Thunderbolts* Review

This is a DynaMic Network Podcast. 

Hi and welcome to the Dynamic Duel Podcast, a weekly show where we review superhero films and debate the superiority between Marvel and DC by comparing their characters in stat-based battle simulations. I'm Marvelous Joe. 

And I'm its twin brother Johnny DC. And in this episode, we are going to review the latest Marvel Studios film that hit theaters, Thunderbolts, Asterisk. And no, the Asterisk was not just a stand-in for a butthole. It did in fact have meaning that we will discuss later on this episode. If you did not see the movie, don't spoil yourself on what the Asterisk meant. Go see the film and then come back and listen to our spoiler review. 

I really liked the Thunderbolts. It's probably my new favorite Marvel movie. Well, don't give away the whole show. 

Save your thoughts on the movie for when we discuss the movie. 

I just said I liked it. I didn't give anything away. 

Way to go, Jonathan. Everybody's tuning out now because you're dumbass. Please stay with us, guys. Because before we talk about the movie, we're going to break down the latest comic book movie news this past week, of which there was just one major news item. We learned that Ryan Reynolds is writing an X-Men movie for the MCU, which will feature Deadpool. An all-Marvel episode. As always, we list our segment times in our episode description, so feel free to check out the show notes if you want to skip ahead to a particular topic. 

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Our version, the Dynamic Dual No Prize, is a digital award that we post on Instagram for the person that we feel gave the best answer to our question of the week. 

Last week, we asked you guys, for those of you who have seen both films, which was better? 2009's Watchmen or Thunderbolts and why? And we asked this because last week's episode was a team duel where we found out who would win in a fight between the Watchmen and the Thunderbolts. So we kind of continued it into the film space. We didn't get a whole lot of answers, we just got two, largely because there were only so many people out there listening that could give a valid answer to this question in time. 

Our first honorable mention goes to John Sturrosky, who said, It's John Sturrosky here. 

So you guys are asking which is better, Thunderbolts or Watchmen? And to be perfectly honest, I can't say either of them is better than the other one because it's comparing apples to oranges. And Watchmen, you've got a universe where the real heroes that we know from the DC universe don't exist. And Thunderbolts, it's incorporated into the mainstream universe. Again, apples to oranges, they're both fantastic movies though, so let's just get along. 

John, what do you think this podcast is all about? 

You gotta take a side. Now, I know on the Discord, your server name is JohnTheFence because you say that you sit on the fence between both sides. But as you know, we like to make all of our patrons pick a side between Marvel and DC. And as the wise man once said, he who sits on the fence has a stick up his butt. 

Yes, I have heard the saying and I 100% agree with it. Yes, so John gave pretty much a non-answer something about, Oh, one's in a universe and one's not. I'm not sure what that has to do with the quality of each film, but Watchmen was clearly the correct answer here. 

Actually, that was Thunderbolts. But you know, he's saying we're comparing apples to oranges. Here's the thing, John, oranges are way better than apples. Fuck oranges. Orange juice. Orange juice is fucking delicious, right? You can like segment it off, you know, in little pieces. Hell yeah, it's a way more versatile fruit. Oranges all the way. 

Except with apples, you get apple jam, which is way better than orange jam. You get apple soda again, way better than orange soda. Demand. Apples are clearly the superior fruit. 

Wait, wait, wait, what the fuck is apple soda? I've heard of orange soda. Have you never had an apple soda? I think maybe I did at one point, but then I blocked it from my memory because it sucked. You are a cultured piece of shit. Guys, are you team Apple or team Orange? Let us know in the comments. 

Thanks for the answer, John. But the winner of this week's No Price is Lorenzo Valdez. Who said? 

This is Lorenzo Valdez. I just got back to my condo after watching Thunderbolts and I really enjoyed it. Florence Pugh is awesome. The most of the humor really worked for me, but I can't say it's better than Watchmen. I mean, Watchmen is such a beautiful, elegant, thought-provoking, at times, satirical, epic. And I love Watchmen. Clon of Forever and Always. 

Bye-bye. And I love this answer. Watchmen is all of those things and more. Don't get me wrong, Thunderbolts is good, but it's just not at the same caliber as Watchmen. The film by Zack Snyder is literally a piece of art. It's his tour de force, in my opinion. The way everything looked combined with the music, combined with the acting, combined with the story overall. Muah, Chef's kiss. 

Oh, I'm sorry that the Thunderbolts movie didn't have enough swinging blue dong for you guys. For a great answer, Lorenzo, you win this week's no prize, I guess. If you, the listener, want to shout out winning your own no prize, stay tuned to later on this episode, when we'll be asking another question of the week. I gotta say something. 

And now that that's done, you're not gonna let me say anything. On to the news. 

Alright, this past week we learned that Ryan Reynolds has been tasked with developing treatments for a Deadpool slash X-Men team-up movie. Now, he's gone on the record before as saying that there's probably not gonna be another Deadpool solo movie. I mean, Deadpool and Wolverine wasn't a Deadpool solo movie. You know, he shared billing with Wolverine, but it's likely that there's not gonna be like another standalone Deadpool film. It's gonna be more along the lines of an ensemble piece with other mutant characters. Largely, this is happening because, you know, Deadpool and Wolverine grossed over a billion dollars at the box office. And that has made Ryan Reynolds probably one of the most lucrative talents working with Marvel Studios at this time. We don't know too much about the movie other than a few details that the Hollywood Reporter released, including the news that the movie is only going to feature three or four X-Men characters within its lineup with Deadpool playing a character on the sidelines as a worm. 

Alright, so he's not one of the three or four characters? Correct. 

So it's gonna be Deadpool and Wolverine and somebody and somebody and somebody is a way to look at this. 

Well, how do you feel about this? Because, I mean, technically Deadpool and Wolverine, I guess, was in the MCU. But this will kind of officially be the MCU's like first X-Men movie, like a team movie. 

