Crazy times on Midgard (and everywhere else) is the theme of Marvel Studio’s Phase Four. Who still remembers the simplicity of MCU Phase One? Sometime after the success of IRON MAN (2008), the quiet dismissal of an INCREDIBLE HULK (2008) led to its blockbuster culmination with THE AVENGERS (2012). Ten years and 22 movies later, THOR: LOVE & THUNDER marks the three-quarter mark of their most ambitious endeavor yet; the massive cinema/streaming cross-media franchise epic composed of six movies so far plus the Disney+ mini-series. And coming soon is Ryan Coogler’s sequel to THE BLACK PANTHER will be arriving just in time for election season. Added to that will be two Disney+ Holiday specials to follow this year’s eight MCU defining mini-series. Among all that, THOR still remains unique, the last of the Phase One characters and the only one to helm a fourth self-titled feature.
As we’ve grown accustomed with the MCU, this franchise feature serves multiple masters. Along with the chance to catch up with Marvel’s GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY and post-AVENGERS: ENDGAME this movie acts a direct sequel for Director Taika Waititi’s first work for the Marvel machine; the still-hilarious THOR: THE DARK WORLD (2013), a movie most notable for inspiring co-star Natalie Portman take a nearly permanent break from the MCU. This movie has been expressly built to bring her front and center once again, and for those who might not have noticed, the 5’ 3” actress has made a point to get buffed out for her new role.
THE BIG SALAD
That was the working title for this movie, up until the reveal of Portman’s return to the role of Jane Foster and the announcement of its actual title. It’s clearly a reflection of the director’s sense of whimsy and desire to win Portman back (after all, she is a very public vegan and loves a good salad). To hear Waititi tell Variety “I’ve seen her play the scientist character in ‘Thor’ 1 and 2, and it just seemed pointless to do it again,” makes plain the significance of Marvel Comics’ decision to “gender-flip” their comic character (a controversial decision at the time). The 2014 series The Mighty Thor featured a Jane Foster character wielding both the hammer and the title. So which came first? Comic author Jason Aaron’s series, or Waititi’s need for one?
In either case, since Brie Larson’s DOCTOR STRANGE IN THE MULTIVERSE OF MADNESS (2022) and Portman’s epic biceps as well.
“On ‘Black Swan,’ I was asked to get as small as possible. Here, I was asked to get as big as possible. That’s an amazing challenge — and also state of mind as a woman.” This is what Portman told Variety while discussing the epic workout needed to play Jane’s six-foot-tall Mighty Thor. It required more than just CGI to bring Portman to the proper height for scenes with her co-stars, she needed to get buff and she was going to do so as a vegan.
Having eliminated fish, milk, and cheese from her diet, she had to replace animal protein with vegetable protein. That means a lot of beans and legumes, especially lentils, which have been described as the best for pumping up the vegetarian protein. So, the salads were big and leafy and the protein shakes were plentiful.
To get that heroic upper body physique, Portman worked with trainer Naomi Pendergast. Building on her current level of health and fitness, her workouts added a lot of heavy weight training that she hadn’t encountered before. Portman continued to tell Variety that she initially didn't want to get bulky, sticking at first to agility and strength work. "I was trying to put on muscle, so I was eating a lot of protein shakes and just trying to eat a lot in general because I don’t have the body type that will just bulk up." But to hear from the trainers, the primary focus was to make sure she did not injure herself along the way.
Along with her hammer and cape, Portman had at least two women fighting, and training, alongside her — Tessa Thompson reprising her role as Valkyrie and Jaimie Alexander returning for an all too brief reprisal of the Asgardian warrior Sif. Sif narrowly avoided death at the hands of Cate Blanchette’s Hel in THOR: RAGNOROK. Her return was both welcomed but lamentable for its brevity. There are also two other less-famous women standing in for the Goddess of thunder. Stunt woman and MORTAL KOMBAT alumni Zia Kelly acts as Portman’s stunt double providing and extra set of guns while the 5’ 10” Cecilia Johnson brings her Nordic height to long shots.
But can the star of the show let himself be bested in the arena where he is most renown? Unlikely. At 231 pounds, Chris Hemsworth has achieved his biggest physique ever for his eighth time in the role. To maintain all the muscle mass acquired for the role, Hemsworth was eating up to eight times a day (that’s a lot of boiled chicken). If we’re to believe our eyes, Hemsworth (along with his longtime trainer Luke Zocchi) focused significantly on flexibility too, unless those Van Damme kicks were digital. Hemsworth, his trainer, and their whole fitness team have a lot to prove if they are going to continue to use the fat-jokes in this and the character’s previous appearance as part of the guerrilla marking campaign behind their fitness app. It’s one of the perks behind that executive producer role Hemsworth also possesses.
BRING ON THE BAD GUY
Cast as Gorr the God Butcher, the former BATMAN (2008, 2010, 2012) was disinclined towards appearing in any more comic book or superhero movies. Christian Bale began seeing the genre as uninteresting from an acting perspective, and specifically found donning the Batman suit to be a miserable experience. While he didn’t experience the level of vitriolic fan reaction that Portman did for THOR: DARK WORLD, one might say it took Ben Affleck’s portrayal of Batman in JUSTICE LEAGUE (2017) to help audiences better appreciates Bale’s own trilogy. But still, like Portman before him, it was their kids who ultimately convinced each of them to return to comic book roles. A similar tale is told by Donnie Yen with regards to his own role in the other Disney action franchise STAR WARS: ROGUE ONE.
