“Love and Thunder” finds Thor (Chris Hemsworth) on a search to find inner peace, which itself reads as a natural carryover of the journey he began in “Ragnarok.” Far from ignoring what happened to him in “Avengers: Infinity War and Endgame,” the film’s teaser shows him traveling with the Guardians of the Galaxy before parting ways, reasoning that his superhero days are behind him and it’s time for him to find a new purpose. This, I’m sorry to say, also means we get shots of Thor training to lose the weight he put during “Endgame,” conflating the idea of Thor being physically leaner with the idea of him being mentally healthier. 

Now, admittedly, the question of whether “Endgame” fat-shames Thor is a dicey one, least of all before you factor in the choice to have Hemsworth wear a fat suit for the film (a decision that itself brings up a whole other issue). The hope, then, was that Marvel and Waititi would resist the urge to quickly restore Thor to his initial MCU physique in “Love and Thunder,” giving us the beefy, emotionally happy superhero we deserve for at least some meaningful portion of the movie. Frustratingly, however, it seems we’ll be getting a montage of Thor working out fairly early on in the film.

What’s frustrating is that Waititi previously gave us a great plus-size hero in the shape of Ricky Baker (Julian Dennison) from “Hunt for the Wilderpeople,” a film about a character whose physique remains unchanged even as they heal and develop emotionally over the course of their wild adventure. That is to say, for all the leeway Waititi has clearly been afforded in “Love and Thunder,” it would appear that body positivity is still a rainbow bridge too far for the MCU’s “Thor” movies.