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NEW ASGARD — Ever since I saw "Thor: Ragnarok," I have been pacing the floor, waiting for the release of "Thor: Love and Thunder."
I'll be honest, I was never a fan of the Thor movies until Ragnarok. In fact, "Thor: Ragnarok" is now probably my favorite Marvel movie out of all one million Marvel movies made, so far.
So the question now is, how does "Thor: Love and Thunder'' stack up to "Thor: Ragnarok?" Unfortunately, that is not my job today — if you want to know, you will have to read John Clyde's excellent review posted earlier.
Instead, I get to tell you what you can expect to see from a parental perspective, as you consider taking your family to the movie this weekend.
Violence
It's a Marvel superhero movie so, yes, there is violence. To be fair, it is all the same type of violence as we have come to expect and appreciate from Marvel movies. None of the violence we see is gory or explicit in any shocking way. Most of it consists of fighting and flashy explosions.
Early on, we do see a child die in her father's arms of natural causes.
I would say, the only thing that might be considered scary in this film is the character "Gorr" played by Christian Bale. Bale plays the character so well that he comes across as almost too dark and, at times, too scary for the movie. "Gorr" is known as the "god killer" in the film, as he is determined to kill all the mythical gods of the universe.
Language
As a PG-13 film, we are served our dose of PG-13 swear words — nothing out of the ordinary for a Marvel movie.
As far as dialogue, it is all pretty tame, as well. This movie is basically a comedy wrapped loosely in Norse mythology so we get some innuendo here and there, but none of it is graphic and most of it is funny.
Sex/Nudity
This is where I was actually surprised. I do not recall seeing any nudity in any other Marvel movie so far, but for some reason, they thought it would be a good idea to show Chris Hemsworth's naked backside in this film. The scene occurs when Zeus has Thor shackled to the ground and Zeus "flicks" Thor to remove his mask, but flicks him a little too hard and all of Thor's clothes come off. I'm not sure this scene was entirely necessary, but they gave it to us anyway.
Of course, I'll let you decide if this is something you are comfortable letting your kids watch. The scene was brief but may be a deal breaker for some parents.
There are several scenes with kissing between Thor and Lady Thor (Natalie Portman). None of the kissing scenes are more than semi-passionate kissing. There are also a couple of conversations about same-sex relationships that include the characters Valkyrie and Korg.
Conclusion
"Thor: Love and Thunder" is mostly a straight-down-the-line Marvel movie with everything we have come to love and expect from a Marvel movie, with the exception of some brief partial nudity. This movie is very funny and a little irreverent at times but still extremely entertaining.