Well, we don't know that for sure because there's another X-Men movie in the works that's being written by Michael Leslie, who wrote the Hunger Games films. So that film is an X-Men film that's different from this Ryan Reynolds Deadpool X-Men movie. 

Oh, OK. So either that X-Men movie is gonna come before this Deadpool team up or Deadpool's gonna come first. I think what I would like to see as a fan thinking about what X-Men storylines Deadpool has been a part of, I think I'd like to see the Deadpool team up movie come first and then lead into the first official Marvel X-Men film. And if they adapted the Messiah complex through the Messiah War storyline where we see the first mutant being born and how cable and Deadpool and basically all the mutants are striving to either protect or kill or use this child who ends up being Hope Summers. I think that's a pretty good foundation story leading into the revelation that mutants exist in this post-secret wars Marvel Universe. 

I don't know about that. For one, it's kind of paradoxical that they're mutants hunting the first mutant. But also, I feel like the sooner we get to a like established Xavier school with Professor X and Cyclops and Jean Grey at least, the better. That's true. 

I mean, honestly, in terms of how they release these films, I could go either way. I think, yes, it would be better to have all the classic X-Men elements in place prior to a new Deadpool team up movie. But if you were to put the new Deadpool movie up first, I think there's a way to adapt the Messiah complex there. And that way you'd be able to bring back cable and you'd have Bishop and you could probably have Wolverine back with Hugh Jackman. 

Tilly's fucking 90. This is all speculation, but I will be really interested in seeing which of these X-Men films comes out first. I think it's really smart to continue to use Ryan Reynolds and the Deadpool character. I know the audiences, including myself, are not really done seeing films with him. I hope yet he continues doing this until he's 90 because the cinematic character of Deadpool is just such a national treasure. So unique. 

I'm pretty glad Ryan Reynolds is getting this win. I think he's a marketing and writing genius. So I think this project is in good hands with him. 

I agree. But since we don't know who's going to be in this Deadpool X-Men team up movie, that brings us to our question of the week. Including Deadpool, what should be the roster for the X-Men Deadpool team up film? Again, we're looking for three to four characters because that's the number that the Hollywood Reporter gave. So we want to know who you would like to see in that film. 

Recording your answer at dynamicdool.com by clicking on the red microphone button in the bottom right hand corner of the screen, which will prompt you to leave us a voicemail. Your message could be up to 30 seconds long and don't forget to leave your name in case we include you on the podcast. We'll pick our favorite answer and award that person a Dynamic Dool No Prize that we'll post to Instagram. Be sure to answer before May 10th. 

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But that does it for all the news for this episode, so let's go ahead and get into our main event, where we review the latest Marvel Studios film to hit theaters, Thunderbolts. Astros. Thunderbolts. Thunderbolts was directed by Jake Schreer and stars Florence Pugh, Sebastian Stan, David Harbour, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Wyatt Russell, Hannah John-Cammond, and Lewis Pullman. The film is the fifth and final film of Marvel's Phase 5, though we won't completely be out of this phase until the Iron Heart television series, which will be released in June. 

And then Phase 6 will start in July with the Fantastic Four for Steps Movie. One of my bigger takeaways walking out of the movie was that there were little to no surprises in the film plot-wise. I think even in the confines of this podcast, just us speculating on the film based on the trailers, you and I guessed most of what the movie would be, say for the end credits scene. It's not a complicated film with a complex story. That being said, if you haven't seen it yet, I would still recommend going to go see it because it's worth it. Just because the plot is simple doesn't mean that the movie is not good. Go see the movie, then come back and listen to our spoiler review. 

It also doesn't mean that the movie is not a spectacle that should be watched on the biggest screen possible. 

Yeah, there's a lot of practical action in this movie. It foregoes CGI a lot, and I think that was pretty cool to see on the big screen. So yeah, I'm starting out by saying that the plot is simple and straightforward, but the story is simple in the way something like Reservoir Dogs is. That is to say, the plot is uncomplicated, but the characters are anything but. The film really is more of a character study in that it takes these very unique, established, anti-heroic characters and spends its time exploring who they are and how they interact more than doing stuff like expositing or world building. That's pretty unique for a Marvel Studios project, and so right off the bat, the film has an identity that's all its own that sets it apart from its contemporaries. Where you could describe the typical Marvel film as, you know, exciting, funny, action-packed, flashy. The Thunderbolts film could be described as more authentic, snappy, you know, it's nuanced, it's mature. 

It's still loads of fun, though. And I'm not going to say that these descriptors make Thunderbolts better than other Marvel films if there are people out there thinking that I'm knocking your average Marvel fare, but I do think that it's fresher and therefore more important for the genre as a whole, which seems to be flagging among general audiences, you know, and could use some fresh material like this movie. 

Yeah, this is very different from, say, Captain America Brave New World, which felt more like a typical Marvel film to me. Thunderbolts is exactly what I was hoping would come from Marvel Studios, considering we're kind of experiencing a genre of fatigue amongst the film-going audiences currently. And I think this was a really smart release on behalf of Marvel. And probably a cheap one, too. I mean, there's really only two, like, major locations throughout the entire film, which surprised me. 

Yeah, there's the Ox Vault in, like, Utah, and then there's the Watchtower in Manhattan. And really, the film takes place over a matter of hours, if not, like a day or so. Again, the story is pretty straightforward, and in that regard, I think, less is more. It gave us time to really sit down and observe these incredibly complex characters in a way that we normally wouldn't otherwise if they're, you know, like the Eternals circumventing the globe and setting up all this backstory and world-building for the future. The movie, in effect, is almost the Anti-Eternals. 

That's exactly what I was thinking as I was walking out of the theater. Really? Just comparing the Century to someone like Icarus, I was like, man, I kind of wish the Eternals didn't come out until, like, years from now, as opposed to when it did, because it kind of ruined a lot of future Marvel films, in a way, I think, because it was just so large in scale and would obviously affect the larger Marvel world in a way that they probably weren't ready for. To me, the Century was much more interesting of a character than Icarus was. 

