Christian Bale Mesmerizes Fans With 'Thor: Love and Thunder' Role

Name: Thor: Love and Thunder
Released: 2022-07-08T04:00:00+00:00
Cast: Chris Hemsworth, Natalie Portman, Tessa Thompson, Christian Bale, Taika Waititi

Michael Hein

07/10/2022 09:08 pm EDT

Thor: Love and Thunder premiered this weekend, and fans are fixated on Christian Bale in his Marvel Cinematic Universe debut. Bale plays this movie's villain, Gorr the God Butcher, and he does not hold back in terms of melodrama or style. Whatever they thought of the movie as a whole, many fans seem to think Bale was the highlight of it.

Love and Thunder is the fourth standalone Thor movie in the MCU and the second directed by Taika Waititi. After the success of Thor: Ragnarok, expectations were extremely high and fans are split on whether or not this movie lived up to them. At the time of this writing, Love and Thunder has 68 percent positive reviews on Rotten Tomatoes with an average score of 6.6 out of 10. General audiences were slightly more forgiving with 81 percent positive ratings.

Of course, those numbers all come from the opening weekend, and every experience is bound to be a little different. Still, it looks like Love and Thunder won't get the same near-unanimous acclaim as its predecessor. Thankfully Bale's performance can clearly help bolster the ratings a bit. Here's a look at how fans have reacted to Bale so far.

'Mesmerizing'

Fans praised Bale above all of the familiar heroes and returning characters in this film. Some placed him among the MCU's most distinctive villains.

Redeeming

Many fans praised Bale while criticizing the rest of the film.

Carried the Team

Some joked that Bale had taken on more responsibility than he bargained for in this movie, carrying the pressure of success while the others involved took it easy.

Bale Fans

Long-time fans of Bale himself were pleased to hear that their favorite actor was the highlight of this film. Many also got to work creating fresh memes using Gorr the God Butcher screenshots.

Inaccurate

The depiction of Gorr in this movie looked far different from the comic book version of Gorr, to some fans' disappointment. Bale himself commented on this in an interview with Comicbook.com.

Cut Scenes

As much as they loved what they saw, fans mourned for the scenes that were cut from this movie. Some have already been described in interviews and fans are hoping to see them in the DVD special features.

Too Short

Finally, many fans complained that Bale did not get enough screentime in this movie – especially as the highlight of the film. Thor: Love and Thunder is in theaters now.

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