Why I can’t stop thinking about Chris Hemsworth’s latest movie role

Does anyone else do that thing where you have just put the last of your (too many) children to sleep, you don’t want to hang out with your husband because he is watching something called “groin fails from around the world” and so you get into bed and think about death?

You lie there in the dark and at first, the thoughts are easy enough to bat away, just simple things like “what will I wear at my funeral?” and “if my husband re-partners am I allowed to haunt him?“. But then they begin to assume alarming specificity. “What about if I die and people find my troll account on Urban Spoon where I gave La Porchetta one star because they side-eyed my friend for bringing wine in a water bottle?” your brain asks. Or, “Why did I decide to create all those Dan Andrews fan accounts with weird domain names?”

Chris Hemsworth as Dementus in Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga.

Anyway, death, and appalling internet behaviour got me thinking about Ghostbusters 2016 (which is really the most palatable of the options in that particular Venn diagram). 2016 was only eight years ago, but it was also a lifetime. It was before COVID and #Metoo. It was a time when people on the internet were very accepting that Kanye West would use a nude wax model of Taylor Swift for a music video and (possibly the same) people were extremely cross that Ghostbusters was going to be reimagined with… women.

Indeed, the folks of IMBD were sufficiently angry that reviews such as “Decided to go and check Ghostbusters out today to see if all the hate is warranted and I think it’s safe to say that the hate really is warranted,” and “it’s like this movie is promoting girl power and feminism,” were written in earnest. It was also, incidentally, a time when every male actor was called Chris.

Ghostbusters was actually fine. It was nowhere near as dreadful as Reddit held it out to be but also not outrageous enough (Saltburn) or unique enough (Saltburn) or nude enough (Saltburn) to really embed itself properly in the collective cultural fabric.

What was genuinely delightful about the film was Chris Hemsworth playing a hapless receptionist with a dog called Michael Hat that may or may not have lived with his mother. It was stupid and quirky and Hemsworth was adorably committed to his supporting character energy long before Ryan Gosling’s Ken. It was the first time I remember feeling vaguely interested in this Chris.

The movie was a moderate success, the sequel was foreshadowed then quietly shelved and the fanboys got their do-over in 2021 with Ghostbusters Afterlife. After Ghostbusters, Hemsworth reverted to type, cashing in on the physique and getting that Marvel money while reassuringly, not being Chris Pratt.

Fast forward to the present day: Twitter has become X and is just a lonely bot graveyard; the fan boys have disappeared into their safe spaces where they won’t be assaulted by gender ideology and the Chrises have disbanded.

Chris Evans revealed he had a partner and female fans had an opportunity to demonstrate just how deranged and entitled they can be (equality!); Chris Pratt demolished his historically significant home and maybe didn’t shout out Anna Faris on Mother’s Day; Chris Hemsworth is now a serious actor, care of Mad Max. He is a revelation as Dementus - your worst nightmare with a bonus teddybear belt. He is committed and terrifying and channels Wolf Creek and Ivan Milat and is utterly in his element embodying this malevolence. His stature and physicality are used to devastating effect - a looming menace of a man rather than the trite force for good we have all been trained to see him as. His performance is all the more persuasive because it is so unexpected, so visceral and because for so long, we, the public have allowed him to go underappreciated, which brings me neatly to my point.

You know how in Gone Girl you go through the first part of the movie thinking that Ben Affleck’s Nick has probably killed his wife and that Rosamund Pike’s Amy was probably a good person? And then halfway through you find out that Ben Affleck is just playing Ben Affleck but that also he didn’t kill his wife who is an insane evil genius? And then you look back and the entire time the film was telling you in a thousand little ways that Amy was the antagonist, but you never picked up on it?

It’s kinda the same with Chris Hemsworth. He was a guy who spent much of the noughties playing Chris Hemsworth and now, in 2024, reveals to us that the whole entire career arc was an act, him playing a version of Chris Hemsworth, and that in fact he’s always had serious skills. And we can look back on Ghostbusters, when he committed to playing the adorable fool and leaned into the absurdity of the role and appreciate it anew. And then remember that he was also so much fun in Rush, and The Cabin in the Woods. And then realise that you have been thinking about death and the internet and Chris Hemsworth and death again for almost eight hours.

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