Just when you thought it was safe to go back onto the internet as the build towards the release of next month’s Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania continues to gather steam, last summer’s incredibly and consistently divisive Thor: Love and Thunder has come roaring back into the spotlight.
It’s a familiar criticism that’s being leveled at Taika Waititi’s cosmic caper, except this time the ire isn’t being directed towards how Chris Hemsworth’s title hero, Christian Bale’s Gorr the God Butcher, Natalie Portman’s Jane Foster, or Tessa Thompson’s Valkyrie were underused and largely wasted.
Instead, Russell Crowe’s comic relief version of all-powerful deity Zeus is the one coming under fire on Reddit, particularly in regards to a deleted scene that shows him acting as a kindly father figure with an underlying mean streak. Obviously, this is now what we got in the theatrical version, with the Academy Award winner instead hamming it up for the cheap seats and constantly talking about orgies.
Somewhere buried deep within Thor: Love and Thunder is a movie that people would love, but trimming so much to fit the running time to under two hours did it no favors, and neither did Waititi’s signature style proving to be a lot more overpowering than it did on the fantastic Ragnarok.
We’re not even sure if we’ll see Crowe’s Zeus again despite the post-credits scene, but if there’s another director at the helm of the hypothetical Thor 5, then maybe amends can be made to transform the head honcho of Mount Olympus into something more fitting.
