Thunderbolts*
May. 10th, 2025 01:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shallownessI rewatched Black Widow in prep, and as Yelena and Alexei are funny and entertaining in it (and I followed who and what Taskmaster was better in this rewatch), it was probably worth it. I still like the feminine energy – Natasha’s central relationship is with Yelena, her mission is, belatedly, to save all the girls who were left behind in an even worse Red Room. Ray Winstone’s Drakov is another rubbish Marvel villain what with the accent and the mumbling, and Mason, Natasha’s contact, is just confusing. Yes, I get why ScarJo was miffed it never got a cinema release, I’m miffed it wasn’t made and released several years later (and about Natasha’s fate in the MCU.) Also, I love her as the older sister in her dysfunctional found family unit.
About fifteen people in my showing, with less than half leaving early, but the rest of us stayed until the post-credits scene. Among the trailers, Mission Impossible (which has been getting lots of free promo in the British news this week), Superman (i, did not realise that was coming out this summer, ii, unenthused about Krypto, iii, pretty leads, iv, willing to trust James Gunn up to a point) and Fantastic 4: First Steps (skipped the second iteration of F4. Going retro is going to make for comparisons with The Incredibles...but, fine, make the Silver Surfer female.) Am more enthused about Superman than Fantastic 4.
As for Thunderbolts*, overall, yes, it's an entertaining iteration of the scrappy team of powered people having done bad things learning to work together and maybe do good. It has the sense to know that Florence Pugh is the star, making Yelena Belova (who has the least powers) its heart and leader. Some of it is stuff we’ve seen before, deliberately so in some ways, but it’s better and more cohesive than Suicide Squad (backhand compliment though that is.) It has a nice line in being self-deprecating before the audience can be, and is consistently amusing, if not laugh out loud funny, while dealing with damaged, grieving people and continuing the touching relationship of a grown-up child assassin and her embarrassing adoptive dad hankering after glory days that never were first seen in Black Widow.
I haven’t seen any of the Marvel TV shows, so I was all, ‘Huh, Bucky is a congressman? Valentina is the head of the CIA now?’ I was left mostly glad that I skipped the last Captain America film, although it is referenced here (but honestly if you’ve seen the trailer, you’re good.) Also a bonus, I now know Hannah John-Kamen as Dutch from Killjoys.
It starts off with a fake voiceover of Yelena bemoaning her life (she’s a clean-up person for Valentina), going to visit Alexei, who she hasn’t seen for a year (whither Melina? Not a mention.)
Valentina is in front of a congressional committee (this feels very much made from before Trump 2.0, and the whole ‘the US President became a red Hulk’ is countered by ‘yeah, but IRL the President became an orange wrecking ball aimed at what remains of the Hollywood film industry and that was just this week! Enjoying the irony of our heroine being a Russian, though!)
Secretly Val is ‘tying up loose ends’ by getting her hirelings to kill each other in a secret vault. Poor Taskmaster is killed quite early on, leaving annoying Walker (Captain America for two seconds, apparently), the Ghost (who I had forgotten, but was in Ant-man and the Wasp) and Yelena realising what’s going on. There’s also a guy named Bob, a survivor of medical experimentation, who the audience knows is able to get people to relive some of their most shameful memories (although Yelena and Valentina’s are way more traumatising than Walker paying more attention to his phone than his crying infant son,’ but the latter is more relatable.) They learn they have to work together to survive. There’s a fair bit of ‘just listen to the ladies, who aren’t letting their egos get in the way of things going on, gents.’
Bob, it turns out, is not the useless civilian Yelena and the rest assumed, as it’s revealed that he’s invulnerable and able to fly because he’s the unexpected survivor of The Sentry project that Valentina had going. He’s also admitted to manic highs, depressive lows (which Yelena gave him terrible advice on), a history of meth taking and a traumatic upbringing, but Valentina doesn’t care. Her assistant Mel, however, has a case of grumbling conscience, and has been in touch with Bucky about what’s going on.