Yeah, I totally agree. That being said, I also liked Eternals. I liked how kind of existential it was and how it also took a different approach to the superhero genre, albeit, you know, a less successful one. You know, we did have someone on the Discord, and I can't remember off the top of my head who, so I'm sorry for not giving credit where credit is due, but someone posited that perhaps the Golden Century Serum that was created by Project Century in this movie used a bit of like Eternals DNA or something in there, in conjunction with the Super Soldier Serum, because the way the Century would sometimes glow golden was semi-reminiscent of how the Eternals powers would manifest visually. 

Yeah, we never quite learned how they developed the Century Superpowers, did we? 

No, I mean, it's just as vague as it was in the comic books, you know, where the government was trying to recreate the Super Soldier Serum, and so they outsourced it to a bunch of subcontractors, and then this high school chemist professor ended up cracking the case, and then one of his students, Bob Reynolds, broke into his lab and then drank the formula in an attempt to get high. You know, they don't go too much into the specifics into, you know, what went into the cauldron, as it were. We just know that it worked. 

And actually, one of the things I really like about this film is how I didn't feel that despite all these different characters having all of these different histories from other Marvel projects, like films and television series, that it felt like I needed to do homework before watching it. Like, honestly, I feel like this could have been the first Marvel film I had ever seen, and I still would have mostly understood everything. It was very standalone in that way. For sure. 

I mean, the film is somewhat a quasi-sequel to the first Black Widow film, but it also continues the story from the Captain America franchise and the Falcon and the Winter Soldier and Ant-Man and the Wasp. But nowadays, you know, that's not too much homework compared to some of the other Marvel films that have come out. 

This movie was less interested in continuity, and really, it seems like The Thunderbolts was made by people who were less interested in the MCU as a whole, less interested in, you know, CGI and the colorful spectacle, and they were more interested in practical action, grounded tones. They were less concerned with the big players and more interested in creating these portraits of the universe's more sidelined characters. And that's to the film's benefit and detriment, I think, because on one hand, you get these interesting explorations of themes like depression and introspection, but on the other hand, you have a film that treats some characters like Taskmaster and Songbird with such apathy for the source material that they probably didn't even need to be in the film to begin with. As a fan, mostly as a comic book fan, that sucks. 

Yeah, Taskmaster was definitely done dirty here. I don't understand why they chose to even include her honestly, and regarding Songbird, I didn't even know that was Songbird, or I wouldn't have known if you would not have mentioned it like last episode. 

For sure, yeah, they were both done dirty. Like, Taskmaster was included in the marketing material, but she really only had one line of dialogue this film and probably under a minute of action, and she was badass in the minute that she had. You know, I understand that fans were disappointed with the revelation in the Black Widow film that Taskmaster was Antonia Drakov, but like, wasn't the character at the very least worth redemption? And at the most, wasn't she still a fucking badass? 

I think considering Taskmaster's backstory in the MCU and her power set, and even, you know, the actor who plays her, Olga Korylenko, I think she would have made for an interesting conclusion into this story. And yeah, the filmmakers may say that they took her out early in order to set the stakes for the film, but they treated her death as an afterthought. Like, there was like little to no impact there to even make those stakes feel earned. Like, if they were going to kill her as a way to set the stakes, they should have had the Void killer during his fight with the Thunderbolts in order to increase the stakes there. Like, that would have been impactful. 

Yeah, or the Void accidentally killed her during their escape from the vault. Like, she fell down the elevator shaft or something like that. 

Something like that. That would have been more shocking than what happened. And as for Songbird, like, I thought they included Melissa Gold in this film because she was eventually going to become the hero's Songbird, even if it was at the end as an end credit stinger or something. Like, how do you include who is perhaps the most iconic and tenured member of the Thunderbolts from the comics and not have her in this movie with her sonic powers or any reference to her heroic persona? Like, the Melissa Gold character in this film could have been literally anybody. Her name could have been like Trixie Tinklemuffin or whatever, and the movie would have been exactly the same. It's like putting Harley Quinn in a Suicide Squad film and then just making her an assistant to Amanda Waller. 

Well, I think it would have been like her as Harley and Quinzel sort of setting up the character. That's what I got from this film. 

I got no impression that we were ever going to see that assistant Melissa character again ever. I mean, when Valentina said that she was getting a lesson in loyalty or something like that, I thought there she was going to get like her sonic powers, but then nothing came of that. I'm not sure it really would have fit into the film though. Maybe not, but like again, even as an end credit stinger, something like that. You just can't put the most iconic Thunderbolts member from the comics in this movie and not have any reference to Songbird whatsoever. 

Yeah, I guess they could have done that instead of the Wheaties box thing. Yeah, exactly. That was funny though. 

It's kind of like they put Songbird in this movie for fanservice and then forgot to service us. Oh, shit. Like what's the opposite of fanservice? Fan disrespect. There you go. There you go. 

I feel very disrespected as a fan. In the grand scheme of the film though, those gripes could be considered nitpicking probably. I don't want my bitching to negate the big thematic swings that the film took in terms of things like self loathing and mental health and what heroism looks like for people who do not see themselves as heroes. That's stuff that's not really explored in a lot of other superhero movies. 

Yeah, exactly. You mentioned that the film felt like it was made by people who were less interested in the MCU and more interested in the characters. I kind of felt like it was made by people who were more interested in theme. And like you mentioned, the whole theme here is pretty much mental illness. 

Yeah, it's a big one. You know, heroism is also a major theme. I like what the film had to say about all of that because like, you know, we've gotten projects with anti-heroes in them, like The Punisher or Black Adam, but it's rare to see a project with an anti-hero questioning whether they could be an actual hero. 

And I think that's fascinating. Like, what if The Punisher felt guilty over his use of guns and instead picked up a shield? What if Black Adam took notes from Shazam? How would it speak to their tragic histories? How would it redefine them as characters? Like, I'm not saying that all anti-heroes should go through this journey. 

They shouldn't, you know, betray who they are. But going from an anti-hero to a hero, I think, is a pretty interesting thought experiment that they did well here in The Thunderbolts. 

