I liked it, it was exactly what I expected it to be.
I did think the big bad’s power was terrifying. As scary as anything Marvel has put on the big screen. I saw that and just figured, y’all better start running and hope.
When the little girl that Red Guardian was saving to blasted into shadow right in front of him, I literally said “Oh shit.” ZakSon chastised me.
My child has a laugh-or-you’ll-cry response so the only sound in our theater was her cackling.
I had a bigger reaction to Red Guardian taking that concrete block to the noggin right before, I thought that was going to be a sacrifice play. Once the cute ass little girl got poofed I instantly thought “oh, they are all coming back”.
Yeah it was a brief shock but that was when I realized he wasn’t killing them.
To me Thunderbolts suffers the same problem as Brave New World: both movies seem to target the vibe of the best MCU film (Captain America: The Winter Soldier, wrongly think it’s something else) and miss. Part of it is missing the Hydra/Shield dynamic, part is failing to stick the landing both times.
Hilariously the official Avengers instagram now has a copyright symbol before Avengers.
That’s funny as hell. Great marketing move.
Got back from watching it today with my daughter. She’s not caught up on all the MCU so I had to give her a short briefing on the characters. She loved it. I didn’t like it quite as much as her but I liked it a lot.
Summary
The mid credit scene was a waste but the long end credit scene worked. I read today the scene was directed by the Russos on the set of Doomsday. It also confirms the entering from another dimension origin of the FF.
Watched the film today. It was the most fun Marvel film I’ve seen in a while. I laughed pretty hard at points but there was enough action and drama that it wasn’t just a jokey film. It hit that sweet spot that the Guardians of the Galaxy films and Thor: Ragnarok managed to do IMHO.
I’m also pretty excited for the next Avengers film because of it.
Not to derail this thread but I 100% disagree that Thor Ragnarok was able to thread that needle and that’s a reason I like it much less than most people. I agree that Thunderbolts was able to even if it’s symbolism was the opposite of subtle.
It’s a matter of personal taste and I respect that.
Also add me to the list of people who enjoyed this movie quite a bit. It really did come down to the chemistry between the team members which worked for me. The plot was interesting and Julia Louis-Dreyfus was really quite good in a way I was not expecting with giving her more depth than seen until now. In way that was like Captain America: Brave New World in that respect that it gave more depth to a known character. Of course Thunderbolts* is much better than the Captain America film in almost every respect.
//i\\
Maybe this is just me. But for some reason I thought Geraldine Viswanathan looked familiar and she was playing a character I was supposed to recognize as a connection with some previous MCU movie or series.
Which, as I said, was just me. I checked her credits when I got home and Viswanathan has not appeared in any previous MCU works. And I haven’t seen any of the movies she’s been in.
On a separate note, was it ever established why Valentina wanted Yelena to kill Clint Barton? I remember she fed Yelena the disinformation about him killing her sister in Black Widow and Yelena followed through on this in Hawkeye. But what was Valentina’s motive?
Not in MCU canon. Still an open question with only speculation for answers.
I feel this was a problem for the movie. They didn’t put any real effort into establishing Valentina’s character. They appeared to have just taken it as a given that she was a politician, therefore she was evil. And assumed the audience would believe this too.
She was already in Falcon and the Winter Soldier, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever and Black Widow. Altough her character isn’t completely fleshed out and remains mysterious in those other movies/shows it does give you a lot more insight into who she is.
Except that she was portrayed the same in those previous movies; a character who was evil apparently because the plot needed an evil villain. It’s not like she did a heel turn at some point; she was always obviously evil. It was never really explained why she chose to be evil or why other people chose to put such an obviously evil person in positions of power.
IIRC she was asked to do it by Eleanor Bishop.
I guess I don’t see the issue. From the beginning she is shown to be a puppet master pulling strings from the shadows. I don’t know why there needs to be a heel turn. Just because we can see she’s a bad guy doesn’t mean everyone else does. She erases her mistakes and secrets and manipulates to gain power. Everett Ross (Martin Freeman) is a good guy and she fooled him so much he married her.