Film Talk: Latest Movie Releases – God of thunder hoping to set off cinematic storm

This week, their patience has finally paid off. He’s back ladies and gentlemen, and he still needs that horse!

With movie-making maestro Taika Waititi returning to the director’s chair, Thor: Love And Thunder marks the fourth solo outing for one of the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s finest, and the excitement around its release this week has been palpable.

With Chris Hemsworth back in the role that he has owned oh so well since 2011, this flick also marks the return to the franchise of Natalie Portman – but not as we’ve seen her before.

Taking up the mantle of the ‘Mighty Thor’, Portman’s acclaimed astrophysicist, Jane Foster, gets her own turn at swinging the hammer in a flick that packs plenty of punch.

With a huge ensemble cast backing up her and Hemsworth’s heroism, this one marks the return of a Marvel A-lister in just the fashion fans will have hoped for, and promises to delight true believers far and wide throughout its opening weekend. Though the queues for this one are set to dominate cinemas this weekend, other gems have of course been served up in the hope of delighting the masses.

Directed by Jim Archer, odd couple inventor-and-automaton yarn Brian And Charles is here to both make you laugh and tug at your heartstrings.

Meanwhile, Dakota Johnson and Richard E Grant have teamed up to bring us a slice of period drama pomp with Carrie Cracknell’s take on Jane Austen’s Persuasion.

Time to dive in for a closer look...

THOR: LOVE AND THUNDER (12A, 118 mins)

Released: July 7 (UK & Ireland)

Five years ago, the strapping Norse god of thunder, portrayed by Chris Hemsworth with laid-back Antipodean charm, got his mojo back in Thor: Ragnarok.

The deliriously entertaining romp directed by Oscar winner Taika Waititi was perfect light relief before the devastating losses of Avengers: Infinity War and Endgame, which concluded phase three of the Marvel Cinematic Universe by temporarily severing Thor’s ties to New Asgard to allow the heartbroken hunk to explore new worlds with the sharp-shooting Guardians Of The Galaxy.

Thor: Love And Thunder welcomes back Waititi to the director’s chair to serve up a similarly heady cocktail of action-packed spectacle and raucous humour including cheeky cameos for Matt Damon, Sam Neill and Melissa McCarthy to poke fun at the rampant commercialisation of the Marvel brand.

A script co-written by Waititi and Jennifer Kaytin Robinson careens wildly between light and dark, addressing grief, terminal illness and self-sacrifice in one gut-wrenching breath before Hemsworth casually loses all of his clothes and female co-stars faint on-screen at his artfully concealed magnificence.

Tonal shifts can be jarring and Christian Bale’s all-guns-blazing performance as a vengeful villain is on a different plane to everyone else in the gung-ho odyssey.

As messy as this fourth solo outing gets, replete with screaming goats and an army of pint-sized helpers pithily referred to as Team Kids In A Cage, Waititi retains focus on the emotional bonds between characters destined to ascend to the hallowed pantheon of Valhalla.

Separated from magical hammer Mjolnir, which was shattered in Thor: Ragnarok, the strapping Norse god of thunder (Hemsworth) has a new weapon – a mighty axe called Stormbreaker – as he answers cries for help alongside Star-Lord (Chris Pratt), Drax (Dave Bautista), Nebula (Karen Gillan), Mantis (Pom Klementieff), Rocket (voiced by Bradley Cooper) and Groot (Vin Diesel).

These gung-ho heroics with the Guardians Of The Galaxy are a welcome distraction from the pain of losing his one true love, pre-eminent astrophysicist Jane Foster (Natalie Portman).

A distressing vision ushers Thor and rock-like warrior buddy Korg (Waititi) back to New Asgard, ruled by Valkyrie (Tessa Thompson), where accursed Gorr the God Butcher (Bale) lays a diabolical trap as part of his plan to slaughter all deities with the fabled Necrosword.

Thor offers a robust defence alongside Jane, who has taken on the guise of the Mighty Thor with Mjolnir at her side.

However, Thor, Mighty Thor and Valkyrie are no match for Gorr and his relentless army of shadow creatures, which can snatch screaming children from their beds.

The heroes seek reinforcements and head to Omnipotence City where thunderbolt-wielding Zeus (Russell Crowe) reigns supreme.

