When it’s really on fire, Thor: Love and Thunder is a wondrous work of sustained, exhilarating silliness. Now, it’s not as silly or as exhilarating as its glorious predecessor, Thor: Ragnarok, which is to comic superhero movies what Singin’ in the Rain is to musicals. But it’s pretty damn good, all things considered. Co-writer/director Taika Waititi, who made Ragnarok as well as Jojo Rabbit and is probably the most energetic and singular creative force working in popular culture right now, stuffs the new movie with jokes, asides, slapstick, visual puns, and as many comic references to cultural icons as a Bugs Bunny cartoon.
The inspired Hemsworth has now completed the about-face that began with Ragnarok and continued in the final Avengers movies, turning Thor from an earnest man-mountain...