Thor: Love and Thunder 2022
Biggest opening weekend of any Thor movie, but the second-lowest CinemaScore in MCU history. Christian Bale's Gorr the God Butcher is the consensus best part; everyone else is lukewarm at best.
The Big Picture · Review · Discussion · Rankings
‘Thor: Love and Thunder’ and Five Ways to Fix the Marvel Crisis
July 12, 2022/ 82 min/ Sean Fennessy · Charles Holmes · Rob Mahoney
Charles Holmes and Rob Mahoney join Sean to autopsy Thor: Love and Thunder, rank all of Phase Four, and pitch ways out of the Marvel malaise: an X-Men/Spider-Man crossover, Avengers vs. X-Men, and a Denis Villeneuve-directed Silver Surfer movie.
43 films across 7 segments.
AI-generated This episode was transcribed and analyzed with AI models. The matches aren't perfect — expect the occasional misheard title or a link to the wrong film.
Thor: Love and ThunderSean Fennessy, Charles Holmes, and Rob Mahoney react
Is everyone just exhausted by Marvel?Box office, CinemaScores, and the case for franchise fatigue
Thor: Ragnarok 2017
The standard Love and Thunder keeps getting measured against, unfavorably. It's light on its feet where the new one feels effortful.
Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness 2022
One of three of the four lowest-CinemaScore MCU movies to land in the last seven months.
Eternals 2021
Called the low point of Phase Four: the one real formal swing, and a total miss.
Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings 2021
Charles says his patience with the MCU was already gone by this one.
Black Widow 2021
The pandemic-delayed one they gave a pass at the time.
Spider-Man: No Way Home 2021
Consensus best of Phase Four as an experience, though both hosts admit it doesn't hold together as a movie.
The Avengers 2012
The sixth film of Phase One, and the bar for how big a 'sixth film' is supposed to be.
Iron Man 2008
Cited for how much room Downey was given to just riff, something they say wouldn't fly in a movie today.
Ant-Man 2015
Sixth film of Phase Two, their example of the harmless, good-enough Marvel movie they say doesn't get made anymore.
Captain America: The Winter Soldier 2014
What Ant-Man led directly into; the high-water mark they're measuring current Marvel against.
Black Panther 2018
Sixth film of Phase Three.
Avengers: Endgame 2019
Supposed to clear the decks and set a clean foundation; Rob argues Marvel never followed through on that.
Thor 2011
Neither host will rewatch it. Charles: 'the bleached eyebrows in that movie are insane.'
Uncharted 2022
The one non-Marvel movie a Marvel lead (Tom Holland) has opened lately, and it wasn't good.
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 2023
Not yet out at recording time; Sean says he'd have been shocked, at the first Guardians' release, to hear there'd eventually be four of these.
Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania 2023
The then-unreleased third Ant-Man, name-checked as one more sequel nobody was asking for.
Ranking Phase Fourbest to worst, per Charles and Rob
No. 2
Thor: Love and Thunder 2022
No. 2 for both, which Rob says more about how weak this batch is than anything else.
No. 5
Eternals 2021
No. 5 for Charles, dead last for Rob, who says he watched it with open contempt.
No. 6
Black Widow 2021
No. 6 for Charles (who says the bottom three are interchangeable), No. 5 for Rob.
Life outside the MCU, and the Taika backlashWhat's actually stealing the pop-culture conversation from Marvel this summer
Top Gun: Maverick 2022
The movie people want to talk about instead of Doctor Strange, a surprise even to them.
Everything Everywhere All at Once 2022
Named the actual best multiversal movie of the year.
RRR 2022
Named the year's best action, over anything Marvel has put out.
Free Guy 2021
Taika Waititi cameo No. 1 in the overexposure pile-on.
The Suicide Squad 2021
Taika cameo No. 2.
Lightyear 2022
Taika voice role No. 3, around where Charles says the internet started to turn on him.
What We Do in the Shadows 2014
Charles's litmus test for Taika: a movie for a specific audience, not a mass one, which is what made him such an odd MCU pick to begin with.
Should Marvel just hit reset?Full reboot vs. quietly retiring characters
Captain Marvel 2019
Cited as proof the 'quiet retirement' approach is already happening: a sequel that keeps getting pushed back.
Fix No. 1: the X-Men/Spider-Man crossover Marvel should already be buildingRob pitches Brad Bird directing an X-Men team built to meet Spider-Man; Charles counters that the solo movie is dead and pitches a teen-movie pipeline funneling into Avengers vs. X-Men ahead of Secret Wars
The Incredibles 2004
The tone Rob wants Brad Bird to bring to X-Men.
Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol 2011
The action sensibility Rob wants from a Brad Bird X-Men.
West Side Story 2021
Rob's case for Rachel Zegler, recast mid-pitch from Jean Grey to Kitty Pryde.
Captain America: Civil War 2016
The legislated-superpowers story model Rob explicitly doesn't want to redo to fold the X-Men in.
The Guest 2014
Rob's pitch for Dan Stevens as Wolverine rests on the menace this movie shows he can play.
Fix No. 2: Sean's Silver Surfer movieDenis Villeneuve directs Keanu Reeves as the Silver Surfer and Michael Shannon as Galactus, tied to a Fantastic Four led by Adam Driver, Elle Fanning, Jesse Plemons, and Dev Patel
Hustle 2022
Sean's reference point for the Silver Surfer's arc: a reluctant company man having a crisis of faith.
Dune: Part Two 2024
Why Sean thinks Villeneuve is wrong for the MCU on paper but right in practice: he already made a corny, unadaptable story feel essential.
Marriage Story 2019
The joke pitch for what an all-Adam-Driver Fantastic Four would actually look like.
Not Another Teen Movie 2001
What Sean says Chris Evans actually ported into his Human Torch performance.
The Green Knight 2021
Sean's case for Dev Patel as Johnny Storm: the vulnerability under the bravado.
Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer 2007
The one prior big-screen Silver Surfer, which both hosts agree was botched.
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