The melodramatic shadow of mortality that dominates the action of “Thor: Love and Thunder” has no darkness-it’s as bright-toned as the movie’s glittery C.G.I. Both Jane and the New Asgard resident Valkyrie (Tessa Thompson), who now runs an ice-cream parlor, joins forces with Thor and his quippy, rock-assembled sidekick, Korg (Waititi), to battle the villain. Just then, Gorr attacks New Asgard, unleashing giant spidery reptiles to kidnap the town’s children in order to lure Thor to his lair. Jane Foster (Natalie Portman), is revealed to have terminal cancer chemo isn’t working, so she goes to New Asgard in the hope that the magic of Thor’s hammer, Mjölnir, will heal her. (The original was destroyed in the 2017 film “ Thor: Ragnarok.”) His ex, the astrophysicist Dr. Thor lives in his reconstructed home town of New Asgard.

Gorr strikes Rapu down with a handy superweapon, the so-called Necrosword, and vows to follow up this first killing with a celestial reign of terror to exterminate the gods-and Thor (Chris Hemsworth) is next. The grief-stricken father then encounters Rapu (Jonny Brugh), who cruelly mocks Gorr’s expectation of rewards in the afterlife. The villain is a character called Gorr, whose young daughter dies in his arms as they wander the desert in fealty to the god Rapu. (The script was written by Waititi and Jennifer Kaytin Robinson.) But the film passes through the nervous system without delivering any sustenance or even leaving a residue. And there’s a refreshing simplicity and clarity to the story. Its inevitably heartstrings-tugging relationships and its sanctimonious sense of purpose are leavened with the puckish spirit of Saturday-morning cartoons, if not their playfulness.

It’s brisk, amiable, and straightforward. “Thor: Love and Thunder,” directed by Taika Waititi, is far from the worst of Marvel’s big-screen offerings. There are few chances that its managers dare to take, and the individual talents of its directors and actors are submerged in the undifferentiated sludge of its computerized spectacle. The franchise, when it was still figuring itself out, occasionally unleashed some grandiose idiosyncrasies into theatrical release lately, though, even Marvel’s efforts to vary its formulas are formulaic. A pernicious effect of the Marvel franchise is to empty the word “marvel” of its dictionary power and transform it into the cinematic equivalent of Velveeta or Splenda, a fabricated brand name that represents a denatured ersatz of a fundamental pleasure.

A goofy movie characters