Yeah, it's one that Bucky, I feel like, has been going through for a long time and seeing that other characters in the MCU could relate with that and kind of go on that journey with him. Even though the film primarily focuses on Yelena, I thought that was a cool dynamic and good for a team of characters within Marvel. Absolutely. 

I want to talk more about that in the character breakdown, but before we get there, I do want to touch on the asterisk. The asterisk pretty much meant what we all thought it would mean in that The Thunderbolts team was not really The Thunderbolts, but actually a New Avengers team. Like, when I saw that on the screen, I was like, oh yeah, called it, but it made me think that you have to admire Marvel's tenacity in not marketing this film as a New Avengers movie. Because I think calling this movie New Avengers probably would have accounted for a bigger box office opening. I mean, this movie got a decent box office, but, you know, The Thunderbolts name is not a household brand like The Avengers is. They could have easily called this movie New Avengers, and they chose not to, for the sake of art, we'll say. And I think that's pretty admirable. 

Although I think the whole thing was made moot by the end credits scene where it's revealed that, oh hey, they're not actually The New Avengers. So they really are The Thunderbolts. 

They are The New Avengers. They're just not the only Avengers out there. They're Avengers with a Z, right? Oh my gosh. I mean, it happened in the comic books where you had simultaneous Avengers teams going, especially around the events of Norman Osborn's Hammer Organization, where he had his Avengers team, and then you had the mighty Avengers, led by Luke Cage. So this dilemma is not without precedence within the comic book. They were really fighting over, like, who was the true bearers of the Avengers legacy, and I think that's an interesting thing to explore. But you didn't answer my question about Marvel's boldness in how they chose to market this film. 

Slow clap for Marvel. Thank you. Slow clap. Yeah. I don't really give a shit. 

Well, you're just a sellout, so whatever. 

Well, okay. I have no idea what that means, but sure. 

Let's go to move on to our character breakdown. Starting with Black Widow, a.k .a. Yelena Belova, played by Florence Pugh. Now Florence Pugh is such an interesting Yelena Belova, largely because of how, like, deadpan and dry she is as an actress. I'm not sure if any other actor could pull this version of Yelena off like she does. I think it makes her more interesting than a lot of her peers, including, dare I say it, Scarlett Johansson as the Black Widow. In that Yelena has a lot more going for her personality-wise in that she's funny, but she's also flawed. She's also very endearing. She goes in this movie from being in a very deep depression to refinding herself in a new family, The Thunderbolts, that's not too dissimilar from the family she had as a kid with Natasha and Melina and Alexi. 

It's Alexi who helps her see past her own flaws that she only sees in herself and helps her realize that she's already more of a hero than she likely ever thought she could be. I thought that was a fascinating journey. 

It's interesting to hear you say that you think Yelena Belova is more interesting than Natasha. Right when you said that, I was like, is that true? And I think it is, actually, because they really had a fight to give Natasha a personality in a film like Avengers Age of Ultron with the backstory that, oh, she's sad because she can't have children. 

But it's like that kind of felt like it was a few films too late, I suppose. Whereas with Yelena, you're right, she's a lot more funny than Scarlett Johansson's Black Widow. And I love just the tragic backstory that they continue to expand upon for the character. 

Well, I mean, Yelena's backstory is the same as Natasha's backstory, right? So they're very similar characters in that regard. They both grew up in the red room and had to go through horrible things to get where they are. But Yelena's personality manifested a little bit differently than Natasha's. You know, I think Scarlett Johansson's character was well used in films like The Winter Soldier or Civil War or even her own film Black Widow. I think it was nice to get the differences between the two sisters there. But I don't think anyone would deny that Florence Pugh's Yelena Belova is just a terribly fascinating character. She's more spunky. 

Yeah. Let's move on to The Winter Soldier, aka Bucky Barnes, played by Sebastian Stan. You know, Sebastian Stan's great as always as the character. 

Here, Bucky really serves as the team leader. You know, he's the precedent for taking your sins from the past and transforming them from a source of guilt to an impetus for change. He is the template from which the rest of the characters can base their journey off of because he's been through it. And what's interesting is that here, his journey takes him to Congress where he serves as a representative for the New York City area, which I thought was interesting. It was a strange choice considering, I don't think, political diplomacy and blowing up bad guys really go hand in hand. 

And really, I'd be shocked if he was still a congressman by the time we see him next as a new Avenger, which makes me wonder why they even bothered to put Bucky into politics to begin with. I wouldn't say it was 100% necessary for this film. It kind of seems like an element that they wanted to explore early on, but then just kind of abandoned while writing the script. 

But I think they explained that he, by joining the Thunderbolts team, pretty much resigned his role as a congressman. Yeah, I think they did say that. It was implied at least by Valentina. 

Right. To me, I thought Bucky was sort of the least interesting character in this film. I don't know if it's because we've gone through his whole arc pretty much already, but it also kind of felt like Sebastian Stan was kind of just going through the motions with the role. 

I mean, that's the Bucky character, you know, he's tired. He's been through a lot. He's fucking 100 years old. And yeah, he's probably gone through most of his journey, but it is nice to see him taking up the torch for other characters in his place. That's definitely an interesting direction to take the Winter Soldier. I hope that as a member of the New Avenger, The Avengers. 

They give his arm all the cool upgrades that he has in the comic books like the Metal Spike, the Taser arm, and like the Flamethrower. I think that'd be pretty badass. Let's go ahead and move on to US Agent, aka John Walker, played by Wyatt Russell. Wyatt Russell does a great job of playing the guy that you love to hate to love. His John Walker is so believably a douchey asshole, yet somehow still charismatic enough to make you root for him as US Agent. I think it's because he fills his performance with enough insecurity behind his facade that you know that he's not actually coming from a place of arrogance necessarily, but from a place of deep hurt. And I think that makes him endearing. His whole arc was about wanting to be a hero that could live up to the legacy of Captain America and he failed in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier show. 