Bale’s Gorr is an aggrieved pale man with no hair. His mission - to slay all gods in retribution for their false promises and oppression. He’s a tragic figure, almost sympathetic for having been let down by religion, as these days religiosity has a lot to answer for. But restorative justice does not alleviate the planetary body count Gorr leaves in his wake. His true villainy is made obvious in the delight he takes when intimidating the kids he keeps in cages, and Bale’s delivery of Gorr’s haunted bed-time story is both character defining and darkly comedic.
Plus, he’s got a cool sword.
WHAT IS IT WITH THE WEAPONS?
Magic weapons fit these mythology driven genres like a sword in stone. The warhammer is a mainstay in epic fantasy and popular among Vikings whether or not you’ve watched THE NORTHMAN (2022). But those look nothing like the Jack Kirby designed Mjölnir. Beyond medieval European myth, characteristic weapons stand three of the 4 Great Classics of Chinese Literature. These epic novels are the foundation for Kung Fu’s favorite genre, wuxia.
Journey to the West features the Monkey King and his staff along with Friar Sand’s Monk Spade and Pigsy’s 9-pointed rake. One can find Li Kwei’s Axes in Outlaws of the Marsh, various unnamed manacles may also count (there’s a point where Thor’s wielding a pair line twin golden whip-chains). Finally, and perhaps most significantly, there’s Romance of the Three Kingdoms; Liu Bei’s jian sword, Zhang Fei’s spear and Lord Guan, who wields the signature Chinese weapon named after him, the Guandao.
It would be interesting to know if Waititi’s read any of those Chinese classics. Surely, he’s familiar with the movie makers who have because he spotlights that special relationship between a warrior and their weapon to excellent effect. In Waititi’s hands, Gorr’s Necrosword is a shadow-monster-spewing two-handed arming sword, just shy of a great sword, maybe a bastard. As with most cursed weapons there’s maybe a metaphor hidden somewhere in those fight scenes between sword versus hammer or sword versus axe. Mentioning any other weapons may lead into spoilers territory so this won’t go there, but what’s important to know is that Korg is back and better than ever!
Voiced by the director himself, the alien-stone-giant is the mortar holding this movie together. His laconic Mad Max-inspired framing sequence delivers so many laughs while it stitches together bits of situational comedy and action set pieces. We should all thank Korg, not just for play Thor’s wingman in romance, but for bringing his sci-fi Hard-Whip (Bian) to the arena adding one more wuxia weapon to Marvel’s Cinematic Armory.
“And you and I had a fight recently” – Thor
There are two fight coordinators credited to this movie: Adam Hart and Chan Griffin. This seems to be Adam Hart’s first credit as fight-coordinator but the man has been a stunt double in some 160 roles, including THE SUICIDE SQUAD (2021). Returning to double Christian Bale, it only makes sense that man would have a say in how that action goes. Besides, his partner in fight coordinating is famously collaborative and has eaten enough bitter to share the sweet gig of coordinating fights between all these magical weapon wielding warriors.
Chan Griffin was born in Seoul, South Korea forty years ago and was adopted by an Australian family in Mount Gambier, before moving to Adelaide at the age of eleven. There he kicked aside a degree in Architecture to pursue martial arts. Beginning with Capoeira, Chan would continue to mix his martial arts training until luck would have him recommended for a commercial. He discovered his love for stunt work on that job and has since trained and worked as a stunt person in Brazil, USA, Canada, Hungary, Japan, Malaysia, China, India and New Zealand, returning to Australia to continue training with his own sifu.
An instructor of Capoeira Chan Griffin has trained also trained Muay Thai, Kali, Silat Jun Fan Gung Fu and Jeet Kune Do under the Australia’s Sifu Nino Pilla, a disciple of Dan Inosanto. As the only stunt-graded person living in South Australia, Chan was a quintessential freelancer - a stunt-ronin - self-funding trips throughout the continent to meet coordinators for auditions and training with other stunt-people. During those early stages of his career, international projects allowed him the unique chance to train with martial arts masters throughout Asia, Canada and the US.
His first major gig was as a stuntman on AQUAMAN (2017 – where we wrote about the trident) as well as THOR: RAGNOROK. Also, that year he provided some informal ‘fight coordination’ for SHAZAM while in Canada.
But his most significant opportunity was the chance to provide fight coordination for MORTAL KOMBAT (2019) and bring his own sifu in on that project as a trainer for Lewis Tan and the rest of that crew. He’s now topped all that with this coverage and the victorious homecoming his work on THOR: LOVE & THUNDER represents. Portman embraced working with the stunt team to develop how she moves in battle. “Fight choreography is actually quite similar to dance,” she says. But for Chan, training has had more value than simply equipping him for stunt-work “martial arts have guided me into becoming a better person. There is a connection between the mind, body and spirit. It is a whole and they need to be in synch. That helps you pull off the stunts. You need to be able to believe in yourself.”
Comic-Nerdery
I don’t know why, but I was really hoping for a Beta-Ray-Bill reveal. Perhaps other comic book nerds will understand what I mean. There is a potential comic-analog for one of the movie characters who could end up a young Thunderbolt. But the real fun is in the work being done to set up the higher levels of the Marvel cosmology. There’s a glimpse of who sits above The Celestials. And, in the same way that those infinity stones were color coded, there seems to be some visual motifs set up to represents cosmic functions - just think back on how the soul stone was represented as an example. It will probably tie into that for-comic-nerds-only post credit scene in THE ETERNALS and pay off in GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY 3 before heading into some kind of Secret War. But we’ll have to wait and see. The MCU has every comic nerd guessing at what might happen next. I was right about Wundagor Mountain’s significance for Wanda and Dr. Strange, but I was wrong in hoping for a cameo by Mahershala Ali’s Blade along the way.
And as for this movie’s after credit sequence? Well, it’s Disney after all.
