MAJOR SPOILER WARNING

Thor Love and Thunder begins with the debut of Christian Bale's Gorr the God Butcher and it showcases Gorr before turning into the God Butcher with his daughter struggling to stay alive and praying to the Gods to save his daughter. The daughter eventually dies and Gorr then hears a voice calling to him, he heads that direction to find an oasis where his god is celebrating. The necrosword is then resurrected into Gorr's hands and slays the god making a vow to kill all Gods (like he says in the trailer). Then the opening MCU credits roll through, starting the movie off with a background story on Gorr felt perfect and not just randomly thrown in the middle of the story.

After the MCU credits, Korg is telling the story of how Thor grew up to where he is today to a crowd of Asgardian children. They do a great job in this short montage showcasing Thor and piecing together quite well what he has been through and where he is heading. They went through all the death and loss he has had to endure along with every battle he has faced. The Guardians of the Galaxy make their return and Peter Quill's facial hair is jaw dropping to saw the least. It's a mixture of thick side burns to a mustache and every time he was on screen I could not look away from it, and I still do not know if I hate it or love it.

Anyway, when looking for their next adventure, Sif makes her return to the big screen MCU (Loki is a TV show dummies) when she's calling for Thor warning him of Gorr. Thor and Peter have a good heart to heart before they depart and Peter gives Thor advice to learn to love and let people close because it is better to feel shitty about losing someone then to not feel shitty at all. Some great advice not only to Thor but to everyone in general. The Guardians then quickly depart from Thor wanting to quickly leave him, Korg and his two newly acquired flying screaming goats.

Then we cut to Jane Foster coming out of chemo. Very cool to see the comic book story come to real life with Jane having cancer and her struggling to cope with it. Darcy also makes her return to the MCU big screen with her trying to care for Jane and also giving her the idea to reach out to Thor aka the Space Viking to help. Jane denies, and later on when returning home she starts to hear a voice calling to her. The scene cuts to Asgard and actor Thor and Loki make their return for a rendition of Hela destroying Mjolnir. I cracked up when Matt Damon and Luke Hemsworth were on the screen, shoutout Taika. Then after the play ends, Jane finds herself in front of Mjolnir which starts to light up and thunder starting to rumble.

Story picks back up with Thor, Korg and the two goats head to Sif where we pick up from this scene in the trailer:

Thor and Korg find Sif, missing an arm, and her warning them that Gorr is coming and Asgard is next. The three then Bifrost back to Asgard to find them in the midst of a battle with shadow monsters. Valkyrie comes flying in on her Pegasus wearing pajamas slaying shadow monsters and Thor and Korg come in guns a blazing.

Thor then notices some action happening away from himself, Korg and Valkyrie and goes to investigate. Only to find Jane Foster as The Mighty Thor, wielding Mjolnir. This was a great reunion because it was funny, genuine, awkward and clearly you can tell the two still had feelings for each other from the second they made eye contact. Thor notices Gorr in the back and charges him. The two have a mini battle, which inevitably was Gorr's plan, as he had the shadow monsters take the Asgardian children from their homes to a cage which he then escaped with them to the shadow realm.

Heimdall makes his return! In the form of his son Axl, when he reaches out to Thor through the all seeing vision. Thor then teaches Axl to show him where they are and that's when he figures out the children are in the shadow realm and he must recruit Gods to help him stop Gorr and save the Asgardian children. The team of Thor, Jane, Korg and Valkyrie head off to Omnipotence, the city where all Gods are. They enter the city and sit on Zeus' roundtable of sorts to all the Gods. The team finding their seats passes many gods and even a fucking dumpling god call Bao which was funny as hell and completely unnecessary but I loved it either way.

The team sits down and Zeus introduces himself and showcases his weapon, The Thunderbolt, and it is damn sweet. Then Thor gets the chance to plead his case to Zeus and the Gods, but before that Zeus rips off Thor's clothes (like in the trailer) and about half the crowd nearly faints. Say what you want about Zeus but the way he was portrayed was exactly who I think of Zeus to be, a very powerful yet eccentric man that loves to party. I mean his number one topic was planning this years orgy.

Zeus reveals to Thor that Gorr will never reach Eternity, which if he does he is granted one wish that will come true, realizing that Thor pleads once again and at least asks to use Thunderbolt in battle. Zeus refuses all attempts and goes onto imprisoning Thor and the team so they do not reveal where Omnipotence is to Gorr. Thor and team fight their way through the guards when Zeus finally steps into action throwing Thunderbolt right through Korg. I was shocked, I didn't want my boy to die! Thor then picks up Thunderbolt and throws it right throw Zeus' fucking chest sending him falling to the ground, fucking insane. Thor goes over to the pile of rocks and find a Korg face still alive (thank god). The two goats come flying in to rescue them and they head off to the shadow realm with Thunderbolt in hand.