He failed in his eyes and he failed in the public eye. So by the end of that show, he became more of an agent for Valentina and by the end of this film, he's stepping back into that hero role and you could tell he was a little bit reticent to go back there, but he did it anyway because that's probably his calling. 

Yeah, next to Yelena, he was probably my favorite character in the film. I didn't really like him in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier because of how much of a douchebag he was, but somehow, yeah, you're right, that made him endearing in this movie and relatable in a way because, you know, as a father, I'm probably guilty of looking at my phone when I should probably be interacting with my daughter. So that kind of cut deep. 

Oh, yeah, I think as parents nowadays, we've all done that, but his big mistake was that he left his family. Oh, I thought they left him. Yeah, one of those two things, but it just added to the tragedy because like Ghost was asking Kim how he balanced it all and he's just like, you do what you got to do. And then later on, it was revealed as they were chained up in the garage that he wasn't even a family man anymore. 

He didn't have everything. 

He didn't have it all. A quick note here. I really love how by when the end credits came along, he still had his shield taco. It was like how many months later after the events of this film was the end credits and yet he was still sticking with that bent shield almost like he had come to just accept it. I thought that was hilarious. 

I thought that was super dumb. I did not get that. 

Let's go ahead and move on to the Sentry, aka Bob Reynolds, played by Lewis Pullman. It sucks so much to see how much of a revelation Lewis Pullman was in this role, to see how much nuance and believability the actor brought to this very difficult role and yet still wonder how Stephen Yuen would have pulled it off. 

Oh, no, just watching this, I was like, this actor was so perfect for this role. I am so glad they replaced Stephen Yuen. 

I mean, it's Yuen's loss, right? Because the Sentry has long been one of Marvel's most psychologically complex heroes. And it seems like such a meaty role for any actor to sink his teeth into. 

Oh, yeah. I thought Pullman brought layers to his performance with every subtlety, every weird posture or shy smile or hand twitch. I think he realistically portrayed mental illness in a way that felt, I guess, respectful for those who suffer from any psychological affliction. 

It just felt real and not like a caricature of mental illness. You know, there were times where he was scary and there were times where he was funny. There were times where he was heartwrenchingly sympathetic. I think his Bob Reynolds is by far one of the MCU's most interesting characters. And I can see him growing in the role in much the same way Tom Hiddleston did as Loki, because there's just so much going on behind the performance and so much space to explore and to grow from here. 

I have never been a big fan of the Sentry as a character. I always kind of saw him as an April Fools Superman knockoff character. But his performance made me really appreciate aspects of the Sentry that I hadn't really before. 

Yeah, the whole mental illness thing is unique to the character, right? He is Bob Reynolds, the addict. He is also the Sentry, the all powerful hero. He is also the void, a soul leading pit of darkness. I was surprised that they went as hard into that as they did with this film. I thought maybe they were just going to kind of tangentially address that. But no, that whole relationship of the beings that are the Sentry kind of became the crux of the film. 

Oh, yeah, no, absolutely. I mean, it was the stakes of the film. It was the climax of the film, them going up against this dark side of the character. I jokingly texted you right after I saw the movie saying that this film was essentially an MCU version of My Little Pony and the whole like friendship is magic thing. And the bad guys defeated in the end by a group hug. That said, they did an unbelievably good job of making that work for the audience in a way that surprised me. 

Well, I didn't know what you meant by that My Little Pony text message that you sent me because I'm not a brony like you. 

OK, I have two daughters that are older than your daughter. 

I still I have no idea what reference I've never watched My Little Pony. So I don't know exactly what you're saying. 

I'm saying everything was solved by the power of friendship and a group hug at the end. 

It's not like they defeat the void in the comic books in any less roundabout manner. In the books, they have to defeat the void by essentially making everybody forget about the Sentry and Bob Reynolds and the void to begin with. There's no easy solution there. 

You can't just take him down by force. So I don't I don't begrudge the film taking that kind of approach of the group hug, where really they're trying to solve the issue of the void through therapy, right? 

Well, I don't begrudge it either. That's what I'm saying. I'm saying like I feel like I should, but they did it so well that I don't. Yeah. 

I mean, one of the main themes of the movie was mental illness. So the fact that it was therapy that helped solve everything. I think that's what makes it work. 

What did you think of the Sentry's powers in this movie? Because they were a little bit different from what they are in the comic. 

Yeah, they focused a lot more on telekinesis, which is not really something that I know the Sentry to have in the books. For the void, they really focused on his telepathic powers, which I thought was pretty interesting. He was kind of like a psychic entity on the astral plane, right? He was bringing all these people into his astral realm where they would live out their biggest regrets in life or their most depressing moments or something like that. It was different from what I know in the books, but I wouldn't say that it's out of the concept for the Sentry. You know, the Sentry is supposed to be this all powerful being void is supposed to be this soul sucking dark creature. 

I think it all works. In the future, I would like to see them use less telekinesis for the character and focus more on his strength. I don't know if they were just doing that in an attempt to make him seem less like Superman or not, but it was strange to me. 

I want to see them focus more on his light powers. Yes. 

Yeah, that would be good. Let's move on to Red Guardian, a.k .a. Alexi Shostakov, played by David Harbour. I love David Harbour in this role. You know, we mentioned he was great in the Black Widow movie, mostly as comic relief. And he plays the role of comic relief in this movie, too. 

But he also serves as a beacon for the team and especially Yelena on how to be a hero. He was the first one in Manhattan to just do what was right and do what came naturally to him by saving these people. And he seemed to see the heroic side in his teammates and believed in them more than they believed in themselves. And he cheered them on. 

It was awesome. But his arc was interesting in that, you know, you can view it cynically because I was trying to think about what his motivations were. And you could say that he was pushing a heroic agenda on these people so that he could selfishly live out his old glory days. But I think when you look at David Harbour's performance, it kind of pushes that cynicism away because there's such honesty to his optimism and in his lovable buffoonery. 

