What Critics Think About the Latest Thor

Returning for his fourth titled film, Thor (Chris Hemsworth) is on "a quest for inner peace" that's interrupted by Gorr the God Butcher (Christian Bale), whose mission you can surely guess. Enter Thor's ex-girlfriend Jane Foster (Natalie Portman) and ally King Valkyrie (Tessa Thompson), who are called on for assistance in Thor: Love and Thunder, which carries a 68% rating from critics on Rotten Tomatoes. Here's what they're saying:

• "It's a letdown that Thor: Love and Thunder lacks the fresh pow of Thor: Ragnarock," writes Peter Travers at ABC News. This film is "only half as funny, fierce, romantic and thrilling" as its predecessor. But "at its best," the "slapstick tragedy hits the sweet spot that makes you want to hang on for Thor's next adventure." And "in the role he was born to play, Hemsworth embraces giggles with no loss of gravity." In fact, "he's sensational."

• "You can feel the director Taika Waititi having a good time—and it's infectious," writes Manohla Dargis at the New York Times. He shows "his irreverence and taste for kitsch," resulting in a movie that's "sillier than any of its predecessors." Unfortunately, Portman is "so tightly wound that she never syncs up with the loosey-goosey rhythms the way Thompson and Hemsworth do."

• Mick LaSalle was left hoping the fourth film would mark the end of the Thor series. The worst of the four films, "it's not funny, and the action element falls flat," he writes at the San Francisco Chronicle. Though Bale "takes the acting prize," his villain character "is a bit of a dud," with a mission that's "too general," he adds. Portman, however, is "largely an asset … providing some welcome dramatic grounding."

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• Richard Lawson goes as far as to say Love and Thunder "may be the worst film yet in [Marvel's] long line of spectaculars, an erratic and fatally dull morass of limp jokes and aimless plotting." A waste of time and talent, it "seems to be laughing not at itself, but at audiences who have been duped into paying to see it," he writes at Vanity Fair. In the end, he was left wondering "if this whole cinematic universe machine has any idea where it's headed."

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