Rian's Movie Dump

Marvel, Marvel, Marvel. They go from making absolutely awesome films to either mediocre or downright horrible films. Ant Man 3 (abysmal dogshit) to Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 (one of the best MCU films, IMO) to The Marvels (hideously mediocre) to Deadpool & Wolverine (awesome) to Captain America: Brave New World (also mediocre, still better than The Marvels) to Thunderbolts*. How is it, you might ask?

It's so similar yet so different to the rest of the Marvel roster – holy shit, NOBODY expected the third act to be like that. For the first time in, like forever (maybe ever since Civil War?) Marvel tackles a mature, heavy theme that isn't watered down politics or morals. They handled a topic of depression, loneliness and isolation and in a way... bipolarity.

Combined with a slew of highly experimental and unusual decisions for the story, a banger soundtrack, return to form with an equally grounded action direction and just generally highly unusual yet undeniably awesome production, Thunderbolts* is absolutely worth it.

Sometimes, the minimal is the maximal

Narrative wise, it combines both a grounded, realistic style of story (for MCU standards, to say the least) and a theme that directly tackles the concepts of loneliness and depression, without any filters, metaphors or more. Yelena, Bob, Alexei and the rest of the Thunderbolts are rejects who don't have any purpose in their lives, no friends, no surviving family, no nothing; they're all alone. Their only will to live comes in the form of trying to keep themselves occupied in the frontlines, taking mercenary after mercenary job, shooting bad guys, blowing up shit and repeating all over again. That is, until a chain of events led them one to another, thanks to their snarky French employer who wants to get rid of them.

They also tackle on a new approach on presenting it's story, forgoing large scale spectacle for more simpler, grounded sequences of actions that can still fit in the real world, assuming that Bob isn't there anyways. The story (and by extension, the action) doesn't maximize the amount of carnage and destruction, in fact it knows that pretty much (almost) everyone in the roster can be taken down with a small round to the head and it outright says it within the first 20 minutes. If you're expecting action as nuts as The Winter Soldier, you're not finding it here. But guess what? It works very effectively.

By minimizing the spectacle, it focuses heavily on character development and moments with one another. You see their interactions with one another, how their sarcasm and humor plays with one another, how their pasts affect their present and how they eventually work together to shape their future.

This is probably one of THE best written Marvel films to date and I'm not saying that as an exaggeration. Chances are, you'll relate to the film in a deep and personal level, and rightfully so.

Badass, kick ass, deflect ass

On a technical perspective of things, the film is just SUPERB. Gone are the days of slop CGI and over reliance on green screens for everything, at least for Thunderbolts* specifically. Humvees get blown to bits, vans crash into windows, Florence Pugh actually skydives off a tall ass building, everything that's possible to be done practically is done practically.

The difference between the few Captain America films (Winter Soldier, Civil War, and especially Brave New World) is that the minimal = maximal rule applies to Thunderbolts as well; apart from the scenes involving Bob/Sentry, compressing the carnage to simple action scenes helps a lot on making said action feel fun and awesome. It doesn't feel like they're trying too hard on things, they're just doing things that work but better. If you're expecting Brave New World levels of action and spectacle, you won't find it here. Instead, expect Yelena and gang to beat up SCP Mobile Task Force ripoffs (just kidding) and look cool doing it.

Seriously. The tactical gear drip these guys got is astounding. And this applies on the third act when they inevitably have to fight Sentry. How would they fight against a god, you might ask? You'll have to see. But you probably won't be expecting that.

Some extra notes and all

• Son Lux's soundtrack for Thunderbolts* is just plain awesome. Both orchestra and synth based fits the action and struggles of the gang.

• Cinematography on one hand looks better than the slop that has appeared on films like Ant Man 3 and Deadpool & Wolverine. Could've been better, but there was style for sure.

• With that being said, IMAX is NOT recommended due to the absurd amount of aspect ratio switching, all seemingly random and uninspired purely to put a checkmark off Disney's mandatory “fill in the premium theaters” requirement that they're implementing specifically on the poor Marvel directors. It's not Transformers: The Last Knight bad (far from it) but it's more akin to Joker 2 bad.

• Definitely stay for the post credits scene. You'll be pleasantly surprised.

Worth it or not?

Oh absolutely. It's fun, it's both light and heavy, it's badass and just plain awesome. Out of all the films to go see in theaters right now, Thunderbolts* deserves your attention and time. Love it.

8/10 – GO SEE IT NOW. Don't let the fact that Marvel spoiled what the asterisk means prevent you from seeing it.

This is a certified RMD piece.