Yeah, he's just excited about being a hero and helping people. There's perks that come with it, and he definitely takes advantage of those. Like the Weedies box. Yeah, exactly. But I also felt like he genuinely wants to help. Yeah, he was a great mentor figure in this movie. And I liked him here a lot more than I did in the Black Widow movie. There he kind of got annoying to me. And I thought he was going to be annoying in this film as well. But I was just surprised to think about how well he helped direct Yelena's arc through the conversations he had with her at the beginning. And right before the climax, it worked really well. 

I don't think David Harbour was annoying in the Black Widow film. I thought it was great. I did think his character was annoying in the What If episode that he shared with Bucky. I think the dynamic that we got between the Winter Soldier and the Red Guardian in this movie was better than that entire What If episode. 

Oh, yeah. Regarding his look, it was nice to see him cleaned up during the Weedies mid-credits scene. But then by the time the end credits scene rolled around, he was back to having a completely shaped head with a really long wild man beard. So I thought that was a little bit weird the way they jumped between his looks from the movie to the mid-credits scene to the end credits scene. The inconsistency just was strange. 

Yeah, all of those characters had interesting looks in the final end credits scene. I didn't really care for any of them, honestly. Really? Yeah. They all look like wigs, right? Right. It was just a little too polished, a little too like 70s. I don't know. 

Well, that's how they'll look in the upcoming Avengers Doomsday movie because the end credits scene was filmed on that set. Let's go ahead and move on to Ghost, a.k .a. Ava Star, played by Hannah John-Kamen. So Ghost was a character that appeared in this film. 

Yeah, she didn't really contribute to anything too much other than getting them out of the vault. 

Yeah, I feel like there's not a whole lot to say about Ghost. She seemed really just along for the ride, for the most part, without any notable motivations or character building. We do know from Ant-Man and the Wasp that she had a painful childhood with her chronic quantum instability. You know, we know that she became an assassin for Shield and tried to steal the quantum tunnel from Hank Pym, and was subsequently healed at the end of that movie by Janet Van Dyne. 

But I don't think I learned anything really new about Ghost in the Thunderbolts movie. And I'm sure there are like probably things from her past that she regrets, but we never got to see any of that. We never got any specifics on her regrets. I think it would have been nice to have gotten a vision from the void with her character. 

Or any of the other characters besides Yelena and US Agent. 

Right. Really, Ghost just seemed to hang around because she has a cool power set. But I feel like the character of Taskmaster probably would have been more interesting to explore in terms of past regrets and becoming a hero. I don't know. 

I'm still just salty about Taskmaster at the end of the day. Let's move on to the Contessa Valentina Allegra da Fontaine, played by Julia Louis-Dreyfus. Julia Louis-Dreyfus is a whole lot of fun to watch because she's such an intelligent actor who can deliver lines like they were all written by Aaron Sorkin or something like that. I think that's her special ability as an actress. 

Really, much of the dialogue in this movie was written by Joanna Collow, who wrote The Bear for FX. So that may have something to do with how enjoyable Julia's performance was. But I thought she was great. She was actually more enjoyable in this role than I thought she was going to be. I do wish that we got more information on her motivations. Like we did get a vision with her character where she was a young child in Italy and her parents were freedom fighters going up against the suppressive regime. 

Or maybe it was a mob thing. It wasn't quite clear because she's certainly not old enough to be a child during like World War Two. But whatever happened there didn't really serve to inform her decisions in this movie, unless that is to say she learned that fear and power can be valuable tools in life. I'm not quite sure what to read off of that memory that she had. But there's still a lot of questions around her character, like is she acting alone? We never really got to learn things like that here. 

I kind of got the impression that her character is all about having more power than anyone else who can use it against her. Because what she witnessed as a child left her feeling very powerless. And she is threatened by other countries like Wakanda, who may again be more powerful than her and she doesn't want that. 

That's a great way to read into it. 

Yeah, her character is very, very similar to Amanda Waller, who I think has a similar viewpoint in regards to power and obtaining power and using power because of her tragic backstory as well. I very much saw Valentina as the analog of Amanda Waller in this film. 

Yes, like she's Amanda Waller, but with an actual personality. 

How dare you, sir? Biola Davis would kick your ass for saying that. 

And I'll have Julie Louis Dreyfus backing me up. She has way more personality than Amanda Waller. 

Probably my favorite moment in the film involves Valentina when the century just kicked the asses of the Thunderbolts characters and they're going down in the elevator and she's like, and you're going to do what I say. And he's like, why? And then she just looks at him and she's like, what? I loved that moment. It was just perfectly acted by Julie Louis Dreyfus and Louis Pullman. 

I'll tell you about my favorite moment when we get into the story highlights. 

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In Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, mercenary Yelena Beloba destroys evidence of a lab belonging to the OXE or Ox Corp. In Washington, D.C., CIA director Valentina Allegra de Fontaine testifies in her impeachment trial, where a congressional subcommittee investigates her involvement in Ox's potential illegal activity, including human experimentation to create superhumans. Defending her actions as necessary in a world without Avengers, she orders her assistant Melissa Gold to destroy all of Ox's evidence and loose ends. After visiting her surrogate paternal figure, Alexi, Yelena resolves to better her life and come out of her depression by becoming more of a hero like her late sister. 

She accepts a mission from Valentina to stop a corporate spy at a covert ox vault in Utah. I thought the opening scene was really well done. You know, a lot of the marketing of the film went into Florence Pugh's actual practical stunt of diving off of the Madurka 118 in Kuala Lumpur. It was actually a pretty impressive stunt that I thought did a great job with like its natural lighting and everything like that, of really setting the tone of the cinematography and the practical action that we would be getting in the course of the film. 

Yeah, I believe that's the second tallest building in the world if I'm not mistaken. 

Right, yeah. Arriving at the vault, Yelena finds evidence of Project Sentry before being attacked by US agent John Walker, who in turn is attacked by Taskmaster, who is in turn attacked by Ghost Yelena's target. After a fight in which Ghost kills Taskmaster, the group meets Bob, who stumbled out of an ox containment pod. Confused, they determined that they've all worked for Valentina and were sent to the vault to be eliminated as loose ends. 