On the way to the shadow realm Thor and Jane finally have their long awaited, eight years seven months and 6 days to be exact, heart to heart and Jane admits she has cancer and Thor's initial reaction is why she didn't want to tell him or anyone. Thor immediately feels sorry for Jane but after realizing she does not want to be felt sorry for her he tries to explain, in a very Thor way, the way Starlord explained to him about the wanting to feel shitty. Knowing Thor, Jane understood and they FINALLY kiss again and it was a solid passionate kiss and it made the two characters relationship arc come full circle again.

The team arrives at the shadow realm to find an empty cage with no Asgardian children. They go explore the realm to find Gorr's "home" of sorts. While splitting up Jane discovers that Stormbreaker and the Bifrost are the keys to get to Eternity. She yells out to Thor and Valkyrie and is able to hurl Stormbreaker deep into space but this was Gorr's plan all along as he comes out of the shadows and has some shadow tentacle beings bound the trio.

Gorr then goes to Thor and tells him to bring back Stormbreaker and after torturing Valkyrie and Jane by haunting of their past and present (Valkyrie with leaving her sisterhood and girlfriend behind in battle and Jane having cancer and letting her Mighty Thor persona mask the feeling) Thor eventually brings back Stormbreaker ready to fight and the trio have at it. Gorr is able to take Thunderbolt from Valkyrie and wound her and as the trio are escaping through the Bifrost, Gorr comes out of the shadows and grabs Stormbreaker as they get beamed up.

The scene flashes to Jane back in the hospital looking very ill and receiving cancer treatment. Thor explains to her that Mjolnir is weakening her and every time she picks up the hammer it erases any treatment she had received and inevitably makes her more sick. Thor professes to her that he is in love with her and wants to fight this not for her but for them, Jane accepts his plea and lets Thor go take on Gorr and save the children alone. Before leaving Valkyrie is healing her wound and obviously staying back handing Thor Thunderbolt and then taking off for Eternity.

Thor finds Eternity and the children and as he's ensuring their safety he sees Gorr with Stormbreaker at the doorway to Eternity. Thor talks to Axl and the children and has them all pick up a weapon of sorts then after a typical Thor pre fight hype speech grants all the children the (temporary) power of Thor, which who the fuck knew Thor could do that but that's bad ass so I'll allow it. The children take on the shadow monsters while Thor goes after Gorr. Battling back and forth, Gorr has the upper hand and is inching the necrosword closer and closer to Thor's throat when out of nowhere, but definitely expected, Mjolnir smacks the necrosword away from Thor's throat allowing him to escape. In a scene where no words were spoken but just looks between Thor and Jane you can just sense the sadness filled in Thor's eyes and as for Jane she seemed ready to end this fight with Gorr and her own with cancer. The two eventually destroy the necrosword while also (temporarily) destroying Mjolnir, which then causes Jane to turn from The Mighty Thor back to cancer ridden Jane Foster. Gorr eventually makes his way to Eternity and the whole area changes to an overcast sky and a shallow water ground.

Gorr is in front of Eternity ready to make his final dying wish to destroy and kill all Gods. Thor's one last attempt to save the Gods he tells Gorr he can bring back his daughter and is that not what everyone wants in the end, is to be loved and have someone to love. Gorr makes his decision and we flash away to come back to Gorr's daughter from the first scene in her fathers arms once again. Gorr then looks over to Thor for confirmation that his daughter will be safe before passing away. Jane and Thor share one last moment before she also passes and Thor now realizes he has purpose again in life.

The end montage shows Korg mating with another Kronan named Dwayne and Sif is shown, still with one arm, training the children of Asgard. We cut to Thor and his new "daughter" sharing a breakfast in what looks to be their new home but quickly find out the two are in the midst of a battle ready to save the nice people, the movie closes with the two jumping up to fight with Stormbreaker and Mjolnir in hands.

Post Credit Scene 1:

Oh shit, Hercules. Zeus is pissed the fuck off that the Gods have been mocked and superheroes and being praised. He calls on his son, half God half man, Hercules to defend the honor of the Gods. Boy oh boy a Thor v Hercules next time we see Thor is going to be sick

Post Credit Scene 2:

Jane comes back in white linen to be greeted by Heimdall in Valhalla. This scene was nice to see them both at eternal rest but felt weird being this much after Jane dying in the movie but still nice to see. Interesting note about this you would think Loki would be there too but he wasn't hmmmmmmm.

Overall, I give this movie a solid 8.1/10 and a top 5 MCU phase 4 project by far. It was visibly pleasing especially all the colors and the portrayal of Thor was great because yes he was bad the fuck ass in Infinity War but that's not who Thor truly is, Thor is truly a loving man who wants to protect the people that need it.