The three survivors join up with Alexei, who thinks they should be a team – Thunderbolts was the name of a rubbish soccer team young Yelena was on while living in the States. (I had to be told afterward that the asterisk in the title was about them really being The New Avengers. Uh, whatever. Am minded to refer to them as the Thunderbolts forever more, anyway.) Bucky thinks they’re evidence of Val’s wrongdoing, and has them cuffed, waiting to be transferred to DC, until it’s confirmed that Val is going to use superpowered Bob to grab power for herself. So, he joins the team too.
So, they return to Avengers Towers, now the Watchtower (there are plot reasons, but one is left to wonder if Marvel is recycling sets as well as material these days), to find that Bob is now The Sentry, with blonde hair and flowing locks, and on Val’s side. They’re useless against him.
Only Bob/Sentry doesn’t see why he should be Valentina’s tool, and starts flying around New York, letting the void inside him out. Soon people are being disappeared (shades of Thanos, but it’s more like the blight thing from The Neverending Story) and Yelena feels bad because of her terrible advice to him about coping with said void. The Thunderbolts have started to use what powers they have to save New Yorkers from Sentry’s destructiveness (shades of the Avengers.) Alexei has pointed out that having a team has brought back some of Yelena’s inner light and they’ve had a heart-to-heart where he admitted he’d let her down when she was grieving for Natasha because he’s a bit of a failboat, but at least he’s here now.
And so Yelena deliberately sacrifices herself and finds herself in a mental ‘shame room’ (yeah, seen this before, Marvel, though it was effective) where she finally finds the real Bob, sees his personal shame (more relatable childhood trauma than Yelena’s, or indeed, Valentina’s). The others realise that she was up to something, follow her into this other space, and by offering Bob human connection, help him beat his dark self figuratively, not literally. I don’t know that Bob only accessing Sentry’s powers through the Void stands up, really, but it worked in the moment.
Back in New York, Bucky is all for arresting Valentina, but she’s set up a press conference (shades of Iron Man?) and announces that she’s been working on the New Avengers, our ragtag team, locking them into a strange old dynamic. There’s an amusing mid credit scene with Alexei/Red Guardian. The end credits are all about the world going ‘The New Avengers? Huh?’ and the post-credits scene is set 14 months later, where they’re in a battle with Sam about who the New Avengers are (whoever has the best box office, I thought, until this latest threat to cinema, and if you look at the credits, they prove how preposterous the orange one’s ‘idea’ about film tariffs is.) But it’s mainly about teasing the Fantastic 4 in the MCU.
I love Yelena, and she’s a sarky anti-heroine, very damaged, Pugh is charismatic, and manages the weightier bits. I felt that they were honouring Natasha through her. Worth taking a moment to celebrate a female team leader in a Marvel film. Sebastian Stan remains a handsome man. I did chuckle when we saw (his clothes having been shredded by bullets) that meth addict nobody Bob had a Hollywood actor’s sculpted abs. I liked that this was generally platonic – there’s the daughter-father stuff with Yelena and Alexei, but it's mainly loners reluctantly learning that they have to trust each other and are stronger together. Maybe there was a flash of Bob having a very soft spot for Yelena.
Walker and Eva are underserved (he’s a jackass and everyone tells him so.) Dreyfuss is fun as an operator trying to hide her nefarious doings or, failing that, sell them as being for the common good, and they solidly explained her craving for power. I think this is the first that I’ve seen Geraldine Viswanathan in anything.
It's trying to be knowing about referencing what’s come before – the whole idea of these barely superheroes replacing the Avengers, when the one who has the most ability can’t access them, and that’s probably a good thing because whoa he had a lot of power that he was tapping into in 24 hours flat. Because Bob was all walking adverse childhood experiences, terrible coping mechanisms and bipolar symptoms, I did think that while human contact and feeling he had people who cared for him was nice, he REALLY needed mental health treatment. They all need therapy, although it would have to be specialised.