At a gala in Washington, DC, New York congressman, Bucky, tries to convince Valentina's assistant, Melissa, to divulge incriminating information on her. Despite the fact that Taskmaster went out dirty at the end of that fight scene, I did think that was a pretty damn cool fight scene that was kind of reminiscent to how we describe and speculate the battles within our dual episodes. You know, it was like a lot of like causality. 

This leads to this leads to this leads to this. I thought there was just kind of like a great story kind of being told through the action of their fight. It may be wonder like what all their stats were and what it would look like if I plugged them all into the simulator. 

Yeah, it was a really cool fight. I don't think I've mentioned this yet, but I really like Ghost's new look in this film. They all looked really cool. 

I don't know, but I really liked her look in M.N. and the Wasp, too. Her white suit, that was pretty badass. I do like her new helmet, though. Yeah, yeah, that's really cool. Back in the vault, the group escapes being incinerated. While making contact with Bob, Yelena has a vision of a childhood memory when she got another girl killed. Valentina learns about the group's survival in the vaults and plans to send a squad after them, a plot that Alexi overhears as her limo driver. Melissa reaches out to Bucky and lets him know that Valentina is plotting something at the ox vault. 

Which, holy cow, how irresponsible of Valentina to just riff in the back of a limo and let the limo driver hear what she's saying. 

Yeah, it was a little convenient, especially having Alexi turn out to be the limo driver. But, I don't know, I also thought it was kind of clever, story-wise. 

Yeah, it was a nice way to get him involved. 

Yeah. Back of the vault, the group, jokingly referred to by Yelena as the Thunderbolts, her Peewee soccer team, attempts to climb an elevator shaft. At the top, Walker has a memory of his family leaving him, a vision also induced by contact with Bob. They fight some of Valentina's forces, taking their gear as a disguise and attempt to steal a truck to escape. When stopped at a checkpoint, Bob creates a diversion by drawing enemy fire and is revealed to be invulnerable. Thunderbolts escape as Bob attempts to fly, but he crash lands and is captured. The elevator shaft scene was horrifying in some aspects. 

Oh yeah, absolutely. Like, not only did it trigger claustrophobia in me, but also it made me really not want to skip leg day the next day I ever do leg day, because that would have sucked. 

Yeah, that would have been really hard. It was funny how it seems to work and then they got to the top and they were like, well, what happens now? And I was like, oh yeah, what does happen now? It was an interesting ethical experiment because there was no way that they all would be able to survive, despite the fact that they all needed each other to even get to the top of the shaft. Right. The way they pulled it off, though, I thought was pretty neat. And by pull it off, I mean, survive US agents general douchebaggery. 

It did make me wonder why, though, if Yelena had a grappling hook, launcher, mantetour, wrist, which she used to save Bob, she could have easily used that to get to the top of the elevator shaft, or at least, you know, get all of them through the shaft safely. 

That's true. Yeah, she definitely could have used it as a means to get them all up. And really, Bob wouldn't have died from that fall either. He would have found out that he was invulnerable and then probably learned how to fly from there. But I thought it was an exciting moment nonetheless. 

Yeah, definitely. As the Thunderbolts escape into the desert, they are rescued by a lexie in his limo and are pursued by an ox military convoy. They're saved by Bucky on his motorcycle, who captures the team in order to bring them in as evidence against Valentina. In New York, Bob is brought to the former Avengers Tower, renamed by Valentina as the Watchtower. She manipulates him into becoming a hero under her control known as the Sentry. 

Holding the Thunderbolts in a garage, Bucky learns from Melissa and corroborates with the team that Bob's power and instability will threaten New York. Now, this brings me to my favorite moment in the movie, which I think was the funniest moment, which was the Molotov cocktail, where you have this thrilling chase and a lexie is yelling for the vodka and they give it to him and he like takes a swig. You're not sure where he's going with this. You think maybe he's just getting drunk, but he creates a Molotov cocktail out of it, lights it on fire like a badass. He tosses it out of the window and it bullseyes the convoy exactly as he intended to little to no effect, which was the joke. But it was a good throw, right? 

It was a great throw. Just the subversion that I thought was so hilarious. I really liked how the redesign of the Avengers Tower by Valentina was making it look more like the Sentry Watch Tower in the comic books, where I had those like black curved elements coming out the side of it. 

I thought that was a really clever way to incorporate the Sentry's headquarters into that building, because in the comic books, he had established his headquarters on top of Stark Tower when he was a member of the New Avengers. 

That's right. Yeah, totally forgot about that. He was a member of that team. 

The Thunderbolts crash their van into the Watch Tower where they're invited to the penthouse to meet Bob as the Sentry. Valentina reveals her plan for the Thunderbolts to be discredited as rogue criminals in the media when they try to stop the Sentry, now branded as Earth's mightiest hero. The team tries to defeat Bob anyway and are easily defeated and forced to retreat. Bob's instability has him turn on Valentina and he transforms into the Void. As most of the Thunderbolts give up after their defeat, they witness the Void begin terrorizing Manhattan. One by one, they begin doing what they can to save who they can. 

It was pretty telling to me how in the fantastic scene where the Thunderbolts characters meet with Valentina at the penthouse, and she just begins insulting each and every one of them, except for Ghost, who she's just like, oh yeah, Ghost. Oh, and Yelena, you look terrible. The fact that she didn't insult Ghost like the others just kind of proved the point that Ghost really wasn't a big enough character in the movie to insult. 

Yeah, she was kind of a little bit more pointless in that regard. I bet you that Valentina would have had some stuff to say about Taskmaster. I don't know. I liked the fight against the Sentry. Again, I do wish there was less telekinesis, but it was cool to see them, you know, give their all against this all powerful being. 

