People continue to flock to Disney-owned Marvel events because the studio prioritizes accessibility and tonal neutrality above anything else. Some films like “Guardians of the Galaxy” and “Ant-Man” shift a little closer to comedy, while movies such as “Captain America: Civil War” and the record-smashing “Avengers: Endgame” focus their energy on epic battle sequences and action spectacle. Either way, their cinema always displays a healthy blending of the two, reeling in new fans and keeping loyalists paying to see every new installment.

New Zealand director Taika Waititi is best known for his broad satires and farces, such as the low-budget vampire comedy “What We Do in the Shadows” and the Nazi send-up “Jojo Rabbit.” After making a name in the indie world, fans and critics celebrated his gusto for reinventing the tired Marvel character Thor with the madcap 2017 sequel “Thor: Ragnarök.” Confidently coming back with an Oscar nomination for his “Jojo Rabbit” screenplay and with scores of fans stoked to see another Thor adventure, perhaps he extended beyond the accepted levels of absurdity the general public will allow in their MCU action-comedies.

Having spent time between other Marvel sagas losing weight and gaining his mojo back planet trotting with the Guardians, in “Thor: Love and Thunder,” Thor (Chris Hemsworth) is called back into a solo adventure to save the children of Asgard who have been kidnapped by an evil demigod named Gorr the god butcher (Christian Bale). Thor teams up with Valkyrie (Tessa Thompson) and the rock monster Korg (Waititi) to enlist the help of the other gods to help save the Asgardian prison children and protect the fates of their divinity from Gorr. Doctor Jane Foster (Natalie Portman) reunites with her former lover and the team, now powered by the might of Thor’s once-destroyed mystical weapon, the hammer Mjolnir.

The plot here is simple enough: This is a rescue mission set in a universe of Norse mythology, with the patina of a neon space opera. Christian Bale is reliably committed to his dark villainous role that’s tuned somewhere between the Emperor from “Star Wars” and Voldemort. The cold open showing his origin and the final 35 minutes between Gorr versus the heroes stand alongside the best moments of previous Thor excursions. The rest of this feature flails about on a candy high, overly enamored by its sense of quirkiness.

Asgard has become a tourist location and resort town, Thor travels with pair of pastel colored screaming goats, Zeus (Russell Crowe) is a sex-crazed, preening celebrity parody, and the soundtrack contains five Guns N’ Roses rock-radio hits. I can only imagine what was going through Bale’s head at the premiere when he watched something he likely had no idea he was involved with.

In a vacuum, the audacity and recklessness of Waititi’s irreverence toward the characters and the rest of the Marvel canon is refreshing. But when factoring in the darker themes of child murder, an earnest love story and a cancer subplot that orbits the throughline of the narrative, the jokey dialogue and flippant absurdity registers as meandering plot padding or misjudged attempts of genre subversion. Within any 11-minute stretch, you may laugh out loud, scratch your head and roll your eyes in exasperation — sometimes within the same sequence.

“Thor: Love and Thunder” suffers from sloppy editing and a screenplay that’s comedically punched-up well past the point of what’s sustainable. At best, it’s a mixed bag and tonal disaster, and yet, I can’t hate it. This MCU outing is weird, often stupid, and indicative of a studio that’s lost its grip on the reigns of its property, but nobody would call this movie boring or lacking in personality. The idea of watching this sequel again gives me a headache but as a cult-film enthusiast, I’m impishly glad it exists.

Grade: C+

Cassidy Robinson is a former Idaho State University student with a master’s degree in film studies from Orange County’s Chapman University. He is currently working as a media journalist in Los Angeles, California.