But Bucky vs vehicles – I’ve seen that fight scene before. The fighting was generally a bit generic, the action in that other space was a bit generic. (Apparently Pugh jumped off an extremely tall building for real in the opening scenes, but the action doesn’t stand out. Apparently 2 the director was responsible for Robot & Frank, which I love, but an action film it is not.) I would go see these guys again, FWIW.
About fifteen people in my showing, with less than half leaving early, but the rest of us stayed until the post-credits scene. Among the trailers, Mission Impossible (which has been getting lots of free promo in the British news this week), Superman (i, did not realise that was coming out this summer, ii, unenthused about Krypto, iii, pretty leads, iv, willing to trust James Gunn up to a point) and Fantastic 4: First Steps (skipped the second iteration of F4. Going retro is going to make for comparisons with The Incredibles...but, fine, make the Silver Surfer female.) Am more enthused about Superman than Fantastic 4.
As for Thunderbolts*, overall, yes, it's an entertaining iteration of the scrappy team of powered people having done bad things learning to work together and maybe do good. It has the sense to know that Florence Pugh is the star, making Yelena Belova (who has the least powers) its heart and leader. Some of it is stuff we’ve seen before, deliberately so in some ways, but it’s better and more cohesive than Suicide Squad (backhand compliment though that is.) It has a nice line in being self-deprecating before the audience can be, and is consistently amusing, if not laugh out loud funny, while dealing with damaged, grieving people and continuing the touching relationship of a grown-up child assassin and her embarrassing adoptive dad hankering after glory days that never were first seen in Black Widow.
I haven’t seen any of the Marvel TV shows, so I was all, ‘Huh, Bucky is a congressman? Valentina is the head of the CIA now?’ I was left mostly glad that I skipped the last Captain America film, although it is referenced here (but honestly if you’ve seen the trailer, you’re good.) Also a bonus, I now know Hannah John-Kamen as Dutch from Killjoys.
It starts off with a fake voiceover of Yelena bemoaning her life (she’s a clean-up person for Valentina), going to visit Alexei, who she hasn’t seen for a year (whither Melina? Not a mention.)
Valentina is in front of a congressional committee (this feels very much made from before Trump 2.0, and the whole ‘the US President became a red Hulk’ is countered by ‘yeah, but IRL the President became an orange wrecking ball aimed at what remains of the Hollywood film industry and that was just this week! Enjoying the irony of our heroine being a Russian, though!)
Secretly Val is ‘tying up loose ends’ by getting her hirelings to kill each other in a secret vault. Poor Taskmaster is killed quite early on, leaving annoying Walker (Captain America for two seconds, apparently), the Ghost (who I had forgotten, but was in Ant-man and the Wasp) and Yelena realising what’s going on. There’s also a guy named Bob, a survivor of medical experimentation, who the audience knows is able to get people to relive some of their most shameful memories (although Yelena and Valentina’s are way more traumatising than Walker paying more attention to his phone than his crying infant son,’ but the latter is more relatable.) They learn they have to work together to survive. There’s a fair bit of ‘just listen to the ladies, who aren’t letting their egos get in the way of things going on, gents.’
Bob, it turns out, is not the useless civilian Yelena and the rest assumed, as it’s revealed that he’s invulnerable and able to fly because he’s the unexpected survivor of The Sentry project that Valentina had going. He’s also admitted to manic highs, depressive lows (which Yelena gave him terrible advice on), a history of meth taking and a traumatic upbringing, but Valentina doesn’t care. Her assistant Mel, however, has a case of grumbling conscience, and has been in touch with Bucky about what’s going on.
The three survivors join up with Alexei, who thinks they should be a team – Thunderbolts was the name of a rubbish soccer team young Yelena was on while living in the States. (I had to be told afterward that the asterisk in the title was about them really being The New Avengers. Uh, whatever. Am minded to refer to them as the Thunderbolts forever more, anyway.) Bucky thinks they’re evidence of Val’s wrongdoing, and has them cuffed, waiting to be transferred to DC, until it’s confirmed that Val is going to use superpowered Bob to grab power for herself. So, he joins the team too.
