Thor
Thor Odinson
Movie · Phase 4
Thor: Love and Thunder
2022 · 118 min
Gorr loses his daughter in a desert while praying to a god who laughs at him, finds the Necrosword, and starts working through the pantheon. He is the best idea in the film and Christian Bale plays…
The Multiverse SagaDisney+63%Released
The story
Gorr loses his daughter in a desert while praying to a god who laughs at him, finds the Necrosword, and starts working through the pantheon. He is the best idea in the film and Christian Bale plays him like a Gothic ghost story.
Everything around him is a jukebox comedy: Thor doing yoga with the Guardians, Jane Foster wielding a repaired Mjolnir while dying of cancer, and a trip to Omnipotence City to ask Russell Crowe's Zeus for help. The tonal mismatch between the two halves is the whole story of the film's reception.
Key facts
- Release date
- 8 Jul 2022
- Status
- Released
- Phase
- Phase 4
- Saga
- The Multiverse Saga
- Runtime
- 118 min
- Certificate
- PG-13
- Director
- Taika Waititi
- Writers
- Taika Waititi, Jennifer Kaytin Robinson
- Streaming
- Disney+
- Timeline placement
- 2025 — after Endgame and roughly concurrent with Wakanda Forever
Cast
| Actor | Role |
|---|---|
| Chris Hemsworth | Thor |
| Natalie Portman | Jane Foster / Mighty Thor |
| Christian Bale | Gorr the God Butcher |
| Tessa Thompson | Valkyrie |
| Russell Crowe | Zeus |
| Taika Waititi | Korg |
Characters
Easter eggs
- Russell Crowe's Zeus presides over Omnipotence City, where banners for Bast, Quetzalcoatl and other pantheons hang in the gallery.
- The mid-credits scene introduces Brett Goldstein as Hercules, dispatched by a humiliated Zeus to kill Thor.
- Jane's Mighty Thor arc, her cancer and her hammer all come from Jason Aaron's Thor run, as does Gorr and the Necrosword.
- The Asgardian stage play returns with Melissa McCarthy as Hela, Matt Damon as Loki and Sam Neill as Odin.
- Heimdall's son Axl, named after Axl Rose, is a joke the film makes explicit, and Guns N' Roses provide two songs.
- Zeus' thunderbolt becomes Thor's weapon by the end, and its design matches the Greek myth rather than the comics.
- New Asgard's tourist economy includes a whale-watching boat and a gift shop selling replica Mjolnirs.
- Gorr's shadow monsters and the black-and-white Shadow Realm sequence are the only stretch shot without colour in an MCU film.
Trivia
- Natalie Portman trained for roughly ten months and gained visible muscle to play Mighty Thor, having last appeared in 2013.
- Christian Bale has said Gorr's look was inspired by Aphex Twin's music videos and by Nosferatu.
- Waititi again improvised heavily, and both he and the cast have said hours of alternate jokes were shot and discarded.
- The Omnipotence City set was one of the largest practical builds Marvel had commissioned.
- The film drew sustained criticism for its visual effects, and VFX artists spoke publicly and anonymously about compressed Marvel schedules in its wake.
- It made Thor the first MCU character to headline four solo films.
- Michael Giacchino and Nami Melumad co-scored, layering Giacchino's Ragnarok-era themes with new material for Gorr.
Box office
- Budget
- $250 million
- Worldwide
- $760.9 million
- Domestic
- $343.3 million
Reviews
Critics
63%
It benefits from a charming cast and a handful of stellar set pieces, but Thor: Love and Thunder's tonal juggling act ultimately doesn't stick the landing.
The MarvelGossips verdict
A film with a genuinely great villain trapped inside a comedy that will not stop talking. Bale's Gorr and Portman's Jane deserve the serious movie the first ten minutes promise, and Waititi undercuts them with a gag roughly every ninety seconds. The black-and-white Shadow Realm fight is a glimpse of what this could have been.
Related titles
Frequently asked
Does Jane Foster die?
Yes. Wielding Mjolnir accelerates her cancer, and she dies in Thor's arms after helping defeat Gorr. The film's coda shows her arriving in Valhalla, greeted by Heimdall.
Why was Love and Thunder criticised so heavily?
Critics and audiences largely faulted the tonal whiplash between Gorr's genuinely bleak story and the film's constant joking, plus visual effects that many found unfinished. It holds 63% on Rotten Tomatoes, the lowest of the four Thor films.
Who is Gorr the God Butcher?
An alien who lost his daughter and his faith, then bonded with the Necrosword and set out to kill every god. He is taken directly from Jason Aaron's 2013 Thor: God of Thunder run, which the film compresses into a single arc.
Is Hercules coming back?
Brett Goldstein's Hercules appears in the mid-credits scene, but as of July 2026 Marvel has announced no project featuring the character and Goldstein has said he has heard nothing further.