What can you do at that point but retreat? And Alexi's pep talk to Yelena, where she's telling him that all she sees in herself are these flaws and she's such a horrible person. But he refers to this instance in her life where she chose to be the goalie of her Thunderbolts Pee Wee team, not because she was lazy and didn't want to run like she thought, but because she said she wanted to be the one people could count on if they made a mistake. It was such a touching heartfelt moment to just build her up in that way and tell her that she's better than she thinks she is, you know. 

I was kind of confused how the void took over the Sentry character when the Sentry was dead. But I also thought that the void was a very effective villain, like very scary, especially with the display of his powers, how he just essentially turned everyone into these shadows. And the fact that it affected like everyone in New York City was even more terrifying. 

Yeah, when he first used it against that little girl that Alexi had saved, you know, like she smiled at the Red Guardian and then all of a sudden she just disappeared. Like all of his actions were for naught in that very heroic moment. And there was just something really disheartening about that that made the void such a compelling villain. As the void's darkness spreads, Yelena steps into it and finds herself back in her previous vision. 

She breaks through to other difficult times in her life, such as the Black Widow training program and her time as an alcoholic. She ends up finding Bob in his own memory in his childhood attic. The rest of the Thunderbolts end up finding them by entering the void as well. Together they fight off Bob's abuse of stepfather, a sign twirling chicken high on meth, and the void himself at the Ox Lab where Bob underwent the Sentry project. Bob tries to overpower the void through violence, but the team learns the only way to overcome the void is through healing Bob's trauma and showing him he's not alone. 

The chicken twirling moment was so damn good. I was cracking up in the theater. Srishten, he was like, I was high at the time. Just knowing that something like that happened is funny. 

Seeing the Thunderbolts fight a high sign twirling chicken was not on my bingo card for this year. 

No, it's definitely the biggest surprise of the movie, I would say. 

It was a great gag, though. As silly as it was, it didn't overstay its welcome, thankfully. They didn't have a whole scene of them fighting the chicken. They were in and out, but it worked so well because of that. 

Going back to Yelena's trauma about having her friend killed, man, I really have to wonder what this 12-year-old girl did to deserve an assassination from the Red Room. 

I think the Red Room was in the practice of weeding out the girls that didn't perform to their expectations. 

Oh, you thought that girl was a member of the Red Room as well. 

OK, well, that makes sense. Yeah, real dark shit. Real dark shit. Super dark. It was also really dark seeing Yelena Bolova on the bathroom floor with all the bottles around her. There wasn't really much to that performance, but it was still very powerful. 

Seeing Florence Pugh like that. Back on the streets of Manhattan, the city returns to normal as the void disappears. The Thunderbolts see Valentina and try to apprehend her, only to stumble onto a press briefing she arranged, announcing the team as the new Avengers. 

Yelena warns her that they own her now. In a mid-credits scene, Red Guardian tries to get a grocery store patron to notice him on a weedy cereal box. After the end credits, the new Avengers debate how to address Sam Wilson's Avengers team, and they notice a distress signal from outer space coming from a ship bearing the Fantastic Four emblem. 

I am curious what you thought about the sort of end reckoning with Valentina or the lack thereof, I should say. 

So the lack of closure with Valentina wasn't surprising to me. And I'm not sure what it would have looked like if she did get her comeuppance. Obviously, she would be impeached. She would probably go to jail. But even then, at least like in the comic books, we still wouldn't have seen the end of her. 

It kind of felt like the Thunderbolts traded justice for fame. 

They kind of traded justice for an opportunity, I think, to be the people they wanted to be. I think they found a way to manipulate the situation and really give Valentina her comeuppance by being in control of her as opposed to the other way around. 

Did you think that that was like in character for someone like Bucky, though? 

Sure. I think so. Yeah, I mean, he's been an anti-hero before. I think in this regard, they would all see that the ends justify the means. And I think he sees the benefit a new Avengers team would have, especially using Valentina's resources. 

I think he sees that as the greater good. Again, I don't think this is an absence of justice so much as a kind of twisting of it to suit their needs. 

I didn't love the ending, I'll be honest, because it did feel like justice was not met and it did feel very shallow on behalf of the team members. It's one of the few things I really didn't like about the film. 

I kind of liked the subversion of the ending, actually. It was anti-heroes being anti-heroes. But that's the film overall. I think the film stands out as a unique entry from Marvel. And I think because of that, it'll be appreciated more by fans and general audiences who I don't think necessarily are tired of Marvel. 

They're just looking for something new and different. And I think that prioritizing introspection over exposition, The Thunderbolts film uniquely delivers one of the more mature and thoughtful experiences in Marvel's film catalog. I am giving it four and a half out of five stars, a fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes. 

Which is a really high rating. It's only half a star away from a perfect rating. But I would actually agree with it. Now, this is the same rating we gave Watchmen and the Suicide Squad. Well, I still think those are better films than this. 

I also can't see giving this a lower rating because it was just so well executed. It's much more simple than those films. And I think in part that's why it feels a little bit more pure in terms of like a character study that they were going for. I thought they nailed the execution of this film. 

Yeah, it's nice for Marvel to have a movie like this, I think, in their filmography. Oh, absolutely. For sure. But that does it for this review. AJ9K helped close us out. 

Our next episode is going to be a dual episode where we find out who would win in a fight between the DC hero Ray and the Marvel mutant character Havoc. 

Yeah, two of the coolest and more interesting looking characters in either universe. Definitely looking forward to this matchup. 

But that does it for this episode. We want to give a big thanks to our executive producers. John Straussky, Zachary Hepburn, Dustin Balcombe, Mickey Mathen-Gian, Brandon Esregard, Nathaniel Wagner, Levi Yatyn, Austin Wieselowski, A.J. Dunkerly, Nick Cabanto, Scott Camacho, Gil Camacho, Adam Speese, Dean Malesky, Devin Davis, Joseph Kirsting, Josh 

Leiner, Mike Williams, Oscar Galvez and our newest executive producer, Paul Graves, for helping make this podcast possible. We'll talk to you guys next week up, up and away. True believers. 

Honestly, I just thought the asterisk was going to be a symbol for a butthole.