Thor: Love & Thunder Review - 5 Ups & 5 Downs

3. The Massively Rushed Pacing

While it's a common complaint that most modern blockbusters are too damn long, Love and Thunder's svelte 119-minute runtime actually results in a film that's breathless and frantic to a fault.

Though its breakneck pace might've worked were the film not concerned with anything overly serious, considering the plot has to work through Jane Foster's cancer diagnosis and Gorr's brutal god-killing crusade, it could've used more time to breathe.

Instead, Waititi is clumsily trying to spin far too many plates at once across both the comedic and dramatic spectrums, and the result is a hurried, slapdash mess.

This is especially apparent with Gorr, whose god-killing occurs mostly off-screen, and even though Jane's arc more-or-less works, it too could've used more time to marinate.

One suspects the film was heavily "streamlined" during post-production and that a more substantial version exists out there somewhere, but bar a few piecemeal deleted scenes released a few months from now, we'll surely never get to see it.