Thor: Love And Thunder feels disjointed compared to its predecessor and there are noticeably fewer laughs but the pleasures comfortably outweigh the pain.

Hemsworth flexes dramatic muscles in key scenes with Portman and Waititi’s sidekick provides effervescent comic relief, predominantly in voiceover.

Action sequences are briskly choreographed with a heavy reliance on digital effects.

Thor Will Return teases the end credits. Oh gods.

BRIAN AND CHARLES (PG, 90 mins)

Released: July 8 (UK & Ireland)

Eccentricity is tightly woven into the fabric of our national identity.

Expanded from a 12-minute short film released in 2017, director Jim Archer’s odd couple comedy travels into the Welsh countryside to meet a generously bearded outcast, who constructs a companion from fly-tipped scrap and gives new meaning to the art of ‘making friends’.

This ramshackle mechanical sidekick is blessed with childlike curiosity reminiscent of Johnny Five in Short Circuit.

A TV documentary about Honolulu inspires the robot to make a hula skirt from shredded paper and when the automaton earns praise from his master through good behaviour, he jigs excitedly back and forth.

Co-written by actors David Earl and Chris Hayward, Brian And Charles kindles dramatic tension by hard-wiring the robot with a desire to fly the nest and explore new horizons.

Predictably, the inventor wants to protect his charmingly naive creation from the cruelty and intolerance that run rife in “a big perilous world” beyond the wire fences that border their remote farm.

Someone or something has to give.

Thankfully, the quality of Earl and Hayward’s writing doesn’t give an inch.

Brian And Charles is a sweet, sincere and life-affirming ode to the square pegs, who don’t care about fitting neatly into round holes.

Earl and Hayward are an adorable double act and when the possibility of separation looms large, the lump in our throats is sizeable.

PERSUASION (PG, 108 mins)

Released: July 8 (UK & Ireland, selected cinemas)

Dakota Johnson portrays Jane Austen’s unconventional heroine Anne Elliot in director Carrie Cracknell’s swooning period drama, which is adapted for the screen by Alice Victoria Winslow and Ron Bass.

Anne falls deliriously in love with dashing naval officer Frederick Wentworth (Cosmo Jarvis) but her class-conscious father Sir Walter Elliot (Richard E Grant) and older sister Elizabeth (Yolanda Kettle) do not judge the match to be suitable given Frederick’s lowly social status.

They persuade Anne to break off the engagement and the young woman’s surrogate mother, Lady Russell (Nikki Amuka-Bird), adds her voice of disapproval to the chorus.

Several years pass and the Elliot family falls on hard times and relocates from Kellynch Hall to more modest lodgings in Bath.

Frederick, now a highly decorated naval captain, returns to Anne’s life and she faces a difficult choice between a second chance at love or new horizons with wealthy widower and distant relative William Elliot (Henry Golding).

FUTURA (12A, 105 mins)

Released: July 8 (UK & Ireland, selected cinemas)

In 2020 as the world grappled with Covid, Italian directors Pietro Marcello, Francesco Munzi and Alice Rohrwacher joined forces to paint a vibrant portrait of their country and its resilient young people.

The filmmakers travelled to Naples, Palermo, Rome, Venice and further afield to interview the next generation, who are pursuing careers as actors, beauticians, boxers, farmers and musicians.

Torn between the simple nostalgia of the past and an uncertain future, the film’s subjects candidly share their modest ambitions and wax lyrical about hopes for a more tolerant, accepting and inclusive society.

ODE TO THE SPRING (12A, 122 mins)

Released: July 8 (UK & Ireland, selected cinemas)

In early 2020, the eyes of the world fixated on Wuhan when the Chinese city became the first location to go into lockdown in response to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Filmmakers Yue Dong, Xiaozhi Rao, Yusheng Tian, Chi Zhang and Nan Zhou draw on real-life events for this ensemble drama, charting the lives of residents during the turbulent period.

Jing (Xiaoming Huang) tends to his girlfriend Xiaoyu (Dongyu Zhou) and future mother-in-law when both women are struck down by the virus and rushed to different hospitals to recover.

Meanwhile, schoolboy Lele (Hangcheng Zhang) learns from his father that his mother may have contracted Covid.