So, they return to Avengers Towers, now the Watchtower (there are plot reasons, but one is left to wonder if Marvel is recycling sets as well as material these days), to find that Bob is now The Sentry, with blonde hair and flowing locks, and on Val’s side. They’re useless against him.
Only Bob/Sentry doesn’t see why he should be Valentina’s tool, and starts flying around New York, letting the void inside him out. Soon people are being disappeared (shades of Thanos, but it’s more like the blight thing from The Neverending Story) and Yelena feels bad because of her terrible advice to him about coping with said void. The Thunderbolts have started to use what powers they have to save New Yorkers from Sentry’s destructiveness (shades of the Avengers.) Alexei has pointed out that having a team has brought back some of Yelena’s inner light and they’ve had a heart-to-heart where he admitted he’d let her down when she was grieving for Natasha because he’s a bit of a failboat, but at least he’s here now.
And so Yelena deliberately sacrifices herself and finds herself in a mental ‘shame room’ (yeah, seen this before, Marvel, though it was effective) where she finally finds the real Bob, sees his personal shame (more relatable childhood trauma than Yelena’s, or indeed, Valentina’s). The others realise that she was up to something, follow her into this other space, and by offering Bob human connection, help him beat his dark self figuratively, not literally. I don’t know that Bob only accessing Sentry’s powers through the Void stands up, really, but it worked in the moment.
Back in New York, Bucky is all for arresting Valentina, but she’s set up a press conference (shades of Iron Man?) and announces that she’s been working on the New Avengers, our ragtag team, locking them into a strange old dynamic. There’s an amusing mid credit scene with Alexei/Red Guardian. The end credits are all about the world going ‘The New Avengers? Huh?’ and the post-credits scene is set 14 months later, where they’re in a battle with Sam about who the New Avengers are (whoever has the best box office, I thought, until this latest threat to cinema, and if you look at the credits, they prove how preposterous the orange one’s ‘idea’ about film tariffs is.) But it’s mainly about teasing the Fantastic 4 in the MCU.
I love Yelena, and she’s a sarky anti-heroine, very damaged, Pugh is charismatic, and manages the weightier bits. I felt that they were honouring Natasha through her. Worth taking a moment to celebrate a female team leader in a Marvel film. Sebastian Stan remains a handsome man. I did chuckle when we saw (his clothes having been shredded by bullets) that meth addict nobody Bob had a Hollywood actor’s sculpted abs. I liked that this was generally platonic – there’s the daughter-father stuff with Yelena and Alexei, but it's mainly loners reluctantly learning that they have to trust each other and are stronger together. Maybe there was a flash of Bob having a very soft spot for Yelena.
Walker and Eva are underserved (he’s a jackass and everyone tells him so.) Dreyfuss is fun as an operator trying to hide her nefarious doings or, failing that, sell them as being for the common good, and they solidly explained her craving for power. I think this is the first that I’ve seen Geraldine Viswanathan in anything.
It's trying to be knowing about referencing what’s come before – the whole idea of these barely superheroes replacing the Avengers, when the one who has the most ability can’t access them, and that’s probably a good thing because whoa he had a lot of power that he was tapping into in 24 hours flat. Because Bob was all walking adverse childhood experiences, terrible coping mechanisms and bipolar symptoms, I did think that while human contact and feeling he had people who cared for him was nice, he REALLY needed mental health treatment. They all need therapy, although it would have to be specialised.
But Bucky vs vehicles – I’ve seen that fight scene before. The fighting was generally a bit generic, the action in that other space was a bit generic. (Apparently Pugh jumped off an extremely tall building for real in the opening scenes, but the action doesn’t stand out. Apparently 2 the director was responsible for Robot & Frank, which I love, but an action film it is not.) I would go see these guys again, FWIW.
