akitaonrails

I am late to the Thunderbolts game, and even after I read the positive reviews, I was still skeptical.

Long story short, I was shockingly surprised by the end of the movie. Of course, it has MCU shenanigans mixed in, but the movie's core is worth it.

The casting is excellent. Florence Pugh is the pack's leader, but the group has great chemistry. I was not expecting to like Wyatt Russell's John Walker, but it works great as the group's a-hole. Hannah's Ghost clearly has the least to do, but even she has her proper place as an essential piece in the team.

David Harbour and Sebastian Stan only play larger roles in the second half of the movie, but they do deliver. David, in particular, as usual, gives his all, and it shows. Fortunately, the character fits him like a glove. It's great stuff.

As per usual in a Marvel movie, yes, there is a lot of CGI, and yes, they show off a lot of good fighting choreography. We expect that. But they have been at fault in one crucial place: the screenplay.

It's always incoherent, unnecessary, and cluttered with nonsense; it all feels like it was written by a committee. There is no authorship, artistry, subtlety, or anything else.

Not this time. This movie feels small in scope, but it's coherent. A proper theme runs throughout the movie, permeating the character development arcs. The plot follows the theme, and it doesn't feel bureaucratic.

Risking entering spoiler territory, this is not another Suicide Squad or Guardians of the Galaxy. It's not a ragtag team of misfits learning to work together despite differences.

In this case, they are all alike, and this is the movie's genius: they are all emotionally disconnected, feeling failure, disappointment, and a lack of a larger purpose. The screenplay touches on complex themes like anxiety, boredom, and depression.

It's easy to fall into the usual clichés, but this screenplay is smart. It's self-aware, and it visually binds the emotional rollercoaster in the plot and the action, so it doesn't feel like a lecture or yet another YouTube coaching.

They even tie in the villain to this theme, and I think it works very well to wrap everything up. I was amazed to see a medium-budget Marvel movie go this deep and still maintain coherence until the end.

The casting responded very well to this theme, which made them bond naturally. The plot drives the character development. And there is a satisfying catharsis at the end that feels deserved-all ingredients of a good screenplay.

This is nowhere near Avengers territory regarding scope, and I don't think it needs to be. This feels more like an intimate, personal story, and it's good because of that.

Kudos to the writers; they nailed it. Despite the name not meaning anything important, Thunderbolts has its own identity, and it doesn't try to be yet another Suicide Squad. It's much better.

A very well-deserved 8 out of 10 from me.

When I got to the theater, I knew nothing about the story or the movie, so I didn't have big expectations.

Even then, I'd say I was very dissatisfied. This movie plays out as a very simple school-level theater. It is overly dramatic and overly acted, with very superficial stereotypes and absolutely no chemistry among the main cast.

It feels like a children's book story, something akin to the three pigs or something like that.

The villain is very obviously and unambiguously a villain. The heroin is very shallow, very superficial, and very unproven, but we know she is supposed to be the heroin just because. No merit, no demonstration of higher values, no pursuit for improvements, no nothing, just a super, shallow drug addicted, sex-addicted, super-powerful person.

The main couple of the movie has zero chemistry. There is no reason for them to attach or care about each other other than boredom and utter loneliness. Maybe the sex is that good. I doubt it after more than 4 years and no proper nutrition onboard to begin with.

The whole movie revolves around the shenanigans that they can 3d print humans, and Mickey 17 is an expendable that dies for experimentation, then they reprint him, and the cycle repeats. It's very shallow.

Every character in this movie feels like a dumbass NPC. Maybe that's the point, but it's so dull to watch.

This is a post-apocalyptic world where the crew is on a mission to colonize another planet, and the movie takes place during the 4 years for them to reach their destination. It's straightforward and unrealistic. The ship feels small, more like a sitcom stage. It doesn't feel like 4 years; it feels like maybe a week. Every crew member is an idiot. It's hard to see. Perhaps it's meant to be a parody, but they don't know how to do a parody. It's just cringe.

The worst Monty Python episode can be taken more seriously than this hot garbage of a movie.

I dislike every character in this movie. The villain is the only one that has some vision. Yes, disturbed, but something to strive for. Every other character in the ship is a sore, passive loser. This is the worst-acted movie ever; I don't remember any other film this poorly acted before. At least B-movies know they are B-level.

I don't recommend this movie at all. It is a big waste of time.